Real freedom fighting

Some people think Christians are supposed to be merely patient sufferers, hoping to receive a reward only after death. Christian Science takes issue with this assumption. Christians should be freedom fighters. Christ Jesus himself devoted his life to showing mankind how to be free from the limitations of mortality. As the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, writes of the master Christian, "Jesus acted boldly, against the accredited evidence of the senses, against Pharisaical creeds and practices, and he refuted all opponents with his healing power." n1 Jesus didn't stand helpless before injustice, sickness, or any other evil. He challenged them on the basis of the spiritual law of God's dominion over all.

n1 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,m p. 18

Jesus was patient. Yet his patience was not the patience of a helpless mortal awaiting some faint promise of "a better day." He said, "Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest." n2 To him, patience meant relying without reticence on God, and responding activelym to Him. Jesus' deep understanding of God freed men and women from the apparent power of evil forces: the sick were healed (not told to accept their fate); the depressed , the outcast, were given purpose (not told to give up hope); the persecuted and oppressed were relieved of their burdens (not told to suffer in silence).

n2 John 4:35

By his resurrection from the grave, Jesus proved beyond question the power of good over evil. He also showed the spiritual unity between the all-powerful God , good, and His manifestation, man. He proved that no material threat could hinder this eternal, harmonious relationship. Discord was shown to be due to a wrong apprehension of God and man, a suggestion that man could somehow be separated from the all-powerful divine presence.

The literal allness of God, which denies power to evil, is no naive theory. People are understanding and using this truth today to solve problems.

In Africa, a friend of mine found his tribe engaged in a bloody civil war. Toward the end, he was captured and imprisoned in a dirt hole with two other men.Efforts to dig their way out proved hopeless. They had been stripped of weapons, tools, and even clothing. Their death seemed certain; yet my friend did not despair. Something had happened to him during the war -- he'd come upon some Christian Science literature, and this opened an entirely new view of life. He'd seen something of the immense goodness and infinitude of God and of the truth that there is no evil power or creation that can possibly impose on the real, spiritual universe. He began learning that this is provable in human experience.

These thoughts kept him expectant of deliverance, even when he and the other men were brought out between two rows of soldiers with rifles. He was so sure, so aware of his unity with God, tht he simply walked away from the soldiers. No violent thoughts or any other "show" of violence could suggest to him that God and His creation were not absolutely harmonious and perfect. As he continued walking across a wide-open field, no one fired or called or tried to stop him. This protection remained with him throughout the duration of the war, and later he was able to build a home and to work for his country without fear or retribution.

The man followed Christ Jesus' example of destroying the works of the devil, n3 of refusing to live with them. Isn't this a true and practical way to fulfill Jesus' saying, "Love your enemies"? n4

n3 See I John 3:8;

n4 Matthew 5:44.

Only in the material sense of things do we have enemies. In spiritual reality we could have no enemy, since God could not have created anything unlike His ever- present goodness, which fills all space and dimension. The more we understand this concept -- through study and prayer and following as best we can the life and teachings of Christ Jesus, the less threatening the evils of the material world will seem to us. And the more the marvelous truth of man as the untrammeled idea of God will prevail in our lives. DAILY BIBLE VERSE . . . ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. Jude 3