Sunday, October 27th, 2019 Roundtable
Thou Wilt Show Me the Path of Life
This week’s Lesson Sermon Subject: Probation After Death
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Morning Prayers
Goodness never fails to receive its reward, for goodness makes life a blessing. As an active portion of one stupendous whole, goodness identifies man with universal good. Thus may each member of this church rise above the oft-repeated inquiry, What am I? to the scientific response: I am able to impart truth, health, and happiness, and this is my rock of salvation and my reason for existing.
— Miscellany by Mary Baker Eddy, page 165
Discussion points
295 — WATCH lest you mistake a growing indifference to and lessening interest in material things and world events, for an evidence of spiritual growth. Once a student of Science told his wife that he was losing interest in everything, his lovely home, his children and even his business. In a few weeks he became ill and died. He fancied that he was growing more spiritually-minded because he was caring less and less about externals. In reality the animal magnetism of apathy was preparing him for the suggestions of sickness and death, so that when they came, they would meet with no positive resistance on his part. His experience should be a warning to all students, lest they be blinded in a similar way.
This is God’s universe, even though it appears to be distorted into matter when viewed through material sense. Spiritual growth shows itself in an increasing alertness and activity, a keen interest in everything good. Mrs. Eddy’s growth was evident in her tremendous activity of thought, her careful and watchful attention to details even at an advanced age. She never lost her interest in life. She was interested in current events and world affairs up to the end of her human span. She never relaxed in her determination not to permit one error to escape detection or to go unrebuked.
The reflection of divine Mind is strength, not weakness; activity, not passivity; keenness, not dullness; a love for humanity that is so alive and energetic that it prompts man to make every right effort to continue living on earth as long as possible, in order to help poor humanity and ignorant sufferers to find the way to freedom. This is God’s universe, and if we are daily reflecting Him, we will not lose interest in it, nor will we rest until we have completely spiritualized our conception of all things.
— from 500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter
Golden Text — “For God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth.” — Psalm 74 : 12
Keep gratitude active in thought.
— Plainfield Roundtable
Quietism is apathy disguised under the appearance of devotion.
— Noah Webster
Forum post — “With God at My Right Hand” [CS Hymn 77]” by Parthens
Personal sense if a belief in a selfhood apart from God. It is a human way of looking at things.
— Plainfield Roundtable
Students: And lead us not into temptation. but deliver us from evil.
Mrs. Glover: And lead man into Soul, and deliver him from personal sense.
— From Mary Baker Eddy’s Six Days of Revelation, page 47
My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; — James 1: 2
Instead of being bound for the grave, we must know we are on the eternal road of Life that has no sense of death.
from “Essays Ascribed to Mary Baker Eddy” in Essays and Other Footprints (the “Red Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, page 74
20 My son, keep thy father’s commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother:
21 Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck.
22 When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee.
23 For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life:
— Citation i in the Bible portion of this week’s Lesson from Proverbs 6 : 20-23
God has a special place for each one of His creation.
— Plainfield Roundtable
Living stones we, each in his place,
May we be worthy such a grace,
While Truth the wide earth enlightens.
— Hymn 176 from the Christian Science Hymnal
Life is eternal. We should find this out, and begin the demonstration thereof. Life and goodness are immortal. Let us then shape our views of existence into loveliness, freshness, and continuity, rather than into age and blight.
— Citation 1 from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 246 : 27-31
Loveliness: Doris White Evans said to tell yourself daily, “I am loving, lovable, and lovely.” Loving – Expresssing God’s love to others. Lovable – Worthy of receiving God’s love and love from others. Lovely – Beautiful in every way and to know this.
Freshness: Newness of strenth, spirit, vigor, liveliness; contrary to a faded state; the color of youth and health.
Continuity: Uninterrrupted connection. Closeness of parts. Is your connection to God interrupted?
— Plainfield Roundtable
Question. — How can I progress most rapidly in the understanding of Christian Science?
Answer. — Study thoroughly the letter and imbibe the spirit. Adhere to the divine Principle of Christian Science and follow the behests of God, abiding steadfastly in wisdom, Truth, and Love.
— Citation 2 from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 495 : 25-31
Final Readings
According to this same rule, in divine Science, the dying — if they die in the Lord — awake from a sense of death to a sense of Life in Christ, with a knowledge of Truth and Love beyond what they possessed before; because their lives have grown so far toward the stature of manhood in Christ Jesus, that they are ready for a spiritual transfiguration, through their affections and understanding.
Those who reach this transition, called death, without having rightly improved the lessons of this primary school of mortal existence, — and still believe in matter’s reality, pleasure, and pain, — are not ready to understand immortality. Hence they awake only to another sphere of experience, and must pass through another probationary state before it can be truly said of them: “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.”
They upon whom the second death, of which we read in the Apocalypse (Revelation xx. 6), hath no power, are those who have obeyed God’s commands, and have washed their robes white through the sufferings of the flesh and the triumphs of Spirit. Thus they have reached the goal in divine Science, by knowing Him in whom they have believed. This knowledge is not the forbidden fruit of sin, sickness, and death, but it is the fruit which grows on the “tree of life.” This is the understanding of God, whereby man is found in the image and likeness of good, not of evil; of health, not of sickness; of Life, not of death.
— from Unity of Good, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 2 – 3