Understanding God brings permanent good

Have you ever found yourself feeling that the circumstances you thought would be wonderful are not so great after all? Probably this has happened to all of us in one way or another. The job we thought would be a solution comes with more problems; the right home needs more work; our health is inconsistent. Sometimes no matter how hard we work for good things, we find them elusive, unreliable, or not good enough.

These circumstances tend to arise because we are thinking of good in material terms. Since matter is finite by its very nature, it can never be truly sufficient or satisfying. But the actual basis for genuine, permanent good is not material; it is spiritual. And when we are unsure about how to obtain this good, a deeper understanding of God can provide practical answers. Through Christian Science we learn of God and of the permanent spiritual good He is giving each and every one of us right now. This good becomes apparent as we understand that man is spiritual, the immortal idea of God.

The example and demonstration of Christ Jesus are our basis for understanding spiritual reality and the good that comes as we rely on it. In the book of Matthew we learn "Jesus went about all the cities and villages, ... preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people."

Jesus' teachings were not about a distant spiritual reality, but the good news about the life we are living now. The good news is that God made man pure, holy, and upright. Throughout the Gospels we find evidence of Jesus' ability to prove that we can overcome the limitations of sin, sickness, and whatever else would separate us from God, good. It is our right to be whole, happy, and free, and we can prove this as we increase our understanding of God.

Because Jesus' teachings were such a departure from the religion, culture, and government of his day, there was a great attempt to reject what he did, what he said, and who he was. Those who lived according to the generally accepted standard still believed good to be mortal, sensual, selfish, and material. This point of view claimed that rejection, pain, or unhappiness was part of life and that people should accept the mortal condition as reality. The Master's departure from this traditional outlook meant to many that his teachings were wrong. But he knew what others did not recognize: that his demonstration of spiritual life and power was not for his time alone but for all time. He was not merely a mortal protesting material existence. He was presenting the reality of man's spiritual being in opposition to the false, material outlook society had adopted. Jesus set forth a new standard for all people, and while the world rejected it, the Master proved the new to be more powerful than the opposition.

Today the world still tries to reject spiritual good as irrelevant or at least as not the most important part of life. Speaking of the actual substance of good and the human mind's reluctance to accept it, Mrs. Eddy writes in her major work, Science and Health: "In Christian Science, substance is understood to be Spirit, while the opponents of Christian Science believe substance to be matter. They think of matter as something and almost the only thing, and of the things which pertain to Spirit as next to nothing, or as very far removed from daily experience. Christian Science takes exactly the opposite view."

This Science makes the Christ's message not just relevant to today's thought but practical in our lives. The assertion that man's true being is wholly spiritual comes with great comfort to our hearts and healing to our bodies. It flies in the face of all that we see around us—all that would subject us to material existence with birth, maturity, decrepitude, and death as its stages. And through it we can still prove our understanding of man's spiritual being to be more than a theoretical concept. It is practical and healing.

To see the effects of spirituality on our lives, we must replace the errors of belief with truth. Science and Health explains: "Rise in the conscious strength of the spirit of Truth to overthrow the plea of mortal mind, alias matter, arrayed against the supremacy of Spirit. Blot out the images of mortal thought and its beliefs in sickness and sin."

I have seen in my own life the value of understanding permanent good. One day I was about to fix lunch when suddenly my hands seized up with pain. At the same time they became quite useless. The temptation to accept the human theories about these symptoms was quite strong, and I remember stamping my foot and saying, "Oh no, not this." Then I quietly recognized this suffering as an attack on God's perfect idea, man. I turned gratefully to the permanent facts that man is God's immortal spiritual idea and that matter is not the reality of man as God's image. I reasoned that I did not need to accept this painful attack as a prelude to further suffering, since God's idea cannot be crippled or even touched by material suggestions.

Movement, grace, and usefulness are permanent spiritual qualities of God and His idea, and I affirmed that they were present despite the challenge. I was so moved by the strength of the truth in my thought that the fear and pain subsided. Within a few more minutes the pain left and only surfaced if I used my hands. I remained convinced that this pain was a false imposition on goodness, not a reality, and by the time dinner needed preparation I was completely free to use my hands without any pain. The condition never returned.

Today many people desperately want permanent good, whether in the form of freedom, safety, supply, or health. Sometimes the struggle seems enormous, but we are finding a willingness to abandon the mortal standard regardless of the cost. In prayer, we can quietly counter all that is unlike goodness, justice, mercy, compassion, understanding, brotherliness, because we know that man's spiritual origin and destiny are reality. Man is God's perfect image of Himself—Life's immortal expression. This is what Christ Jesus showed us to be, proved us to be.

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus declared, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." As we strive to do this, we change our lives for the better, and we perceive our permanent spiritual being, which is real, wonderful, indestructible, and good.