Sunday, September 29th, 2019 Roundtable
The Recipe for All Healing
This week’s Lesson Sermon Subject: Reality
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Morning Prayers
Each day I pray for the pacification of all national difficulties, for the brotherhood of man, for the end of idolatry and infidelity, and for the growth and establishment of Christian religion — Christ’s Christianity. I also have faith that my prayer availeth, and that He who is overturning will overturn until He whose right it is shall reign. Each day I pray: “God bless my enemies; make them Thy friends; give them to know the joy and the peace of love.”
— from Miscellany by Mary Baker Eddy, 220: 14-23
Discussion points
491 — WATCH that you keep your joy, as Mrs. Eddy once said. Christian Scientists have thin walls and thick walls to break through, and they must watch against the claim of discouragement, when they work faithfully and see no immediate results from their work.
Discouragement is no more than an argument of animal magnetism designed to stop our good work. No one who is doing fine work can escape being assailed in this way, in order to get him to quit. The remedy is to recognize this fact and to mix joy with one’s work.
Why should error argue that our work is amounting to nothing, unless it is amounting to something? The student who is accomplishing nothing is the one who is left alone. Mrs. Eddy once said, “Error never shoots dead men.” Dead students are never met by the deterrent of discouragement to make them quit, since they are doing nothing.
— from 500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter
They who seek the throne of grace,
Find that throne in every place:
If we live a life of prayer,
God is present everywhere.
In our sickness, in our health,
In our want, or in our wealth,
If we look to God in prayer,
God is present everywhere.
Then, my heart, in every strait,
To thy Father come, and wait;
He will answer every prayer,
God is present everywhere.
— Hymn 341 from the Christian Science Hymnal
Golden Text — “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.” — Isaiah 40 : 8
5. Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.
6. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:
7. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
8. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
9. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
10. For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:
11. So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
— Proverbs 30 : 5; Isaiah 55 : 6-11 from the Responsive Reading portion of this week’s Lesson
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.
— from John 6:63 King James Bible
Quicken: To make alive; to revive or resuscitate; to cheer; to reinvigorate; to refresh by new supplies of comfort or grace.
— from Webster’s 1828 Dictionary
Article — “Vainglory” by Mary Baker Eddy
Humility is lens and prism to the understanding of Mind-healing; it must be had to understand our textbook; it is indispensable to personal growth, and points out the chart of its divine Principle and rule of practice. Cherish humility, “watch,” and “pray without ceasing,” or you will miss the way of Truth and Love. Humility is no busybody: it has no moments for trafficking.
— from “The Way” Miscellaneous Writings by Mary Baker Eddy, page 356
And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret,
— from Luke 5 : 1 Citation 4 in the Bible portion of this week’s Lesson
5. Luke 8 : 4-9, 11-15
4 And when much people were gathered together, and were come to him out of every city, he spake by a parable:
5 A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it.
6 And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture.
7 And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it.
8 And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold. And when he had said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
9 And his disciples asked him, saying, What might this parable be?
11 Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.
12 Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.
13 They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away.
14 And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.
15 But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.
Article — Lessons from the Sower and the Seed by Mary Beth Singleterry
Forum post — The Parable of the Sower & the Seed. by Kandy
Article post — Pond and Purpose by Mary Baker Eddy
It is a grave mistake to suppose that matter is any part of the reality of intelligent existence, or that Spirit and matter, intelligence and non-intelligence, can commune together. This error Science will destroy. The sensual cannot be made the mouthpiece of the spiritual, nor can the finite become the channel of the infinite.
— Citation 9 in this week’s Lesson from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 73 : 26-32
First thing in the morning, “before your feet hit the floor”:
God is Mind. God is my mind. God is the only pure Mind.
God is Life. God is my life. God is the only Life.
— Roundtable Instruction
Security for the claims of harmonious and eternal being is found only in divine Science.
— from Science and Health, 1875, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 232
Final Readings
Give us, dear God, again on earth the lost chord of Christ; solace us with the song of angels rejoicing with them that rejoice; that sweet charity which seeketh not her own but another’s good, yea, which knoweth no evil.
Finally, brethren, wait patiently on God; return blessing for cursing; be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good; be steadfast, abide and abound in faith, understanding, and good works; study the Bible and the textbook of our denomination; obey strictly the laws that be, and follow your Leader only so far as she follows Christ. Godliness or Christianity is a human necessity: man cannot live without it; he has no intelligence, health, hope, nor happiness without godliness. In the words of the Hebrew writers: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In 35 all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths;” “and He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday.”
The question oft presents itself, Are we willing to sacrifice self for the Cause of Christ, willing to bare our bosom to the blade and lay ourselves upon the altar? Christian Science appeals loudly to those asleep upon the hill-tops of Zion. It is a clarion call to the reign of righteousness, to the kingdom of heaven within us and on earth, and Love is the way alway.
— from 1901, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 34