Love That Heals

HOW could it be? Christ Jesus was telling people that the healings and the wonderful things they were seeing were not impossible. He was telling them that if they followed him, it would be natural for them to help other people the way he was helping them. Jesus told them, we read in Matthew, "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.What is powerful enough to cause such major transformations in people's thinking, in their bodies and lives? What was it that enabled Jesus' disciples to learn to be healers? They loved Jesus, and he loved them. But it was more than human love that worked in them. The book of John records Jesus' telling them, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work and "My Father . . . is greater than all. Jesus knew so clearly divine Love's allness that he was never afraid his Father wouldn't be powerful enough or near enough to meet our needs. At times we may have found that we could do more and love with less reservation than we thought we could. Other times we may have felt that our love couldn't come close to being all it needed to be. When we recognize that we aren't separated from divine Love, it's as if all the boundaries fall away from what is possible for love to do. Because then we see that Love's allness is the presence and power we're depending upon, not some mere limited human capability. As God's spiritual likeness, we reflect all that God, Love, is. How can we truly know this? We can because God made us to know it. In our real identity as His likeness, or expression, God causes us to know what is actually power--in the words of the Psalmist, to know that "power belongeth unto God. But there are other powers, the world tells us--human hate, weakness, envy. Yet these threats are nothing in the presence of divine Love's allness. God tells us again and again, "I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me (Isaiah). What would happen right now if we accepted this? What would happen if we began to trust to a greater degree that the love of divine Love is the real and only love--and that it is operating throughout God's creation? If we were to live as though reflecting this limitless, divine Love was actually our reason for being? Would things change? Immeasurably. There is a dependable, provable way of living that lines up with the truth of all real being, with all that is real and God-created and undestroyable. This means that when we obey the rules of Christianity, wholly and honestly and from the heart, we can experience the promises of healing that the Master gave. There is no circumstance so difficult that this won't work. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, speaks of the strength that comes when we turn to God. "Every trial of our faith in God makes us stronger, she writes. "The more difficult seems the material condition to be overcome by Spirit, the stronger should be our faith and the purer our love. When we wonder what else we can do, we can hold more faithfully to the fact that God alone governs, and we can love more purely. Nothing can prevent us from reflecting God's love. And as we do, barriers that previously looked like unremovable mountains no longer look so much that way. The most important thing to remember is that God is Love, and His is the only love there really is.

This is a condensed version of an editorial that appeared in the July 8 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.