Pushing back the frontiers
The pioneering spirit that impelled the wagon trains to roll westward, and emigrant ships to cross vast oceans, cheers us today as we recall those stirring times. But the pioneering spirit hasn't gone, nor have the frontiers disappeared. The most significant challenges today, however, are the frontiers of our own thinking. We're having to learn to push back the borders of restrictive, materialistic concepts.
The Bible tells us that man is made in God's likeness. Our actual being, then , is whole, unrestricted, freeborn.
The physical senses insist that man is mortal, fleshly, limited at every point, subject to forces outside his control. But Christ Jesus demonstrated that man's spiritual identity is the fact of existence. Through his spiritually based healing works, the master Christian pushed back the frontiers of human thinking and revealed a new and true view of reality.
Today that spiritual view is becoming clearer, better understood. Boundaries of thought, telling us we can't do this or can't do that because we're limited mortal creatures, are being overcome. The revealed fact of spiritual reality, proved by the Master through his works, is bringing to light man's limitless capacities.
Referring to God, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, tells us, ''Mind is limitless.'' n1 How can we understand this fact? How can we push back the restrictive boundaries of our limited sense of things? How can we know God as Mind and ourselves as the reflection of the one Mind?
n1 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 353.
''Love alone can impart the limitless idea of infinite Mind,'' n2 writes Mrs. Eddy. The practical way, then, to push back the frontiers of restrictive thought is through an understanding of divine Love. By living the spirit of Love - expressing the divine nature in every aspect of our lives - we can see restrictive fears and conditions melt away. Love is the liberating force in Christianity, and is at the heart of Christian Science.
n2 Ibid., p. 510.
Jesus healed through the mighty, yet tender, power of Love. When the Saviour touched people with his compassionate spirit of Love, their restrictive thoughts about themselves yielded, and they were healed. Lepers were cleansed, blind people saw, the deaf heard, those who were lame walked.
On one occasion, when Jesus came to the gates of the city of Nain, he met a funeral party. n3 The dead man was the only son of his widowed mother. It was a sad situation for the woman. But Jesus did not mourn with her. We read in the Bible, ''When the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not.'' He then touched the bier, and the people carrying it stopped. Speaking to the apparently dead man, he said, ''Young man, I say unto thee, Arise.'' And we read, ''He that was dead sat up, and began to speak.''
n3 See Luke 7:11-16.
The response of the crowd was to glorify God. ''God hath visited his people, '' they said. In Jesus' Christly compassion, the spirit of God was revealed. In that moment of healing, a frontier of human thought was pushed back to the point of disappearance.
The healing spirit of Christ, or Truth, is still alive and active today, revealing Love as the ultimate freeing power in human affairs. There are no boundaries to its effectiveness.
To the degree that we live as Jesus lived - loving as he loved - we bring our thoughts and lives into harmony with the might of God, with the strength of divine Love itself. Then we can push back the frontiers of human restriction, and free ourselves and others. DAILY BIBLE VERSE Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. II Corinthians 3:17
