The universal message
They were starving. It was winter in Ohio. The rest of the Indian tribe had moved on, but they left the old man and the boy in the care of an early settler, who had lived with Native Americans and come to love them. He had been able to provide food for a while. But then game became scare, and soon they faced starvation.
The old man assured the settler that they would be supplied with food - and at just the right time. But, the old man said, he must "continue diligent in the use of means." This meant getting up early to hunt. Being strong. "The great spirit will direct your way," he said.
The settler did as he was told, and though it was by no means easy, they had a good supply of food by winter's end (see "The Ohio Frontier: An Anthology of Early Writings," edited by Emily Foster).
God is always communicating good to His children, and that includes everyone. He gave the old man a sense of that goodness, which the man called Owaneeyo. God speaks the truth in a way that each can understand. This truth meets our needs.
God's message of truth can also be called Christ. Christ is ever present, and it is heard wherever someone trusts in the presence of one supreme, benevolent power. Wherever goodness is practiced and evil rejected, blessing follows.
Christ, the manifestation of the divine nature, is entirely spiritual. Christ is felt as thought - thought that expresses good, thought that leads to appropriate action, which in turn brings about good results.
So that we can more readily benefit from this influence and see it active in all the facets of human life - supplying necessities, restoring health, harmonizing relationships - it is important to learn more of God's nature and obey His laws of good. This brings the Christ message to our consciousness more consistently.
One woman who grasped the vast practicality of even a small understanding of Christ was Mary Baker Eddy, who later founded the Monitor. "Christ is the true idea voicing good," she wrote in the textbook of Christian Science, "the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness" ("Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," pg. 332).
Christian Scientists believe that the fullest understanding of this divine message came through Jesus. That was his Hebrew name, but his followers later called him Christ ("anointed"). They realized that he was demonstrating a universal power - proving on earth that good is supreme.
Two major statements of human conduct and divine law give an overview of what it means to express God, the infinite Principle, in our lives. First, there are the Ten Commandments, or the laws of Moses (see Ex. 20:3-17). And then there is the Sermon on the Mount, given by Jesus (see Matt., Chaps. 5-7). Is it good to hate your enemy? Jesus says: "Love your enemies,... do good to them that hate you ...; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven." In his unique life experience, Jesus proved for all time that true identity is perfect, Godlike; that as children of God we are eternally intact, cared for, satisfied by the creator. And he proved this by healing.
Christ is expressed by anyone who grasps the fact of the universality of good and strives to live in accord with that good. Christ is the activity of divine Love.
To the degree that we know and trust in the power of ever-operating, universal good, we find that divine Love meets all needs, and that we can bless others, as well as ourselves, through this understanding.
And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them. Isaiah 42:16
