Theme: Hope
Hymn 7
Bertha H. Woods – Based on hymn by H. F. Lyte
Abide with me; fast breaks the morning light;
Our daystar rises, banishing all night;
Thou art our strength, O Truth that maketh
free,
We would unfailingly abide in Thee.
I know no fear, with Thee at hand to bless,
Sin hath no power and life no wretchedness;
Health, hope and love in all around I see
For those who trustingly abide in Thee.
I know Thy presence every passing hour,
I know Thy peace, for Thou alone art power;
O Love divine, abiding constantly,
I need not plead, Thou dost abide with me.
Readings from the Bible
Job 11:13‑18
If thou prepare thine heart,
and stretch out thine hands toward him; If iniquity be in thine hand, put it
far away, and let not wickedness dwell in thy tabernacles. For then shalt thou lift up thy face without
spot; yea, thou shalt be stedfast, and shalt not fear: Because thou shalt
forget thy misery, and remember it as waters that pass away: And thine age
shall be clearer than the noonday; thou shalt shine forth, thou shalt be as the
morning. And thou shalt be secure,
because there is hope; yea, thou shalt dig about thee, and thou shalt take thy
rest in safety.
Psalms 16:5‑11
The Lord is the portion of
mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant
places; yea, I have a goodly heritage. I
will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel: my reins also instruct me in
the night seasons. I have set the Lord
always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory
rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope.
For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine
Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt
shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand
there are pleasures for evermore.
Psalms 31:23,24
O love the Lord, all ye his
saints: for the Lord preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the
proud doer. Be of good courage, and he
shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.
Psalms 71:1‑5
In thee, O Lord, do I put my
trust: let me never be put to confusion.
Deliver me in thy righteousness, and cause me to escape: incline thine
ear unto me, and save me. Be thou my
strong habitation, whereunto I may continually resort: thou hast given
commandment to save me; for thou art my rock and my fortress. Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the
wicked, out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man. For thou art my hope, O Lord God: thou art my
trust from my youth.
Psalms 130:5‑7
I wait for the Lord, my soul
doth wait, and in his word do I hope. My
soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say,
more than they that watch for the morning.
Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with
him is plenteous redemption.
Proverbs 10:27‑30
The fear of the Lord
prolongeth days: but the years of the wicked shall be shortened. The hope of the righteous shall be gladness:
but the expectation of the wicked shall perish.
The way of the Lord is strength to the upright: but destruction shall be
to the workers of iniquity. The
righteous shall never be removed: but the wicked shall not inhabit the earth.
Jeremiah 17:7,8
Blessed is the man that
trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the
waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when
heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year
of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.
Lamentations 3:22‑26
It is of the Lord's mercies
that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy
faithfulness. The Lord is my portion,
saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.
The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh
him. It is good that a man should both
hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.
Acts 2:21‑28 it
it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall
call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of
God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the
midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: Him, being delivered by the
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked
hands have crucified and slain: Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the
pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it. For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw
the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not
be moved: Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also
my flesh shall rest in hope: Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell,
neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life;
thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance.
Romans 5:1‑5 being
being justified by faith, we
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access
by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of
God. And not only so, but we glory in
tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; And patience,
experience; and experience, hope: And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love
of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.
Romans 15:13
Now the God of hope fill you
with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the
power of the Holy Ghost.
I Peter 1:3‑9,13
Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten
us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away,
reserved in heaven for you, Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto
salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye greatly rejoice,
though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold
temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of
gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise
and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: Whom having not seen, ye
love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy
unspeakable and full of glory: Receiving the end of your faith, even the
salvation of your souls.
Wherefore gird up the loins
of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought
unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;
Readings from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.
14:12
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.
22:3
Vibrating like a pendulum between sin and the
hope of forgiveness,‑‑selfishness and sensuality causing constant
retrogression,‑‑our moral progress will be slow. Waking to Christ's demand, mortals experience
suffering. This causes them, even as
drowning men, to make vigorous efforts to save themselves; and through Christ's
precious love these efforts are crowned with success.
40:31
The nature of Christianity is peaceful and
blessed, but in order to enter into the kingdom, the anchor of hope must be
cast beyond the veil of matter into the Shekinah into which Jesus has passed
before us; and this advance beyond matter must come through the joys and
triumphs of the righteous as well as through their sorrows and
afflictions. Like our Master, we must
depart from material sense into the spiritual sense of being.
55:15‑29
Truth's immortal idea is sweeping down the
centuries, gathering beneath its wings the sick and sinning. My weary hope tries to realize that happy
day, when man shall recognize the Science of Christ and love his neighbor as
himself,‑‑when he shall realize God's omnipotence and the healing power of the
divine Love in what it has done and is doing for mankind. The promises will be fulfilled. The time for the reappearing of the divine
healing is throughout all time; and whosoever layeth his earthly all on the
altar of divine Science, drinketh of Christ's cup now, and is endued with the
spirit and power of Christian healing.
In the words of St. John: "He shall give
you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever." This
Comforter I understand to be Divine Science.
109:11
For three years after my discovery, I sought
the solution of this problem of Mind‑healing, searched the Scriptures and read
little else, kept aloof from society, and devoted time and energies to
discovering a positive rule. The search
was sweet, calm, and buoyant with hope, not selfish nor depressing. I knew the Principle of all harmonious Mind‑action
to be God, and that cures were produced in primitive Christian healing by holy,
uplifting faith; but I must know the Science of this healing, and I won my way
to absolute conclusions through divine revelation, reason, and demonstration. The revelation of Truth in the understanding
came to me gradually and apparently through divine power. When a new spiritual idea is borne to earth,
the prophetic Scripture of Isaiah is renewedly fulfilled: "Unto us a child
is born, . . . and his name shall be called Wonderful."
125:12
As human thought changes from one stage to
another of conscious pain and painlessness, sorrow and joy,‑‑from fear to hope
and from faith to understanding,‑‑the visible manifestation will at last be man
governed by Soul, not by material sense.
Reflecting God's government, man is self‑governed. When subordinate to the divine Spirit, man
cannot be controlled by sin or death, thus proving our material theories about
laws of health to be valueless.
297:32‑24
A mortal belief fulfils its own
conditions. Sickness, sin, and death are
the vague realities of human conclusions.
Life, Truth, and Love are the realities of divine Science. They dawn in faith and glow full‑orbed in
spiritual understanding. As a cloud
hides the sun it cannot extinguish, so false belief silences for a while the
voice of immutable harmony, but false belief cannot destroy Science armed with
faith, hope, and fruition.
What is termed material sense can report only
a mortal temporary sense of things, whereas spiritual sense can bear witness
only to Truth. To material sense, the
unreal is the real until this sense is corrected by Christian Science.
Spiritual sense, contradicting the material
senses, involves intuition, hope, faith, understanding, fruition, reality. Material sense expresses the belief that mind
is in matter. This human belief,
alternating between a sense of pleasure and pain, hope and fear, life and
death, never reaches beyond the boundary of the mortal or the unreal. When the real is attained, which is announced
by Science, joy is no longer a trembler, nor is hope a cheat. Spiritual ideas, like numbers and notes,
start from Principle, and admit no materialistic beliefs. Spiritual ideas lead up to their divine
origin, God, and to the spiritual sense of being.
301:5‑20
Few persons comprehend what Christian Science
means by the word reflection. To himself, mortal and material man seems to
be substance, but his sense of substance involves error and therefore is
material, temporal.
On the other hand, the immortal, spiritual
man is really substantial, and reflects the eternal substance, or Spirit, which
mortals hope for. He reflects the
divine, which constitutes the only real and eternal entity. This reflection seems to mortal sense
transcendental, because the spiritual man's substantiality transcends mortal
vision and is revealed only through divine Science.
As God is substance and man is the divine
image and likeness, man should wish for, and in reality has, only the substance
of good, the substance of Spirit, not matter.
367:24
The infinite Truth of the Christ‑cure has
come to this age through a "still, small voice," through silent
utterances and divine anointing which quicken and increase the beneficial
effects of Christianity. I long to see
the consummation of my hope, namely, the student's higher attainments in this
line of light.
393:29
Man is never sick, for Mind is not sick and
matter cannot be. A false belief is both
the tempter and the tempted, the sin and the sinner, the disease and its cause. It is well to be calm in sickness; to be
hopeful is still better; but to understand that sickness is not real and that
Truth can destroy its seeming reality, is best of all, for this understanding
is the universal and perfect remedy.
446:15
Good must dominate in the
thoughts of the healer, or his demonstration is protracted, dangerous, and
impossible in Science. A wrong motive
involves defeat. In the Science of Mind‑healing,
it is imperative to be honest, for victory rests on the side of immutable
right. To understand God strengthens
hope, enthrones faith in Truth, and verifies Jesus' word: "Lo, I am with
you alway, even unto the end of the world."
Silent prayer followed by the audible repetition of the Lord’s Prayer.
Hymn 30
Love – With words by Mary Baker Eddy
Brood o'er us with Thy shelt'ring wing,
'Neath which our spirits blend
Like brother birds, that soar and sing,
And on the same branch bend.
The arrow that doth wound the dove
Darts not from those who watch and love.
If thou the bending reed wouldst break
By thought or word unkind,
Pray that his spirit you partake,
Who loved and healed mankind:
Seek holy thoughts and heavenly strain,
That make men one in love remain.
Learn, too, that wisdom's rod is given
For faith to kiss, and know;
That greetings glorious from high heaven,
Whence joys supernal flow,
Come from that Love, divinely near,
Which chastens pride and earth‑born fear,
Through God, who gave that word of might
Which swelled creation's lay:
"Let there be light, and there was
light."
What chased the clouds away?
'Twas Love whose finger traced aloud
A bow of promise on the cloud.
Thou to whose power our hope we give,
Free us from human strife.
Fed by Thy love divine we live,
For Love alone is Life;
And life most sweet, as heart to heart
Speaks kindly when we meet and part.
Sharing of experiences, testimonies and remarks by members of the congregation.
Hymn 213
Isaac Watts*
O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for time to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home.
Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God,
To endless years the same.
A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone,
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.
O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for time to come,
Thou art our guard while ages last,
And our eternal home.
