Responsive Reading: Colossians 3 : 1, 2, 4, 9, 10, 14-16

1.     If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

2.     Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.

4.     When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

9.     Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;

10.     And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:

14.     And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.

15.     And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.

16.     Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

1. John 1 : 1-5

1     In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2     The same was in the beginning with God.

3     All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

4     In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

5     And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

2. Isaiah 55 : 3 (to ;), 8-11

3     Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live;

8     For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.

9     For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

10     For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:

11     So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

3. Proverbs 3 : 1-4, 6-8

1     My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments:

2     For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.

3     Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart:

4     So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man.

6     In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

7     Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil.

8     It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.

4. Matthew 15 : 29-32 (to 2nd ,)

29     And Jesus departed from thence, and came nigh unto the sea of Galilee; and went up into a mountain, and sat down there.

30     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:

31     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.

32     Then Jesus called his disciples unto him, and said,

5. John 5 : 30

30     I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.

6. John 6 : 63

63     It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

7. Acts 3 : 1-9, 11-13 (to ;), 16

1     Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.

2     And a certain man lame from his mother’s womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple;

3     Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked an alms.

4     And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us.

5     And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them.

6     Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.

7     And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength.

8     And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God.

9     And all the people saw him walking and praising God:

11     And as the lame man which was healed held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch that is called Solomon’s, greatly wondering.

12     And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?

13     The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus;

16     And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.

8. II Corinthians 4 : 6, 14, 15, 17, 18

6     For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

14     Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.

15     For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God.

17     For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;

18     While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

1. 513 : 26 (God)-27

God creates all forms of reality. His thoughts are spiritual realities.

2. 331 : 11 (The)-16

The Scriptures imply that God is All-in-all. From this it follows that nothing possesses reality nor existence except the divine Mind and His ideas. The Scriptures also declare that God is Spirit. Therefore in Spirit all is harmony, and there can be no discord; all is Life, and there is no death.

3. 286 : 21-26

God's thoughts are perfect and eternal, are substance and Life. Material and temporal thoughts are human, involving error, and since God, Spirit, is the only cause, they lack a divine cause. The temporal and material are not then creations of Spirit. They are but counterfeits of the spiritual and eternal.

4. 276 : 9-24

Man and his Maker are correlated in divine Science, and real consciousness is cognizant only of the things of God.

The realization that all inharmony is unreal brings objects and thoughts into human view in their true light, and presents them as beautiful and immortal. Harmony in man is as real and immortal as in music. Discord is unreal and mortal.

If God is admitted to be the only Mind and Life, there ceases to be any opportunity for sin and death. When we learn in Science how to be perfect even as our Father in heaven is perfect, thought is turned into new and healthy channels, — towards the contemplation of things immortal and away from materiality to the Principle of the universe, including harmonious man.

5. 301 : 17-23

As God is substance and man is the divine image and likeness, man should wish for, and in reality has, only the substance of good, the substance of Spirit, not matter. The belief that man has any other substance, or mind, is not spiritual and breaks the First Commandment, Thou shalt have one God, one Mind.

6. 353 : 16 (All)-19

All the real is eternal. Perfection underlies reality. Without perfection, nothing is wholly real. All things will continue to disappear, until perfection appears and reality is reached.

7. 490 : 14-18

Human theories are helpless to make man harmonious or immortal, since he is so already, according to Christian Science. Our only need is to know this and reduce to practice the real man's divine Principle, Love.

8. 88 : 9-15 (to ,)

How are veritable ideas to be distinguished from illusions? By learning the origin of each. Ideas are emanations from the divine Mind. Thoughts, proceeding from the brain or from matter, are offshoots of mortal mind; they are mortal material beliefs. Ideas are spiritual, harmonious, and eternal. Beliefs proceed from the so-called material senses,

9. 356 : 4-5, 9-16

So-called material existence affords no evidence of spiritual existence and immortality.

Jesus reasoned on this subject practically, and controlled sickness, sin, and death on the basis of his spirituality. Understanding the nothingness of material things, he spoke of flesh and Spirit as the two opposites, — as error and Truth, not contributing in any way to each other's happiness and existence. Jesus knew, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing."

10. 272 : 3-8

The spiritual sense of truth must be gained before Truth can be understood. This sense is assimilated only as we are honest, unselfish, loving, and meek. In the soil of an "honest and good heart" the seed must be sown; else it beareth not much fruit, for the swinish element in human nature uproots it.

11. 130 : 15-19, 26-5

Christian Science, properly understood, would disabuse the human mind of material beliefs which war against spiritual facts; and these material beliefs must be denied and cast out to make place for truth.

If thought is startled at the strong claim of Science for the supremacy of God, or Truth, and doubts the supremacy of good, ought we not, contrariwise, to be astounded at the vigorous claims of evil and doubt them, and no longer think it natural to love sin and unnatural to forsake it, — no longer imagine evil to be ever-present and good absent? Truth should not seem so surprising and unnatural as error, and error should not seem so real as truth. Sickness should not seem so real as health. There is no error in Science, and our lives must be governed by reality in order to be in harmony with God, the divine Principle of all being.

12. 215 : 12-21

Whatever is governed by God, is never for an instant deprived of the light and might of intelligence and Life.

We are sometimes led to believe that darkness is as real as light; but Science affirms darkness to be only a mortal sense of the absence of light, at the coming of which darkness loses the appearance of reality. So sin and sorrow, disease and death, are the suppositional absence of Life, God, and flee as phantoms of error before truth and love.

13. 480 : 26-2

The Bible declares: "All things were made by Him [the divine Word]; and without Him was not anything made that was made." This is the eternal verity of divine Science. If sin, sickness, and death were understood as nothingness, they would disappear. As vapor melts before the sun, so evil would vanish before the reality of good. One must hide the other. How important, then, to choose good as the reality!

14. 261 : 4-7

Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts.

15. 248 : 26-29

We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives.

16. 249 : 1-4

Let us accept Science, relinquish all theories based on sense-testimony, give up imperfect models and illusive ideals; and so let us have one God, one Mind, and that one perfect, producing His own models of excellence.

17. 242 : 9-14

There is but one way to heaven, harmony, and Christ in divine Science shows us this way. It is to know no other reality — to have no other consciousness of life — than good, God and His reflection, and to rise superior to the so-called pain and pleasure of the senses.

18. 208 : 20-24

Let us learn of the real and eternal, and prepare for the reign of Spirit, the kingdom of heaven, — the reign and rule of universal harmony, which cannot be lost nor remain forever unseen.