Sunday, June 16th, 2024 Roundtable
My Expectation is From the Lord
This week’s Lesson Sermon Subject: God The Preserver Of Man
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Morning Prayers
The offspring of an improved generation, however, will go out before the forever fact that man is eternal and has no human origin. Hence the Scripture: “It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves;” and the Master’s demand, “Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.”
— from Miscellaneous Writings, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 287
Yes, He who clothes the lilies will tend you and gird you with strength in Truth and Love, and so establish the labor of your hands in His vineyard. Never distrust, never doubt the All-Love, for it never faileth. As your day, so shall your strength be. Be patient, and let faith grow stronger and stronger each day of this pilgrimage.
— from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, (the “Blue Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, page 139
Discussion points
434 — WATCH lest, when you realize that with God all things are possible, and that all things work together for good to them that love God, you fail to accept these statements or laws in their fullest extent. As Christian Scientists we accept our experiences, whatever they may be, and perceive that good is working through all of them and out of all of them.
GOLDEN TEXT: MATTHEW 23 : 9
“And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.”
If the question, What are you expecting at this moment? should suddenly be asked of a large concourse of people and each one was compelled to give an absolutely honest answer, there would doubtless be a collection of chaff and wheat which might require much winnowing, and probably very little wheat would be left when the process was finished. Many of those questioned would probably be astonished when confronted by that which they found themselves half unconsciously expecting, and would earnestly wish it had been otherwise. The things which from earliest childhood we have been carefully trained to expect, are not pleasant to contemplate,—disease, disaster, failure, deceit, and their kind. Even the pleasures which were not withheld had usually a note of warning thrown in as to some danger lurking about, ready to pounce upon the unwary. These very pleasures were to be found solely along material lines, things which could be reported only through the medium of the five senses, while through these same channels might be communicated suffering as well.
The old adage that what we look for we are apt to find, has become a truism, and that of itself should teach us all to look well to the quality of our hopes and expectations. The dictionary defines expectation as “looking forward with certainty,” an added reason why we should be on guard continually as to what we expect, since it is thus coupled in our belief with fulfillment. With pitiful readiness mortals constantly expect evil in various forms. They predict direful happenings and accept and believe they will come to pass. Prophesy disaster, want, and woe, and this sort of reply will generally be forthcoming: “I know it;” “I suppose so;” “Just what I expected.” These same people would be quite likely to oppose vigorously any suggestion of good or happiness on the ground that it was too good to be true. Yet good is really the only thing that is, was, or ever will be true.
False education has much to answer for, in that it has instilled into the human mind the teaching that “man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.” While this was justly written of the material man, the real man, made in God’s image, is given “richly all things to enjoy.” If each one would but recognize and claim his true birthright and the treasures pertaining to it, he would speedily be free to use the dominion God gave man. Complete dominion exists now for him who appropriates it in the true way, and nothing but doubt and fear-filled thoughts, believing in and trusting evil, can shut it out from one’s realization and acceptance.
“Expectation” (excerpt) from The Christian Science Sentinel May 20, 1916, by Kate W. Buck
Life is God, or Spirit, the supersensible eternal. The universe and man are the spiritual phenomena of this one infinite Mind. Spiritual phenomena never converge toward aught but infinite Deity. Their gradations are spiritual and divine; they cannot collapse, or lapse into their opposites, for God is their divine Principle. They live, because He lives; and they are eternally perfect, because He is perfect, and governs them in the Truth of divine Science, whereof God is the Alpha and Omega, the centre and circumference.
— from Unity of Good, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 10
Article “Definition of Intelligence” Addresses by Martha Wilcox
Article “Scientific Translations” Addresses by Martha Wilcox
Mrs. Eddy once said to a group of us that we should never permit ourselves to react with intensity to every unpleasant thing. She meant that we should so discipline our individual thought with the truth of being, until we could stand in the presence of seeming error, mentally unmoved and steadfast in our faith in divine Intelligence.
— from “No Malpractice” in Addresses by Martha Wilcox, page 157
Final Readings
Human experience shows that mankind are devoid of the knowledge that God’s creation is spiritual, perfect, and immortal. They are without the consciousness that God is the sole author and preserver of man. This loss, or lack of knowing the truth, expresses itself to mortal sense as a discordant, degraded, unhappy, and dying man. Jesus did not come to save such a man, for no such man exists or could exist in God’s universe. He did not come to save a sick and sinful race of beings, outcast from God’s presence and doomed to eternal banishment, for no such race of beings has divine authority for existing, nor is there any place outside of the infinity of good where they could be banished. The supposition that there is something besides God, would declare that there is such a place and such a race of sinning men; and this supposition, taking form in human belief, has appeared to objectify itself in the so-called fallen race of Adam; but Jesus obviously did not come to save this false supposition or its embodiment. He did, however, come to save mankind from believing it, and consequently from suffering for it, and this freedom was to be accomplished through a knowledge of the truth. His injunction, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,” reveals the unfallen, incorruptible selfhood of man in God’s image; for this command would be impracticable if man’s real being were not already perfect.
“What Jesus Came to Save” (excerpt) from The Christian Science Sentinel November 28, 1914, by Samuel Greenwood