Life Eternal, Unchanging

Wednesday Evening Readings for May 5, 2021

Ps. 90:1, 4
Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. …

For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

Mal. 3:6 I
… I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

II Kings 6:8 the (to 1st ,), 12 (to 1st ,), 12 Elisha, 13 (to 2nd ,), 13 4th And (to 3rd ,), 13 Behold, 14 3rd and, 15 when (to 1st ,), 15–17 an; 7:1 (to 
… the king of Syria warred against Israel, …

And one of his servants said, … Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber. ¶ And he said, Go and spy where he is, … And it was told him, … Behold, he is in Dothan.

… and they came by night, and compassed the city about.

… when the servant of the man of God was risen early, … an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do? And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. …

Then Elisha said, Hear ye the word of the Lord; …

II Chron. 20:17 (to 1st :), 17 stand (to 3rd ,)
Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: … stand ye still, and see the salvation of the Lord with you, …

Matt. 9:35, 36
And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. ¶ But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.

John 10:11, 17, 27, 28
I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. …

Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. …

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

John 11:1 (to 3rd ,), 3 (to 2nd ,), 3 he, 4 (to 4th ,), 7 (to ,), 11 Our, 12, 14, 15 (to And), 17 when, 41, 43, 44 (to :), 44 Jesus
Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, …

Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, … he whom thou lovest is sick. When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, …

Then after that saith he to his disciples, …

… Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. …

Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. And …

… when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days already. …

Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. …

And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: … Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.

John 5:24
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.

Mark 16:9 (to 1st ,), 14 he (to 1st ,), 15, 17 (to 2nd ;), 18
¶ Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, …

… he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, …

And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. …

And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; …

They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

John 14:8 (to 3rd ,), 9 (to 1st ,), 9 he (to ;), 10–12 3rd the, 16, 17 (to 1st ;), 18 (to 
Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, …

Jesus saith unto him, … he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; …

… the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. …

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; …

I will not leave you comfortless: …

II Cor. 1:3, 4
Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.

II Pet. 3:9 (to 1st ,), 9 but (to 3rd ,)
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, … but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, …

I John 5:11
And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

SH 468:9–10 There
… There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter.

SH 591:8 (only, to .), 8–9 mortality (to 2nd ;), 10 life (only, to ,), 12 the (only, to ;), 13 Spirit (only, to 1st ;), 13 2nd of (only, to ;), 14 that
Matter. … mortality; another name for mortal mind; illusion; … life resulting in death, … the opposite of Truth; … Spirit; … of God; … that which mortal mind sees, feels, hears, tastes, and smells only in belief.

SH 96:23
Belief is changeable, but spiritual understanding is changeless.

SH 505:16–17, 21–22
Spirit imparts the understanding which uplifts consciousness and leads into all truth. … Understanding is the line of demarcation between the real and unreal.

SH 127:26–27 (to ,), 28
Science is an emanation of divine Mind, … It has a spiritual, and not a material origin. It is a divine utterance, — the Comforter which leadeth into all truth.

SH 554:1–4 Christian
… Christian Science reveals what “eye hath not seen,” — even the cause of all that exists, — for the universe, inclusive of man, is as eternal as God, who is its divine immortal Principle.

SH 207:20–23, 27 (only), 30–31
There is but one primal cause. Therefore there can be no effect from any other cause, and there can be no reality in aught which does not proceed from this great and only cause. …

The spiritual reality is the scientific fact in all things. … Spiritual facts are not inverted; the opposite discord, which bears no resemblance to spirituality, is not real.

SH 468:12–14
Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness.

SH 335:27
Reality is spiritual, harmonious, immutable, immortal, divine, eternal. Nothing unspiritual can be real, harmonious, or eternal. Sin, sickness, and mortality are the suppositional antipodes of Spirit, and must be contradictions of reality.

SH 14:25–28
Entirely separate from the belief and dream of material living, is the Life divine, revealing spiritual understanding and the consciousness of man’s dominion over the whole earth.

SH 468:25–26 (to 1st .)
Question. — What is Life?

Answer. …

SH 496:9 (only)
We all must learn that Life is God.

SH 468:27–29
Life is without beginning and without end. Eternity, not time, expresses the thought of Life, and time is no part of eternity.

SH 598:21–2
“One day is with the Lord as a thousand years.” (II Peter iii. 8.)

One moment of divine consciousness, or the spiritual understanding of Life and Love, is a foretaste of eternity. This exalted view, obtained and retained when the Science of being is understood, would bridge over with life discerned spiritually the interval of death, and man would be in the full consciousness of his immortality and eternal harmony, where sin, sickness, and death are unknown. Time is a mortal thought, the divisor of which is the solar year. Eternity is God’s measurement of Soul-filled years.

SH 75:12
Jesus said of Lazarus: “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.” Jesus restored Lazarus by the understanding that Lazarus had never died, not by an admission that his body had died and then lived again. Had Jesus believed that Lazarus had lived or died in his body, the Master would have stood on the same plane of belief as those who buried the body, and he could not have resuscitated it.

SH 27:10–13
That Life is God, Jesus proved by his reappearance after the crucifixion in strict accordance with his scientific statement: “Destroy this temple [body], and in three days I [Spirit] will raise it up.”

SH 258:9–15, 26
Man is more than a material form with a mind inside, which must escape from its environments in
order to be immortal. Man reflects infinity, and this reflection is the true idea of God.

God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis. …

… To him belongs eternal Life. Never born and never dying, it were impossible for man, under the government of God in eternal Science, to fall from his high estate.

SH 428:3–12
Life is real, and death is the illusion. A demonstration of the facts of Soul in Jesus’ way resolves the dark visions of material sense into harmony and immortality. Man’s privilege at this supreme moment is to prove the words of our Master: “If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.” To divest thought of false trusts and material evidences in order that the spiritual facts of being may appear, — this is the great attainment by means of which we shall sweep away the false and give place to the true.

SH 487:3–6
Life is deathless. Life is the origin and ultimate of man, never attainable through death, but gained by walking in the pathway of Truth both before and after that which is called death.

SH 42:6
Death will be found at length to be a mortal dream, which comes in darkness and disappears with the light.

SH 328:20–25, 28 (only)
Understanding spiritual law and knowing that there is no material law, Jesus said: “These signs shall follow them that believe, . . . they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” …

Jesus’ promise is perpetual.

SH 55:21–29
The promises will be fulfilled. The time for the reappearing of the divine healing is throughout all time; and whosoever layeth his earthly all on the altar of divine Science, drinketh of Christ’s cup now, and is endued with the spirit and power of Christian healing.

In the words of St. John: “He shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever.” This Comforter I understand to be Divine Science.

SH 306:25
Undisturbed amid the jarring testimony of the material senses, Science, still enthroned, is unfolding to mortals the immutable, harmonious, divine Principle, — is unfolding Life and the universe, ever present and eternal.

Hymn. 148
In heavenly Love abiding, / No change my heart shall fear; / And safe is such confiding, / For nothing changes here. / The storm may roar without me, / My heart may low be laid; / But God is round about me, / And can I be dismayed?

Wherever He may guide me, / No want shall turn me back; / My Shepherd is beside me, / And nothing can I lack. / His wisdom ever waketh, / His sight is never dim; / He knows the way He taketh, / And I will walk with Him.

Green pastures are before me, / Which yet I have not seen; / Bright skies will soon be o’er me, / Where darkest clouds have been. / My hope I cannot measure, / My path in life is free; / My Father has my treasure, / And He will walk with me.
Words: Anna L. Waring*
Music: Alexander Ewing

Hymn. 527:1, 2
/ “Lord, … open his eyes, that he may see,” / The mighty prophet prayed. / Send not armies great and strong, / Neither strength to battle wrong, / But lift his vision to behold / Your truth already here, / The legions of omnipotence, / The hosts of Your deliverance. / Awake, O man, and know / Love’s all-embracing sphere.

Lord, open my eyes that I may see / Your presence everywhere, / My dwelling circled by Your might, / My mountaintop aflame with light, / The shining sentinels of Your love / Triumphant in this hour. / For You with me are greater far / Than all the seeming evils are. / Be still, O heart, and trust / God’s omnipresent power.
Words: Elizabeth Glass Barlow, alt.
Music: Désirée Goyette

Hymn. 207
O gentle presence, peace and joy and power; / O Life divine, that owns each waiting hour, / Thou Love that guards the nestling’s faltering flight! / Keep Thou my child on upward wing tonight.

Love is our refuge; only with mine eye / Can I behold the snare, the pit, the fall: / His habitation high is here, and nigh, / His arm encircles me, and mine, and all.

O make me glad for every scalding tear, / For hope deferred, ingratitude, disdain! / Wait, and love more for every hate, and fear / No ill,—since God is good, and loss is gain.

Beneath the shadow of His mighty wing; / In that sweet secret of the narrow way, / Seeking and finding, with the angels sing: / “Lo, I am with you alway,”—watch and pray.

No snare, no fowler, pestilence or pain; / No night drops down upon the troubled breast, / When heaven’s aftersmile earth’s tear-drops gain, / And mother finds her home and heav’nly rest.
Words: Mary Baker Eddy
Music: Frederick C. Atkinson, arr. by A. F. Conant