Service for Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2010

Theme: Dominion

Hymn 12

Violet Hay

Arise ye people, take your stand,

Cast out your idols from the land,

Above all doctrine, form or creed

Is found the Truth that meets your need.

Christ's promise stands: they that believe

His works shall do, his power receive.

Go forward then, and as ye preach

So let your works confirm your speech,

And prove to all with following sign

The Word of God is power divine.

In love and healing ministry

Show forth the Truth that makes men free.

O Father‑Mother God, whose plan

Hath given dominion unto man,

In Thine own image we may see

Man pure and upright, whole and free.

And ever through our work shall shine

That light whose glory, Lord, is Thine.

Readings from the Bible.

Genesis 1:26‑28

#And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Psalms 8:1‑9

O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth!

Psalms 72:1‑8,17‑19 (to ;)

Give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king's son. He shall judge thy people with righteousness, and thy poor with judgment. The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the little hills, by righteousness. He shall judge the poor of the people, he shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor. They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations. He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth. In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.

His name shall endure for ever: his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and men shall be blessed in him: all nations shall call him blessed. Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things. And blessed be his glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory;

Psalms 145:1‑5,7‑20 (to :)

I will extol thee, my God, O king; and I will bless thy name for ever and ever. Every day will I bless thee; and I will praise thy name for ever and ever. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise thy works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts. I will speak of the glorious honour of thy majesty, and of thy wondrous works.

They shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness, and shall sing of thy righteousness. The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy. The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works. All thy works shall praise thee, O Lord; and thy saints shall bless thee. They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom, and talk of thy power; To make known to the sons of men his mighty acts, and the glorious majesty of his kingdom. Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations. The Lord upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up all those that be bowed down. The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season. Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing. The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works. The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth. He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him: he also will hear their cry, and will save them. The Lord preserveth all them that love him:

Daniel 4:3

How great are his signs! and how mighty are his wonders! his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion is from generation to generation.

I Peter 4:10,11 (to 1st .)

As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever.

I Peter 5:2‑11 (to 1st .)

Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; Neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away. Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever.

Jude 1:17‑21 beloved,24,25

beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit. But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.

Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

Readings from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.

14:12‑30

Become conscious for a single moment that Life and intelligence are purely spiritual,‑‑neither in nor of matter,‑‑and the body will then utter no complaints. If suffering from a belief in sickness, you will find yourself suddenly well. Sorrow is turned into joy when the body is controlled by spiritual Life, Truth, and Love. Hence the hope of the promise Jesus bestows: "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; . . . because I go unto my Father,"‑‑[because the Ego is absent from the body, and present with Truth and Love.] The Lord's Prayer is the prayer of Soul, not of material sense.

Entirely separate from the belief and dream of material living, is the Life divine, revealing spiritual understanding and the consciousness of man's dominion over the whole earth. This understanding casts out error and heals the sick, and with it you can speak "as one having authority."

125:21‑2 (to 1st .)

The seasons will come and go with changes of time and tide, cold and heat, latitude and longitude. The agriculturist will find that these changes cannot affect his crops. "As a vesture shalt Thou change them and they shall be changed." The mariner will have dominion over the atmosphere and the great deep, over the fish of the sea and the fowls of the air. The astronomer will no longer look up to the stars,‑‑he will look out from them upon the universe; and the florist will find his flower before its seed.

Thus matter will finally be proved nothing more than a mortal belief, wholly inadequate to affect a man through its supposed organic action or supposed existence.

143:26‑1

Mind is the grand creator, and there can be no power except that which is derived from Mind. If Mind was first chronologically, is first potentially, and must be first eternally, then give to Mind the glory, honor, dominion, and power everlastingly due its holy name. Inferior and unspiritual methods of healing may try to make Mind and drugs coalesce, but the two will not mingle scientifically.

165:1‑15

Physiology is one of the apples from "the tree of knowledge." Evil declared that eating this fruit would open man's eyes and make him as a god. Instead of so doing, it closed the eyes of mortals to man's God‑given dominion over the earth.

To measure intellectual capacity by the size of the brain and strength by the exercise of muscle, is to subjugate intelligence, to make mind mortal, and to place this so‑called mind at the mercy of material organization and non‑intelligent matter.

Obedience to the so‑called physical laws of health has not checked sickness. Diseases have multiplied, since man‑made material theories took the place of spiritual truth.

200:8‑19

Whoever is incompetent to explain Soul would be wise not to undertake the explanation of body. Life is, always has been, and ever will be independent of matter; for Life is God, and man is the idea of God, not formed materially but spiritually, and not subject to decay and dust. The Psalmist said: "Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands. Thou hast put all things under his feet."

The great truth in the Science of being, that the real man was, is, and ever shall be perfect, is incontrovertible; for if man is the image, reflection, of God, he is neither inverted nor subverted, but upright and Godlike.

228:3‑19

The transmission of disease or of certain idiosyncrasies of mortal mind would be impossible if this great fact of being were learned,‑‑namely, that nothing inharmonious can enter being, for Life is God. Heredity is a prolific subject for mortal belief to pin theories upon; but if we learn that nothing is real but the right, we shall have no dangerous inheritances, and fleshly ills will disappear.

The enslavement of man is not legitimate. It will cease when man enters into his heritage of freedom, his God‑given dominion over the material senses. Mortals will some day assert their freedom in the name of Almighty God. Then they will control their own bodies through the understanding of divine Science. Dropping their present beliefs, they will recognize harmony as the spiritual reality and discord as the material unreality.

307:25

Truth has no beginning. The divine Mind is the Soul of man, and gives man dominion over all things. Man was not created from a material basis, nor bidden to obey material laws which Spirit never made; his province is in spiritual statutes, in the higher law of Mind.

316:12

Jesus represented Christ, the true idea of God. Hence the warfare between this spiritual idea and perfunctory religion, between spiritual clear‑sightedness and the blindness of popular belief, which led to the conclusion that the spiritual idea could be killed by crucifying the flesh. The Christ‑idea, or the Christ‑man, rose higher to human view because of the crucifixion, and thus proved that Truth was the master of death. Christ presents the indestructible man, whom Spirit creates, constitutes, and governs. Christ illustrates that blending with God, his divine Principle, which gives man dominion over all the earth.

381:20

Think less of the enactments of mortal mind, and you will sooner grasp man's God‑given dominion. You must understand your way out of human theories relating to health, or you will never believe that you are quite free from some ailment. The harmony and immortality of man will never be reached without the understanding that Mind is not in matter. Let us banish sickness as an outlaw, and abide by the rule of perpetual harmony,‑‑God's law. It is man's moral right to annul an unjust sentence, a sentence never inflicted by divine authority.

515:11‑24

Genesis i. 26. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

The eternal Elohim includes the forever universe. The name Elohim is in the plural, but this plurality of Spirit does not imply more than one God, nor does it imply three persons in one. It relates to the oneness, the tri‑unity of Life, Truth, and Love. "Let them have dominion." Man is the family name for all ideas,‑‑the sons and daughters of God. All that God imparts moves in accord with Him, reflecting goodness and power.

517:30

Divine Love blesses its own ideas, and causes them to multiply,‑‑to manifest His power. Man is not made to till the soil. His birthright is dominion, not subjection. He is lord of the belief in earth and heaven,‑‑himself subordinate alone to his Maker. This is the Science of being.

531:25‑32

Which institutes Life,‑‑matter or Mind? Does Life begin with Mind or with matter? Is Life sustained by matter or by Spirit? Certainly not by both, since flesh wars against Spirit and the corporeal senses can take no cognizance of Spirit. The mythologic theory of material life at no point resembles the scientifically Christian record of man as created by Mind in the image and likeness of God and having dominion over all the earth.

545:10‑11

Man, created by God, was given dominion over the whole earth.

Silent prayer, followed by the audible repetition of the Lord’s prayer.

Hymn 421

Violet Hay

From these Thy children gathered in Thy name,

From hearts made whole, from lips redeemed from woe,

Thy praise, O Father, shall forever flow.

Alleluia! Alleluia!

O perfect Life, in Thy completeness held,

None can beyond Thy omnipresence stray;

Safe in Thy Love, we live and sing alway

Alleluia! Alleluia!

O perfect Mind, reveal Thy likeness true,

That higher selfhood which we all must prove,

Joy and dominion, love reflecting Love.

Alleluia! Alleluia!

Thou, Soul, inspiring‑‑give us vision clear,

Break earth‑bound fetters, sweep away the veil,

Show the new heaven and earth that shall prevail.

Alleluia! Alleluia!

Sharing of experiences, testimonies and remarks by members of the congregationl

Hymn 382

Emily F. Seal

What is thy birthright, man,

Child of the perfect One;

What is thy Father's plan

For His beloved son?

Thou art Truth's honest child,

Of pure and sinless heart;

Thou treadest undefiled

In Christly paths apart.

Vain dreams shall disappear

As Truth dawns on the sight;

The phantoms of thy fear

Shall flee before the light.

Take then the sacred rod;

Thou art not error's thrall;

Thou hast the gift of God‑‑

Dominion over all.

No comments: