 There is such balance in Christ Jesus' prayer. I see "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors," as an equation of sorts. Look at AS as the equal sign. We are forgiven AS we forgive. We are free AS we free. Mary Baker Eddy summed up the perfect balance of the equation when she wrote, "And Love is reflected in love." God forgives and we forgive. God gives and we give. The divine Principle of supply includes balance. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy states, “Giving does not impoverish us, neither does withholding enrich us in the service of our Lord.” (79) In fact, the opposite is true. Giving enriches and withholding impoverishes – because if we believe that we are not in a position to give, we may be dealing with the obstructive sin of greed. All we ever do, we do by reflection! According to Genesis 1, God's man is made in His perfect and good image and likeness. God, the great Giver, gives. Therefore we, the Giver's image, give. It’s not that God gives and we receive. That would be absorption, wouldn’t it? It would imply the need to store up, or the possibility of exhausting, our divine resources. But the Principle of giving, the Principle of supply, is God. And God's supply is reflected in us as His well-supplied creation, reflecting His giving nature. God gives and we reflect His giving, and thus the flow of good continues forever unobstructed. I believe that this sense of ceaseless giving is ultimately the divine law that is behind the Biblical concept of tithing. A tithe is not a tax. A tax could exhaust one's resources. A true and honest tithe can only come from a spiritual understanding of the abundance of what God gives. This spiritual understanding opens the door to the divine economy where divine Love meets EVERY human need in just the right way.  Remember the disciples' role when the loaves and fish were multiplied for hungry thousands? What little they thought they had was distributed freely. In the human economy, such giving might follow the mathematical rule of subtraction. But in the divine economy, through Christ Jesus' understanding of the Principle of reflection that is God, the result was a multiplication of provisions. Loaf and fish multiplied until all were fed. And no one was left out. How many disciples distributed? Twelve. How many baskets were gathered when all the work was done? TWELVE. One scholar noted, “When all were fed, when the job was done, they gathered up twelve baskets full, one basket for each Apostle. No waste, but no stinginess. God does not starve His staff.” (Interpreter's Bible Commentary) I love that! In the divine economy, there is no paltry return on investment. God gives and so we have an abundance to give. In simple terms, tithing is a 10 percent investment with a 90 percent return. Who can beat that in any other market? Tithing isn't limited to giving in church, although that is a good thing, too. Check out Mary Baker Eddy's inspired take on the gifts we have to give: "TITHE. Contribution; tenth part; homage; gratitude." Science and Health, 595)  Is there any area of human life that can''t be benefited by rendering homage or reverence to God's goodness and contributing a little time, attention, prayer and other acts, with gratitude? Are you looking for the confidence and spiritual authority that opens your prayers to abundant good? Think about your giving - of time, of energy, of prayer, of service to family and others - even of paying your bills - not, as a burden, but rather as an investment of good, flowing from divine Good, from God, and reflected fully in you. Claim your fat and flourishing return. You are God's image and likeness. No one and nothing has more to give than you do, by perfect, flawless, unobstructed reflection. This I say, He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work: As it is written, He hath dispersed abroad; he hath given to the poor: his righteousness remaineth for ever. Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness; Being enriched in every thing to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God. For the administration of this service not only supplieth the want of the saints, but is abundant also by many thanksgivings unto God; Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift. The Apostle Paul, II Corinthians 9:6-11,14 This post originally appeared April 12, 2012. A full-text version of this blog can be delivered to your email inbox.
Please subscribe in the sidebar. You may also wish to: VISIT MY WEBSITE HOME PAGE READ MORE BLOG POSTINGS FIND A LIST OF MY OTHER PUBLISHED CONTENT 11/22/2012 Grateful for Grace Grace is a long-ago friend who pushed me forward on my spiritual journey. At a mental lowpoint, with my life-prospects feeling awfully narrow, Grace insisted that I pray for myself for an hour each morning. Even better, she had me write down my prayer so that I could prove to her and to myself that I did it. Life-changing. Life-saving. That discipline of daily, thorough prayer for myself, established through her encouragement, has served me well. Shortly after, I lost track of Grace. I always wished we would meet up again so I could tell her what her help meant to me. As the decades passed, I contented myself to thank God for His grace and for His Grace. Then a week ago, thirty-one years later, we were at the same place at the same time. I finally got to thank Grace! Is there someone who has made a contribution to your life that you long to thank? The links in today's post will take you to other Thanksgiving blog messages around the web. I hope you will click on them and meet more inspired bloggers. Happy Thanksgiving to you! Pure humanity, friendship, home, the interchange of love, I hope you enjoy this blog. And if you do, I doubly hope you will share it!
If having a full-text version delivered to your email inbox would interest you, you can find the subscription box in the sidebar. You may also wish to: VISIT MY WEBSITE HOME PAGE FIND LINKS TO MY OTHER PUBLISHED CONTENT  A blog reader sent me the link to this 10 minute sermon given last Sunday by Nadia Bolz-Weber at her church, House for All Sinners and Saints, in Denver, Colorado, where she is the founding pastor. She makes some really helpful points, so I am passing it along to you as the Prayer MOJO post for this week. I recommend that you listen to, rather than read, her message, because preaching is a spoken art form. To hear her sermon, be sure your speakers are on, and click the button: If you prefer to read the sermon, the following is the intro. A link at the end will take you to her full text.  "A couple hours ago on Facebook, Catherine posted that she had just seen a snake on her hike. As her pastor I thought it best to reply, “If it starts talking, don’t listen.” "This likely came to mind since I was editing this very sermon about Adam and Eve. The story of the Garden of Eden is what is called an origin story and every culture has theirs. Origin stories tell us how the world came about and where we came from and other important things like why snakes don’t have legs. We think we might know our origin story really well, but in the Genesis account of the Garden of Eden, there actually is no mention of sin, or a fall, or Satan, or temptation, and I hate to break it to you but there wasn’t even an apple involved. Which means the cultural understanding of the story of the Garden of Eden is slightly corrupted. This is due in part to the countless paintings throughout the history of Western art which for some reason portray a tree and a snake and an extremely white Adam and Eve holding a Red Delicious. "See, for generations folks have called the tale of Adam and Eve and the serpent and the forbidden fruit “The Fall from grace” or “The story of Original Sin." "That's a little weird to me. Like, God created the heavens and the Earth and animals and it was like, this awesome all-inclusive primeval club-med for Adam and Eve – they ran naked through the warm sunlight of an idyllic paradise and everything was theirs for the taking – except for that one tree that they were told to steer clear of. And this absolute paradise in the garden between God and Humanity lasted approximately 20 minutes. Until Eve had a chat with a talking snake and then disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit. And because Eve, ate some fruit she was told not to, now all of humanity is cursed and this so-called original sin of Eve’s became sort of like a sexually transmitted disease.  "Because now, according to this version of what the story is about, every person born after that inherited original sin from Eve. That’s right. Eve messed it up for everyone by eating some piece of fruit God told her not to. Which feels kinda unfair to her and kinda unfair to us. But this is what we are told the story is about. "See, religion has taught many of us that the story of Adam and Eve is a story primarily about their disobedience. And that the fracture in the relationship between God and humanity is caused by us breaking God’s arbitrary little rules. So it feels like maybe religion was established just so we could be certain about what rules we need to follow in order for our relationship with God to be a loving, peaceful one. "But this week, after reflecting on several conversations I’ve had with many of you about your lives and identities and the struggles we all have to hear the truth of who we are, well, I started to wonder if the real damage to the relationship between Adam and Eve and God wasn’t the rule breaking nearly as much as it was in allowing themselves to believe lies about themselves and God. See, the serpent lied to them about who they were and who God was and like all the most dangerous lies, these lies the serpent told were just close enough to the truth to be really destructive...." Find full sermon. You wouldn't believe how far your appreciation goes when shared.
If you like what you see in this blog, please pass it along to your friends, fans and followers. Every "like", tweet and share touches many, many people. A full-text version of the blog can be delivered to your email inbox. Please subscribe in the sidebar. You may also wish to: VISIT MY WEBSITE HOME PAGE READ MORE BLOG POSTS FIND A LIST OF MY OTHER PUBLISHED CONTENT  I was out on an early morning run. It was a tough one. I was huffing and puffing heavily, when I usually run with great ease. And I watched as my thought lapsed into a familiar pattern … 1) to blame myself or my training for a difficult run, “What did I do wrong?” 2) to start recalculating my training to avoid future bad runs. “What do I need to change or avoid the next time?” Then I realized that running, like all activity, is more than just a physical event. Life and its action aren’t brain, bone, muscle, and lung function. Life is God, omnipresent, powerful vitality. Life is expressed throughout God’s creation in the joy of being and doing. Running is an outlet, an outward expression of this joy. I was measuring my success as a runner by whether I was having an easy or a tough day. If it was easy, I attributed that to good training. If difficult, I must have been doing something wrong. The fact is, as a reflection of divine Life, I am a good runner – a full reflection of the vitality of divine Life – even if I don’t ever put my running shoes on. And so are you. But the joy of being an expression of Life impels us to demonstrate that joy and get up and move.  Tough days, whether in running or any other aspect of daily experience, aren’t a statement about one’s goodness. The degree of difficulty in doing something doesn’t tell us anything about divine Life. Tough days, like tough runs, simply reflect the general resistance on any given day to the fact that the God is Life and Life is Spirit and is reflected spiritually – not in matter. In running, for example, tough days are about resistance, not about the effectiveness (or goodness) of the runner. In other words, resistance (any backward, downward, material drag) is not personal. When meeting resistance, we can ask ourselves - Am I seeing myself as a a work in progress, as a mortal progressing towards spirituality? Or am I Spirit’s full reflection now, hence already spiritual? Because God’s children reflect God who is Spirit, the heat of resistance to our present spirituality isn’t personal. But it is our work to master that resistance through the understanding of what it means to be God’s reflection, on any given day. The true and simple theology of Christ is that we are spiritual and perfect as God himself is Spirit and perfect. And we are capable of expressing our spirituality, with the freedom and vitality it includes, every single day. Christ Jesus set the standard of how to properly identify ourselves as God’s image or reflection, when he said, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48) In fact, God’s creation reflects perfect Life every moment. Pain, discomfort or fear on any given day, are simply material resistance to that fact. It isn’t personal. The resistance isn’t yours or mine. But we do have to take up the case. Our job is to keep the focus on the real Life we are living - the joy and harmony and eternity that is being expressed in us right now.  Mary Baker Eddy explained, "Controlled by divine intelligence, man is harmonious and eternal." (Science and Health, 184) That isn’t something we have to make happen. We are already there. This is our spiritual foundation and starting point in prayer – perfect God and perfect man. It will be tested. But, so what? It isn’t personal. Challenges are just momentary resistance - a case to be treated and released. We can do all things through Christ – through the understanding Christ Jesus gave of God as perfect Life, divine Spirit, and harmonious Mind. This Christ is revealing our perfection, our natural divine intelligence, which is the real controller. The Christ is telling us that we are each God’s child, harmonious and eternal – now and always. If you like what you see in this blog, please share the link with your friends, fans and followers!
A full-text version of the blog can be delivered to your email inbox. Please subscribe in the sidebar. You may also wish to: VISIT MY WEBSITE HOME PAGE READ MORE BLOG POSTINGS FIND A LIST OF MY OTHER PUBLISHED CONTENT  Some days, bloggers just wake up and think, “How about taking on a subject that may kick up some dust?” This is a Finding your Prayer MOJO post. This means you can expect to find a tip or two in here to give more confidence, to support progress and to help power up your prayers. Last week, the subject was anger. Christ Jesus gave tips on cleaning anger out of our path. This week, the subject is lust. The Sermon on the Mount has a thing or two to say to us to pave the way to better health and to being an effective healer. And it all starts with thought. Matthew 5:27-30 speaks of adultery as a mental crime. “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” It isn’t enough to just watch our behavior. Our thoughts need to be clean and pure, too. Mary Baker Eddy explains in the chapter "Marriage" of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “Infidelity to the marriage covenant is the social scourge of all races, 'the pestilence that walketh in darkness, the destruction that wasteth at noonday.'" (56)  Why such strong words? Because infidelity relates to instability and the inability to keep our word. If we can’t keep a promise to one, how can we keep a promise to anyone, especially God? She speaks also of chastity as “the cement of civilization and progress. Without it there is no stability in society; and without it one cannot attain the Science of Life.” (ibid 57) Again, infidelity relates to instability and chastity to stability. That is no small thing. Chastity involves keeping a pure perspective of yourself and others. Chastity involves a commitment to oneself and to others to see everyone as spiritual. If our sense of self and of others rests on a material basis, if we see and treat others as primarily physical, sensual, sexual beings, we are on rocky, unsettled ground and unhappiness follows. To Christ Jesus, spirituality wasn’t simply a theory or a theological viewpoint, it was also a way of life. Jesus’ teachings give the opportunity to think of ourselves as more than physical. Spiritual qualities, not material, physical, sensual characteristics, comprise true identity. These spiritual qualities include, but aren’t limited to, joy, peace, tenderness, love, compassion, affection. The list goes on forever. We would do well to add to the list daily fresh insights into the spiritual nature of God’s man.  Getting back to Jesus’ instructions, it is as important to guard against sexual feelings and activities outside the marriage covenant, as it is to guard your home against marauding intruders, because lustful thoughts are predatory. They raid purity, pirate spiritual intuition, and loot spiritual sense by reinforcing a one-dimensional, limited material sense of God’s creation. Often the desire to find a companion gets mixed up with physical attraction. But there is a simple way to think about sex: as part of the conversation between a husband and wife. Seen in this context, the desire for sex really points to the desire for the permanent relationship of a marriage. So when thoughts of sex come, we can be clear in determining what to do with them. Are these thoughts pointing to a desire for the commitment of a marriage, to be a lifelong witness to the spiritual growth of another? Or are they sneaky, hedonistic, aggressive intruders chipping away at inspiration, productivity and restricting your worldview to materiality and sensuality? Those are the ones Jesus condemned as detrimental to wellbeing. A mere attraction to a physical body is pretty useless. It doesn’t better prepare one for a happy marriage. It can induce one to underestimate the good they have to bring to a relationship. The safest context for a couple to work out sex and sensuality questions from a spiritual basis is within the context of a marriage engagement, because they have already agreed to see each other in larger terms than simply a physical relationship.  Even within a marriage, a spiritual perspective of one’s mate is essential to progress and spiritual practice. A pure and open look at a spouse from a spiritual perspective can do much towards nurturing the wellbeing of the couple, leading to the tender sharing of good in daily activities, including, but not limited to, sex.. Marriage, whether sex is or is not a part of the relationship, is a workshop in earth’s preparatory school. It isn’t an essential workshop. Not everyone needs to marry or to have sex. It is just one of many workshops available to us. Jesus equated lust with adultery, indicating that they are fatal to Christian healing and to Christian healers. He also gave an effective antidote to lustful thoughts: “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.” No, dismemberment is NOT the Christian antidote to lust. In Scripture, eye is symbolic of discernment and hand relates to power. To me, Jesus is saying that if a material view of people dominates your thought, it will affect your behavior. Go after the material view and correct it. It is better to catch the problem while it is still a thought, than it is to let it be a further detriment to your life and productivity. And if a physical or sensual sense is pulling on you to think or act in a fashion detrimental to your healing potential, cut it off with your spiritual sense – that is, give consent to the power of the purity and goodness reflected from God at the base of your spiritual identity. Prayer MOJO is never tough to obtain. It is often the little thought adjustments that bring out the greatest confidence (or prayer MOJO) when we pray.
If you like what you see in this blog, please share the link with your friends, fans and followers!
A full-text version of the blog can be delivered to your email inbox. Please subscribe in the sidebar. You may also wish to: VISIT MY WEBSITE HOME PAGE READ MORE BLOG POSTINGS FIND A LIST OF MY OTHER PUBLISHED CONTENT  "Nothing happened." Who hasn’t felt at one time or another that their prayers have not been very fruitful? That the time spent in prayer seems to have been of little use?
Take a minute and think about how the trees, the bushes, the grass, appear in winter. Nothing seems to be happening. If you didn’t know better, you would think that the leafless tree, the flowerless bush, the greenless grass are dead. However, during those long cold winter months, living is going on in the tree and the shrub and the grass.  *Betsy goes by her first name, Aimee, now. Same kid, earlier time! My daughter Betsy* was just a kid when she tried to charm her dad into buying her a trampoline. “I have a great idea, Daddy,” was how such tactical discussions usually started. I was away on business, so he pulled out his well-rehearsed counter-pitch, “Wait ‘til Mom gets home and ask her.” But this time she was ready for him. “No, Dad,” she replied flatly. “I get better deals out of you.” He was astounded. She didn’t get a trampoline that day. After all, a dad can’t cave to every pressure move! But about six months later, Betsy barreled into the house after a trip to the store and gleefully announced, “Guess what Daddy bought you for your birthday!” To read the rest on this post, click this link to visit the JSH online site where it is republished! "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands." Isaiah 49:15,16 If you wish to subscribe to this daily blog, simply scroll up and submit your email in the sidebar.
You may also wish to: VISIT MY WEBSITE HOME PAGE READ MORE BLOG POSTINGS FIND LINKS TO MY OTHER PUBLISHED CONTENT  Our dog was not allowed on the sofa. Not when we were looking. Not when we were not looking! And she knew it. This did not, however, stop her from climbing on it when we were out. Each time she was caught, her tail-wagging joy at seeing us would turn into tail-tucking guilt as she would be scolded for doing it yet again. She never quite got the point that the joy of being good was more satisfying - and the act of being good, more empowering - than the temporary indulgence of stretching out on that couch!
Who enjoys swimming while carrying weights? Nothing zaps energy, inspiration and joy like a boulder of fear tied to one's neck by a heavy rope of regret. That is really what guilt is - an anchor of regret and fear - the "shoulda, woulda, coulda" that sinks inspiration, pulling thought down, down, down into sadness over yesterday and dread of tomorrow. To get your prayer MOJO - to feel confidence, momentum, joy and inspiration in your prayers - you've got to drop the guilt and engage with good and all its present possibilities. I am not saying it is easy. But I do say it is absolutely doable and completely worth whatever effort is demanded. So, let's talk about how to do it.  Why do you want to pray today? Have you asked yourself? What is it that is motivating you today to talk with God? It is not an insignificant question. It's also not a trick question. In order to find your prayer MOJO - that is, in order to feel confidence and real connection in your prayers - an honest examination of where you are coming from can make a difference. If you don't know where you are, how will you ever get to where you want or need to go? Honesty in prayer and candidness about our motives can make the difference between merely staying on the surface of prayer and having a real conversation with God that engages the heart. So, pause. Ask yourself, "Why do I want to pray today?" (Go ahead. Do it before reading on. I'll wait.)
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I have practiced Christian Science professionally in some form since 1979. But my journey with Christian Science started in a Sunday school where as a young child I was taught the Scriptures and some simple basics of Jesus' method of scientific Christian healing. A significant experience at the age of twelve opened my eyes to the great potential of this practice. After impaling my foot on a nail, I prayed the way I had learned in Sunday school. Within moments the pain stopped and healing began. By the next morning the wound had disappeared completely. Having experienced the great potential of Christian Science, there would be no turning back. |
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© 2011-2021 Michelle Boccanfuso Nanouche, CSB. All rights reserved. Pages reviewed and updates 6/30/2021.