Man is God's own

In one breath a person says he is "his own man," comes from God, and is the living product of a pair of mortals, a male and a female he calls father and mother.

That's a big breath! And a misleading one.

In contrast, the Scriptures present the divine Father-Mother God, who couldn't and didn't make man mortal. God made man immortal, to reflect and glorify Himself. Man's true identity is spiritual and immortal -- the very opposite of physique.

Spiritual man belongs to God, is God's own. He doesn't originate himself. Paul voices this thought in one of his letters to the Christians at Corinth: "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?" n1

n1 I Corinthians 6:19.

The man made by the immortal God must be immortal; the physical so-called man made by two mortals must be mortal. But there are not two kinds of man: one a mortal of human parentage, and one an immortal who is God's own. There is, there can be, only spiritual man.

All of us, however, seem to be accepting, to greater or lesser degree, the myth that we are mortals with a will of our own, an intelligence of our own, a life of our own -- all separate from God. But we aren't the mortal myth! Our denial of this myth as the false belief it is, coupled with acknowledgment of our immortal status as God's representation, will free us to learn and begin to experience our divine perfection. In Science and Health with Key to the Scipturesm Mary Baker Eddy n2 writes, "The admission to one's self that man is God's own likeness sets man free to master the infinite idea." n3

n2 Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science.

n3 Science and Health,m p. 90.

Since man is God's own, where does the mortal myth come from? In a sense, it comes from the same place the blue horse comes from for the man who is looking at a white horse through blue glasses. As the view of blue appears to identify the horse, so the mortal view of God's man appears to identify man. But mortals are counterfeits, formed by looking at the true man through material lenses (the five senses) and seeing a material picture, which is then believed to be true.

When we cling to, when we live, our attested status as God's own, we will prove it to be our onlym status.

The reasons that denying the myth and affirming the truth succeed are: (1) The discordant body is the result of a wrong view or belief of what's true; therefore, (2) exchanging the wrong belief for the spiritual truth will replace the warped view's manifestation with an improved picture. Then the physical illness or whatever other trouble is healed. Spiritually corrected thought is made evident in an improved body.

Healing is brought about, then, because health is spiritually true. The sick condition is a false, material belief. The healer has the spiritual acumen to know the truth with such clarity that its recognized presence changes the sufferer's view for the better, and in this way his body improves. The healer doesn't do the healing; but he knows that God's presence does. Christ Jesus said, "I do nothing of myself." n4 Mrs. Eddy explains, "Holding the rightm idea of man in my mind, I can improve my own, and other people's individuality, health, and morals . . . ." n5

n4 John 8:28.

n5 Miscellaneous Writings,m p. 62.

The healing power is in "the rightm idea." Our holding to the idea allows it to assert itself. The idea brings the healing power of Truth to bear on the discord confronting us and destroys it. Jesus counseled that the truth sets us free if we know it.

None of this is a static exercise. Man, as God's own, is the incorporeal, law-abiding, full, and joyful expression of the inexhaustible attributes of God himself. There's nothing but speak performance here -- nothing but God being His own active self. And this has the constant effect of a perfect, individual man.

The base of it all is that God, in fulfilling His omnipotence and omnipresence, is sustaining man, His own manifestation. And that's us -- God's very own. DAILY BIBLE VERSE Even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you. Isaiah 46:4