Always worthy of God's healing love
THE Holy Bible proclaims God's tender love for His children. And it indicates practical proof of God's love in accounts of spiritual healing. Yet we sometimes reject God's gift of healing because we feel unworthy, and maybe the circumstances of our lives at the moment seem to corroborate that feeling. But this doesn't stop the reality of God's love, and if we can understand why, we'll be free to experience His healing love. In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy,1 we read: ``Deity was satisfied with His work. How could He be otherwise, since the spiritual creation was the outgrowth, the emanation, of His infinite self-containment and immortal wisdom?''2 This statement correlates with and illumines the Scriptural pronouncement ``God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.''3
God's creation is unalterable. Because it is always the emanation of His divine nature, it always expresses His completeness and His goodness. But often we don't see it that way, because human experience is such a mixture of the good and the bad. We sometimes see ourselves and others as incomplete, even base. Then, because our actions grow out of our perceptions, they are likely to be characterized by inadequacy or wrongdoing. And if our feeling of worth is based on our actions, we will naturally feel unworthy of God's healing love.
But worthiness is an aspect of our real, spiritual, God-derived identity. We are worthy because we are ``the outgrowth, the emanation,'' of God. This doesn't mean, of course, that we can simply overlook the sin that may need healing in our own or others' lives. Wrongdoing must be faced and overcome. But the reason it can be overcome is that our true being is spotless, loved of God. Nothing can alter God's clear vision of the magnificence of His creation. He is absolutely delighted with what He knows to be His children's identity. And His love and care for His offspring are unwavering.
God has created man whole and satisfied. These are qualities of His own nature that He richly bestows on us. They can never be lost, because they are in-tegral to man's God-ordained completeness. If we fail to experience these qua-lities, it isn't because they're lost or unavailable; rather, we've lost sight of them. But we can find them again through God's saving grace.
The gift of grace is freely given. Paul's words to the Christians of his day speak to us today as well: ``By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.''4
Through the life of Christ Jesus we have seen the completeness and goodness of God's man. And, as a result of Jesus' clear perception of the completeness and goodness of everyone's real selfhood, he was able to restore well-being to multitudes immersed in misery.
Through God's grace, we can come to realize something of our true spiritual identity as well. We can experience the same saving power of Christ, of the redeeming Truth that Jesus so perfectly lived.
Accepting God's gift of grace, even if at first on faith, we are impelled to reject our misperception of ourselves and others as incomplete and sinful. This is not to overlook sin but to look higher, to discern man's spiritual nature. As we do, we see a significant change in our activities. Inadequacy and wrongdoing just don't fit anymore. Our activities mirror our growing grasp of man's true identity.
Wrong thinking and acting, and sub-sequent feelings of unworthiness, shroud God's healing grace. They obscure Christ's revelation of the completeness and goodness our Father-Mother God has bestowed on His children. But acknowledging and conforming our lives to Christ's revelation, yielding to God's grace, we can be healed. We can see the completeness and goodness of our true identity, expressed in health and happiness. And we can recognize that we are always worthy of God's healing love.
Healing reveals our inherent perfection, our inherent worthiness as ``the outgrowth, the emanation,'' of God, good. It is the recognition of who we really are.
1The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. 2Science and Health, p. 519. 3Genesis 1:31. 4Ephesians 2:8-10. DAILY BIBLE VERSE: Ye are blessed of the Lord which made heaven and earth. Psalms 115:15
