Healing Sickness
'HEAL the sick," said Christ Jesus (Matt. 10:8). And he was addressing not just the few individuals who were his disciples at the time. Jesus spoke to all the world. He had come to do the will of his Father (see John 5:30). The Father he referred to was God, whom he addressed in prayer as "Our Father."
If Jesus healed the sick and raised the dead in the name of God, he was certainly indicating that sickness and death are not the will of God.
If you and I are to do God's will, it is desirable that we do as Jesus did - overcome what is evil in our lives, including sickness. We can be reassured of our ability to do this by referring to the Science that underlies Christian healing - the Science of Christ. It shows that our actual identity is spiritual, of God, and not material. And it demonstrates that the organs and functions of the human body are subordinate to genuine, spiritual, divine laws of God, of good.
Christian Science, discovered by Mary Baker Eddy, points out that Jesus was God's messenger to mankind. That the truth he taught is the living Christ - God's message to mankind - which healed the sick during Jesus' three-year ministry and continues to do so in human lives today. The Christ, Truth, reveals to us the things of God.
Spiritual truth has its transforming, healing effect on a person's thought; it destroys mortal, erroneous concepts of oneself and replaces them with the powerful conviction that he or she is spiritual and perfect. This change of thought is manifested in physical healing. Christian Science, fully explained in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," by Mrs. Eddy, is right now healing sickness and overcoming the problems people face - by improving their concepts of God and creation. Jesus said, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world" (Matt. 28:20). That is, the truth he taught is eternal. And Science and Health says, "... Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy" (Pg. 477).
At a time when a large and ugly growth appeared on my forehead, I found myself not only frightened but embarrassed. Since I live in a small community, nearly everyone I see on the street and in local stores knows me. When people saw me they said, "You'd better do something about that thing!" (in tones of fear for my well-being). Strangers stared at me, too, and small children on the street looked at me and asked, "What's that?"
The method of Christian Science healing involves treatment through prayer alone. And I contacted a Christian Science practitioner and asked for such treatment. Immediately, physical improvement began. A practitioner works mentally, not physically; he or she turns to the spiritual truth of the patient's perfection as God's child and the unreality of anything evil - unlike God, and prayerfully applies these spiritual facts to the situation at hand.
Day after day the growth became smaller as the practitioner and I prayed. When it disappeared completely, everyone I met made a complimentary remark. It seemed the whole town was talking. When people asked, "Did you have surgery?" I replied, "No, I had Christian Science treatment." This gave me the opportunity to let them know that God's healing power is still with us, still overcoming evil.
Our daily experience is really our thinking. Our thoughts appear in our lives as human conditions and events. We must yield our thoughts to Love, Truth, Life, which the Bible shows to be God. Our lives and our world are transformed for the better in this way.
The Science of Christ, which has brought inspiration, healing, and guidance to mankind, will continue to do so "unto the end of the world" - until the limited, false, mortal concepts of existence are completely gone and we see God's perfect, spiritual creation in all places.
So, it's by understanding that God is Love and Life (as Jesus taught and demonstrated) that you can heal yourself and other people. You can find your true identity to be spiritual, perfect, eternal, made in God's image. And you can overcome all evil.
