A spiritual destiny?

What would you think if someone told you that you had a spiritual destiny to fulfill? That there was infinitely more to you and life itself than meets the eye? And that at some time and in some way you would realize and bring to light the spiritual man that is your real identity?

Perhaps you would think to yourself that nothing could be more ludicrous. Me? A spiritual destiny? A spiritual man? Don't make me laugh! Here I am, a biological being of limited life span and intelligence, trying to make a living and get along in life as best I can, and you want to talk about my spiritual destiny! Spirituality - that's for saints, not ordinary people like me.

Interesting, but Christ Jesus didn't think so. He brought his message to common folk - farmers, fishermen, merchants, homemakers - and said the most remarkable things. He said God was their Father. He talked about being born again and about their being God's children. He said the kingdom of heaven was at hand and within us. He told us to be perfect, even as God is perfect!

Looking around us at the human condition, we have to conclude that Jesus must have been seeing things that the physical senses simply cannot apprehend. There's no denying that something deep in our hearts responds to Jesus' message. When we consider his unparalleled healing power and the impact of his words and works on millions of lives throughout history, maybe we should open ourselves to the possibility that Jesus was seeing a deeper reality.

This is what Christian Science teaches - that Jesus looked at things from a spiritual viewpoint and that this spiritual perception could actually alter experience. As Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of this Science, explains: ''Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy.'' n 1

n1 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, pp. 476-477.

As the Son of God, Jesus was able to see through the dream of material existence to the spiritual reality beyond it, yet right at hand and within us. For those who have eyes to see, the kingdom of God is ever present. And to see and feel this spiritual fact is to bring its joys and harmonies into one's conscious experience.

What's more, Jesus apparently felt that everyday people could cultivate this spiritual vision, or sense. How? By a radical change of thought and commitment to the spiritual life he revealed. He said, ''Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.'' n2 It is a call to moral goodness, and more. This demand is a call to spiritual being, to the consciousness of what it means to be a son of God.

n2 Matthew 4:17.

And a son of God we will be, for in Christ, Truth, a son of God we are. That man is the spiritual likeness of God is the eternal truth every human being must prove sometime, here or hereafter. So why not begin? There is simply no escaping Godlikeness. God, divine Love, makes infinite demands on us, and we cannot forever escape them or ignore them.

A spiritual destiny? Yes, for all of us. DAILY BIBLE VERSE Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. Philippians 3:13-15

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