Are we perfect?

Perfection. What a totally absorbing concept. But chimerical? Does its contemplation, like the urn of Keats, "tease us out of thought/As doth eternity"?

A basic problem in our common concept is that we believe perfection is something rigid and inert. Can perfection, then, not be found in life? A human viewpoint holds that if something lives and moves, it risks breakdown or malfunction. Even stars "burn out."

Perfection. Can we only dream of it? The word itself derives from the Latin verb "to finish." Creation, which includes the real, spritual man, is declared in Genesis to be finished. One of the words Christian Scientists use as a synonym for God is Life, capital Lm . Since God is infinite, He is infinite Life. Another synonym is Mind. Infinite intelligence. Thus creation, including man, is actually the living idea of perfect Mind, God. And creation eternally reflects the perfection of Mind.

Spirit is another synonym for God. Matter is not included in Spirit; and inasmuch as Spirit is infinite, matter is excluded. Actually, since we do exist , we do so as Spirit's reflection, and are spiritual.

This fact of reflection is our protection. God cannot know ("know" meaning to conceive, have a concept of) error, evil, imperfection -- and therefore (logically extending the list) sin, disease, death. No matter what the material condition we may be identified with, the fact remains that because God is perfect man is perfect. Can the image ever be less than flawless? John refers to divinity as "perfect love." n1 Can man possibly be less than loved and loving? Man is essential to God, necessary for the expression of His infinite qualities. Notes Paul, "We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works." n2

n1 John 4:18;

n2 Ephesians 2:10;

When we grant recognition to our perfection as manm -- God's highest creation -- our lives will be blessed and harmonized through the Christ, the transforming activity of divine Spirit.

Mary Baker Eddy n3 writes, "The substance, Life, intelligence, Truth, and Love, wchich constitute Deity, are reflected by His creation; and when we subordinate the false testimony of the corporeal senses to the facts of Science, we shall see this true likeness and reflection everywhere." n4

n3 Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science;

n4 Science and Health with Key to the Scripturesm , p. 516.

Does your life seem to include the blight of apathy, frustration, sickness? Do your hopes seem withered? You need not be subject to such falsities. God made no corruptible Garden of Eden. You are Spirit's reflection, so there's a world of promise in the phrase, "God is good."

DAILY BIBLE VERSE Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you. II Corinthians 13:11