Readings for February 16th, 2022

From The Bible

Thus saith the LORD; Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the LORD; ...
(Jeremiah 31:16 (to 2nd ;))

But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee.
(Psalms 5:11)

A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in his holy habitation. God setteth the solitary in families: ...
(Psalms 68:5, 6 (to 1st :))

¶ Seek ye out of the book of the LORD, and read: no one of these shall fail, none shall want her mate: for my mouth it hath commanded, ...

The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. ...

Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, ... he will come and save you. ...

... for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. ...

And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, ... and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
(Isaiah 34:16 (to 3rd ,); 35:1, 4 (to 4th ,), 4 he, 6 for, 10 (to 1st ,), 10 5th and)

And Naomi said unto her two daughters in law, Go, return each to her mother's house: ...

And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, ... for whither thou goest, I will go; ... thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: ...

... And she said unto her, Go, my daughter. And she went, and came, and gleaned in the field after the reapers: ...

Then said Boaz unto his servant that was set over the reapers, Whose damsel is this? And the servant that was set over the reapers answered and said, It is the Moabitish damsel that came back with Naomi out of the country of Moab: ...

Then said Boaz unto Ruth, Hearest thou not, my daughter? Go not to glean in another field, neither go from hence, but abide here fast by my maidens:
(Ruth 1:8 (to :), 16 (to 2nd ,), 16 for (to ;), 16 thy; 2:2 3rd And, 3 (to :), 5, 6, 8)

... if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. ...

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
(Galatians 5:18 if, 22, 23)

And Jesus departed from thence, ... and went up into a mountain, ...

And great multitudes came unto him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus' feet; and he healed them: Insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see: and they glorified the God of Israel.
(Matthew 15:29 (to 1st ,), 29 3rd and (to 2nd ,), 30, 31)

Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, ...

When Jesus heard that, he said, ...

... Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. ...

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

Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. ...

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, ...
(John 11:1 (to 2nd ,), 4 (to 2nd ,), 11 Our, 17, 39 (to 1st .), 41, 43, 44 (to 1st ,))

Then said Jesus unto them, Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto him that sent me. ...

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;
(John 7:33; 14:12, 16)

Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you. ...

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
(John 16:20–22, 33)

¶ Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, ...

When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.
(John 19:25 (to 1st ,), 26, 27)

... thus saith the LORD, ...

As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; ...
(Isaiah 66:12 thus (to 1st ,), 13 (to ;))

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
(Ephesians 4:1–3)

Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.
(Romans 15:13)

Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice: and let men say among the nations, The LORD reigneth.
(I Chronicles 16:31)

Selections from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy

This is the doctrine of Christian Science: that divine Love cannot be deprived of its manifestation, or object; that joy cannot be turned into sorrow, for sorrow is not the master of joy; that good can never produce evil; that matter can never produce mind nor life result in death.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 304:9–14)

The Christian Science God is universal, eternal, divine Love, which changeth not and causeth no evil, disease, nor death.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 140:25–27)

Christian Science despoils the kingdom of evil, and pre-eminently promotes affection and virtue in families and therefore in the community.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 102:31–2)

The good in human affections must have ascendency over the evil and the spiritual over the animal, or happiness will never be won.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 61:4–6)

Man is not a pendulum, swinging between evil and good, joy and sorrow, sickness and health, life and death.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 246:1–3)

On the contrary, man is the image and likeness of Spirit; and the belief that there is Soul in sense or Life in matter obtains in mortals, alias mortal mind, to which the apostle refers when he says that we must “put off the old man.”
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 172:18)

The real man is spiritual and immortal, but the mortal and imperfect so-called “children of men” are counterfeits from the beginning, to be laid aside for the pure reality. This mortal is put off, and the new man or real man is put on, in proportion as mortals realize the Science of man and seek the true model.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 409:20)

It is ignorance and false belief, based on a material sense of things, which hide spiritual beauty and goodness. Understanding this, Paul said: “Neither death, nor life, . . . nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God.” ...

... Divine Principle is the Life of man. Man's happiness is not, therefore, at the disposal of physical sense. Truth is not contaminated by error. Harmony in man is as beautiful as in music, and discord is unnatural, unreal.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 304:3–9, 17)

It is ignorance and false belief, based on a material sense of things, which hide spiritual beauty and goodness. Understanding this, Paul said: “Neither death, nor life, . . . nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God.” This is the doctrine of Christian Science: that divine Love cannot be deprived of its manifestation, or object; that joy cannot be turned into sorrow, for sorrow is not the master of joy; that good can never produce evil; that matter can never produce mind nor life result in death. ...

... Divine Principle is the Life of man. Man's happiness is not, therefore, at the disposal of physical sense. Truth is not contaminated by error. Harmony in man is as beautiful as in music, and discord is unnatural, unreal.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 304:3–14, 17)

It is only by acknowledging the supremacy of Spirit, which annuls the claims of matter, that mortals can lay off mortality and find the indissoluble spiritual link which establishes man forever in the divine likeness, inseparable from his creator.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 491:12)

Mortals have a very imperfect sense of the spiritual man and of the infinite range of his thought. 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.

Through spiritual sense you can discern the heart of divinity, and thus begin to comprehend in Science the generic term man. Man is not absorbed in Deity, and man cannot lose his individuality, for he reflects eternal Life; nor is he an isolated, solitary idea, for he represents infinite Mind, the sum of all substance.

In divine Science, man is the true image of God. The divine nature was best expressed in Christ Jesus, who threw upon mortals the truer reflection of God and lifted their lives higher than their poor thought-models would allow, — thoughts which presented man as fallen, sick, sinning, and dying. The Christlike understanding of scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea, — perfect God and perfect man, — as the basis of thought and demonstration.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 258:25–14)

To reveal this truth was our Master's mission to all mankind, including the hearts which rejected him.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 233:22)

Through the magnitude of his human life, he demonstrated the divine Life. Out of the amplitude of his pure affection, he defined Love. With the affluence of Truth, he vanquished error.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 54:1–5)

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.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 75:12–16)

If Jesus awakened Lazarus from the dream, illusion, of death, this proved that the Christ could improve on a false sense. Who dares to doubt this consummate test of the power and willingness of divine Mind to hold man forever intact in his perfect state, and to govern man's entire action?
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 493:28–2)

Our Master said, “But the Comforter . . . shall teach you all things.” When the Science of Christianity appears, it will lead you into all truth. ...

Those, who are willing to leave their nets or to cast them on the right side for Truth, have the opportunity now, as aforetime, to learn and to practise Christian healing.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 271:20–22, 26–29 (to 1st .))

The true Logos is demonstrably Christian Science, the natural law of harmony which overcomes discord, — not because this Science is supernatural or preternatural, nor because it is an infraction of divine law, but because it is the immutable law of God, good. ... There is divine authority for believing in the superiority of spiritual power over material resistance.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 134:21–26, 28)

Spiritual sense, contradicting the material senses, involves intuition, hope, faith, understanding, fruition, reality. Material sense expresses the belief that mind is in matter. This human belief, alternating between a sense of pleasure and pain, hope and fear, life and death, never reaches beyond the boundary of the mortal or the unreal. When the real is attained, which is announced by Science, joy is no longer a trembler, nor is hope a cheat.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 298:13–20)

The pains of sense are salutary, if they wrench away false pleasurable beliefs and transplant the affections from sense to Soul, where the creations of God are good, “rejoicing the heart.” ...

Would existence without personal friends be to you a blank? Then the time will come when you will be solitary, left without sympathy; but this seeming vacuum is already filled with divine Love. When this hour of development comes, even if you cling to a sense of personal joys, spiritual Love will force you to accept what best promotes your growth. ... “man's extremity is God's opportunity.”
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 265:31–2; 266:6–12, 14–15 man's)

The poor suffering heart needs its rightful nutriment, such as peace, patience in tribulation, and a priceless sense of the dear Father's loving-kindness.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 365:31)

All nature teaches God's love to man, but man cannot love God supremely and set his whole affections on spiritual things, while loving the material or trusting in it more than in the spiritual.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 326:8)

To ascertain our progress, we must learn where our affections are placed and whom we acknowledge and obey as God. If divine Love is becoming nearer, dearer, and more real to us, matter is then submitting to Spirit. The objects we pursue and the spirit we manifest reveal our standpoint, and show what we are winning.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 239:16)

If our hopes and affections are spiritual, they come from above, not from beneath, and they bear as of old the fruits of the Spirit.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 451:16)

“All things work together for good to them that love God,” is the dictum of Scripture.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 444:4)

If the disciple is advancing spiritually, he is striving to enter in. He constantly turns away from material sense, and looks towards the imperishable things of Spirit. If honest, he will be in earnest from the start, and gain a little each day in the right direction, till at last he finishes his course with joy.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 21:9)

EPILOGUE

... I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow.
(Jeremiah 31:13 I)

Hymnals

Hymn No. 412

O dreamer, leave thy dreams for joyful waking, / O captive, rise and sing, for thou art free; / The Christ is here, all dreams of error breaking, / Unloosing bonds of all captivity.

He comes to bless thee on his wings of healing; / To banish pain, and wipe all tears away; / He comes anew, to humble hearts revealing / The mounting footsteps of the upward way.

He comes to give thee joy for desolation, / Beauty for ashes of the vanished years; / For every tear to bring full compensation, / To give thee confidence for all thy fears.

He comes to call the dumb to joyful singing; / The deaf to hear; the blinded eyes to see; / The glorious tidings of salvation bringing. / O captive, rise, thy Saviour comes to thee.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 412)

Hymn No. 139

I walk with Love along the way, / And O, it is a holy day; / No more I suffer cruel fear, / I feel God's presence with me here; / The joy that none can take away / Is mine; I walk with Love today.

Who walks with Love along the way, / Shall talk with Love and Love obey; / God's healing truth is free to all, / Our Father answers every call; / 'Tis He dispels the clouds of gray / That all may walk with Love today.

Come, walk with Love along the way, / Let childlike trust be yours today; / Uplift your thought, with courage go, / Give of your heart's rich overflow, / And peace shall crown your joy-filled day. / Come, walk with Love along the way.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 139)

Hymn No. 508

I've got peace like a river, / I've got peace like a river, / I've got peace like a river in my soul.

I've got joy like a fountain, / I've got joy like a fountain, / I've got joy like a fountain in my soul.

I've got love like an ocean, / I've got love like an ocean, / I've got love like an ocean in my soul.

I've got faith like an anchor, / I've got faith like an anchor, / I've got faith like an anchor in my soul.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 508)