Our Master, Christ Jesus, tells a parable about a merchant who finds a pearl of great price and sells all that he has to buy it (see Matt. 13:45, 46). The merchant sells all, not just those things he no longer needs or those that are inconvenient for him to keep. The parable suggests both the great value of true spirituality, of the kingdom of heaven, and what it requires of us.

But until we know what a glorious prize the understanding of spiritual Truth really is, we may feel it's not worth giving up what appears to be the pleasures of materialism, including sensuality. And sensuality seems to take such a mental hold of us that it makes spirituality's rewards appear transcendental and unsure. Even if we think spirituality is what we want, its demands may seem more than we can meet.

What often tips the balance to the side of spiritual pursuits is experiencing the disappointments and pains of sensuality. Sensuality is actually hell in disguise. The illusion of pleasure with which it entices and deceives eventually turns on us and produces great suffering. Then we are ready to be shown the joys of spirituality.

In an article, "The New Birth," found in her Miscellaneous Writings, Mrs. Eddy says, "By suffering for sin, and the gradual fading out of the mortal and material sense of man, thought is developed into an infant Christianity; and, feeding at first on the milk of the Word, it drinks in the sweet revealings of a new and more spiritual Life and Love" (pp. 15-16).

By overcoming what was a degree of sexual promiscuity when I was in my early twenties, I did feel I had begun to drink in "the sweet revealings of a new and more spiritual Life and Love." I recognized that sensuality had been separating me from a clear sense of Love's divine and tender guidance, that it was keeping me from advancing further in the path of discipleship, of following Christ. By turning humbly to God and seeking His cleansing and purifying love, I was able to find healing. Several were my backslidings, but I learned even from these. They taught me to humble myself even more before God and to find in His omnipotent healing presence the uplift and freedom I sought.

It took persistence and insistence. I found I needed to pray continually, to affirm divine Love's allness and man's original, God-given innocence and purity as the expression of Love. Through this understanding and through obedience to what it implies, I gradually gained more and more of my God-given dominion over sensuality.

Step by step I was finding more value in Christly purity than in the shallow, fleeting, and deceiving promises of sensual pleasure. And I kept on growing in my love for God, for my true nature, and for spiritual good, until I rejoiced in victory. One could say that I earned, at least in a measure, the prize of spirituality.

We can be grateful that suffering for sin is not the only way by which we can experience what Mrs. Eddy calls, in the comment quoted before, "the gradual fading out of the mortal and material sense of man." There is a painless path; it involves growth in spiritual understanding. This path brings us to the knowledge and certainty of man's completely spiritual nature and of the supremacy and allness of God, who is infinite good.

True manhood and womanhood are not a biochemical composite governed by uncontrollable urges. Through Christian Science, God has revealed that we are actually spiritual ideas of God, made and governed by divine Spirit and obedient only to His laws and impulsion. Divine Love's will runs through the very fiber of our being.

Fear, feeling unloved, insecurity, boredom, hopelessness, are some of the persuasive, but false, mortal arguments that mislead people into immoral sexual relationships. Whatever the arguments and however they come to us, they can be recognized as false impositions coming from a spurious carnal mentality, the opposite of the divine Mind, God. The recognition that God is our only Mind and that all the joy and satisfaction of life is derived completely from this Mind begins to eliminate in our lives the attraction to sinful temptations.

In spiritual fact, we are now secure in God's infinite love for us. We are complete and fully satisfied in the richness of our Soul-derived identity. God imparts to each one of us the completeness of His nature as Father-Mother.

Divine Life and Love, our God, has all there is, and He is giving us all He has. Life gives us wonder, Love companionship, Soul creativity, Truth certainty, and Principle integrity. These are all ours continuously through spiritual reflection. To demonstrate these glorious facts means aligning our thoughts and our actions with what is true. As we do this, we find we have the ability to break the cycle of empty, sensual pursuits.

The more we understand of man's spiritual oneness with divine Principle, Love, the more distant we feel from sensuality's allure. We become increasingly repulsed by sensuality; we recognize it as a sham, as the antipode of our spiritual completeness in God. In this manner divine Science takes us beyond merely trying to be good human beings to the demonstration of man's God-given spiritual power and innocence.

Obedience to the Golden Rule, the Beatitudes, the Ten Commandments, helps us awake from the dream of sensual pursuits. They show us we can assert our spiritual freedom and redirect our actions toward the expression of holiness, intrinsic to every child of the one Father-Mother, God. In this manner these spiritual guides help us discover our true worth and purpose. Eventually these heavenly directives become heartfelt songs of moral freedom that we sing out in regenerated lives.

The Apostle Paul writes, "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:13, 14). We may not overcome all aspects of sensuality at once, but, like Paul, we too should strive daily to cast off a flesh-bound sense of ourselves and accept our true, spiritual selfhood in Christ.

The prize of spirituality is divine Love's gift to us. It only seems as though we have to buy it because of sin's distorted view of God's man. This distortion is inevitably left behind as we humbly yield to the truth that we have no mind, will, or identity independent of Soul. It is a Love-impelled process that purifies our innermost thoughts and desires, that breaks the chains of materiality, and rewards us with health, holiness, and happiness.