God didn't make sickness!
IF God made sickness, we would never be able to get free of it, since God is omnipotent, all-powerful. But since God never did (and never does) make sickness, we don't have to resign ourselves to it. We never have to feel we are stuck with something that could not possibly be part of God's creation. Certainly sickness could not be the will of divine Love. Mary Baker Eddy1 writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: ``Instead of God sending sickness and death, He destroys them, and brings to light immortality.... God does not cause man to sin, to be sick, or to die.''2 It is on this spiritual and Christian basis that Christian Science denies the necessity, or ultimate power, of ill health and forwards permanent healing through prayer. Such prayer is imbued with an understanding of God rather than with blind faith or begging. Many people believe in God. But can we expect to understand God? Are we being presumptuous in expecting to do so? No! The prophets and apostles yearned to know Him. The Bible is largely the record of people's search for an understanding of Him. Often their finding of understanding resulted in healing, in freedom.
Studying the Bible, one inevitably sees the repeated theme of God's goodness and allness. In the New Testament this theme reaches a crescendo in the healing ministry of Christ Jesus. The Master gave no justification for sickness. He healed blindness, paralysis, seizures, hemorrhage, deformity, just to name a few of his cures.
Moral and spiritual awakening resulted from Jesus' healing work. Such signs of physical healing were the early Christians' hallmark, as they learned to follow his directions and example.
Christian Science reawakens and supports the Christian commitment to a practical healing ministry. Today many people are finding that neither physical nor moral difficulties have inherent power over man, because they have no authority in God. Christian Science shows usthe importance of identifying ourselves rightly as the sons and daughters of God, as spiritual offspring of the perfect, good creator of all. On this basis we can find healing through prayer. The need is to see clearly that disease is neither a product of God nor a characteristic of man. This realization -- this recognition of what really is true of man -- results in healing.
``All reality is in God and His creation, harmonious and eternal,'' writesMrs. Eddy. ``That which He creates is good, and He makes all that is made. Therefore the only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise. They are not true, because they are not of God.''3 Sometimes illnesses seem so very real to us -- sometimes painfully so. But when confronted with a spiritual understanding of God and man they cannot disguise themselves as God's will or parade as if they were somehow immutable and self-existent. In truth, they have no power to exist at all.
A woman who experienced persistent symptoms of heart trouble felt she needed to see this spiritual fact more tangibly for herself. At times, when the symptoms seemed severe, she found herself almost begging God to free her from pain and fear. But gradually she saw that her prayers could and should be more of a grateful acknowledgment of God's all-powerful love for her, a gratitude to God for never creating or permitting such a thing as heart disease. She reasoned that since Christ Jesus gave Christians a mandate to heal, she was not an exception. When Jesus sent out his disciples to spread the gospel, he told them, ``Into whatsoever city ye enter...heal the sick that are therein, and say unto them, The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.''4
Understanding that this message from the Master applied to her as well, the woman was encouraged. Through her study of Christian Science it became clearer to her that she actually was the child of God's creating, completely controlled by His loving will. Within a short time she was completely healed. That was nearly ten years ago, and the healing has been permanent.
Anyone struggling with illness can be equally helped and freed by gaining a clearer understanding of God and of man's likeness to Him. God never made sickness. It is everyone's divine right, therefore, to be free from it.
1The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. 2Science and Health, p. 206. 3Ibid., p. 472. 4Luke 10:8, 9.
The Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly magazine, contains more articles about God's power to heal. DAILY BIBLE VERSE: Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed. Jeremiah 17:14
