Theme: Ready
Hymn 58
Elizabeth C. Adams
Father, we Thy loving children
Lift
our hearts in joy today,
Knowing well that Thou wilt keep us
Ever in Thy blessed way.
Thou art Love and Thou art wisdom,
Thou art Life and Thou art All;
In Thy Spirit living, moving,
We shall neither faint nor fall.
Come we daily then, dear Father,
Open hearts and willing hands,
Eager ears, expectant, joyful,
Ready for Thy right commands.
We would hear no other voices,
We would heed no other call;
Thou alone art good and gracious,
Thou our Mind and Thou our All.
In Thy house securely dwelling,
Where Thy children live to bless,
Seeing only Thy creation,
We can share Thy happiness,
Share Thy joy and spend it freely.
Loyal hearts can feel no fear;
We Thy children know Thee, Father,
Love and Life forever near.
Readings from the Bible
Psalms 86:1‑12
Bow down thine ear, O Lord,
hear me: for I am poor and needy.
Preserve my soul; for I am holy: O thou my God, save thy servant that
trusteth in thee. Be merciful unto me, O
Lord: for I cry unto thee daily. Rejoice
the soul of thy servant: for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to
forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee. Give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer; and attend
to the voice of my supplications.
In the
day of my trouble I will call upon thee: for thou wilt answer me. Among the gods there is none like unto thee,
O Lord; neither are there any works like unto thy works. All nations whom thou hast made shall come
and worship before thee, O Lord; and shall glorify thy name. For thou art great, and doest wondrous
things: thou art God alone. Teach me thy
way, O Lord; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name. I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all
my heart: and I will glorify thy name for evermore.
Isaiah 32:1‑4
Behold, a king shall reign in
righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. And a man shall be as an hiding place from
the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as
the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them
that hear shall hearken. The heart also
of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall
be ready to speak plainly.
Matthew 24:42‑44
#Watch therefore: for ye know
not what hour your Lord doth come. But
know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief
would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be
broken up. Therefore be ye also ready:
for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.
Mark 14:32‑38 they
they came to a place which was named
Gethsemane: and he saith to his disciples, Sit ye here, while I shall
pray. And he taketh with him Peter and
James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy; And saith
unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here, and
watch.
And he went forward a little, and
fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass
from him. And he said, Abba, Father, all
things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not
what I will, but what thou wilt. And he
cometh, and findeth them sleeping, and saith unto Peter, Simon, sleepest thou?
couldest not thou watch one hour? Watch
ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the
flesh is weak.
Luke 12:32‑40
Fear not, little flock; for
it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide
yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not,
where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. For where your treasure is, there will your
heart be also. Let your loins be girded
about, and your lights burning; And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for
their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and
knocketh, they may open unto him immediately.
Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find
watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to
sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them. And if he shall come in the second watch, or
come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. And this know, that if the goodman of the
house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched, and not
have suffered his house to be broken through.
Be ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye
think not.
I Timothy 6:17‑19
Charge them that are rich in
this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in
the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; That they do good,
that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate;
Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come,
that they may lay hold on eternal life.
I Peter 1:3‑9
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.
I Peter 5:2,3
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.
Readings from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.
8:22‑30
If we turn away from the
poor, we are not ready to receive the reward of Him who blesses the poor. We confess to having a very wicked heart and
ask that it may be laid bare before us, but do we not already know more of this
heart than we are willing to have our neighbor see?
We should examine ourselves and learn what is
the affection and purpose of the heart, for in this way only can we learn what
we honestly are.
49:14
The meek demonstrator of good, the highest
instructor and friend of man, met his earthly fate alone with God. No human eye was there to pity, no arm to
save. Forsaken by all whom he had
blessed, this faithful sentinel of God at the highest post of power, charged
with the grandest trust of heaven, was ready to be transformed by the renewing
of the infinite Spirit. He was to prove
that the Christ is not subject to material conditions, but is above the reach
of human wrath, and is able, through Truth, Life, and Love, to triumph over
sin, sickness, death, and the grave.
53:25‑17
Jesus bore our sins in his body. He knew the mortal errors which constitute
the material body, and could destroy those errors; but at the time when Jesus
felt our infirmities, he had not conquered all the beliefs of the flesh or his
sense of material life, nor had he risen to his final demonstration of
spiritual power.
Had he shared the sinful beliefs of others,
he would have been less sensitive to those beliefs. Through the magnitude of his human life, he
demonstrated the divine Life. Out of the
amplitude of his pure affection, he defined Love. With the affluence of Truth, he vanquished
error. The world acknowledged not his
righteousness, seeing it not; but earth received the harmony his glorified
example introduced.
Who is ready to follow his teaching and
example? All must sooner or later plant
themselves in Christ, the true idea of God.
That he might liberally pour his dear‑bought treasures into empty or sin‑filled
human storehouses, was the inspiration of Jesus' intense human sacrifice. In witness of his divine commission, he
presented the proof that Life, Truth, and Love heal the sick and the sinning,
and triumph over death through Mind, not matter. This was the highest proof he could have
offered of divine Love.
131:13
Must Christian Science come through the
Christian churches as some persons insist?
This Science has come already, after the manner of God's appointing, but
the churches seem not ready to receive it, according to the Scriptural saying,
"He came unto his own, and his own received him not." Jesus once said: "I thank Thee, O
Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hid these things from the wise
and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes:
even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight." As aforetime, the spirit of the Christ, which
taketh away the ceremonies and doctrines of men, is not accepted until the
hearts of men are made ready for it.
170:22
Spiritual causation is the one question to be
considered, for more than all others spiritual causation relates to human
progress. The age seems ready to approach this subject, to ponder somewhat the
supremacy of Spirit, and at least to touch the hem of Truth's garment.
223:7‑19
Matter does not express Spirit. God is infinite omnipresent Spirit. If Spirit is all and is everywhere, what and where is matter? Remember that truth is greater than error,
and we cannot put the greater into the less.
Soul is Spirit, and Spirit is greater than body. If Spirit were once within the body, Spirit
would be finite, and therefore could not be Spirit.
The question, "What is Truth,"
convulses the world. Many are ready to
meet this inquiry with the assurance which comes of understanding; but more are
blinded by their old illusions, and try to "give it pause." "If the blind lead the blind, both shall
fall into the ditch."
346:29
Material beliefs must be expelled to make
room for spiritual understanding. We
cannot serve both God and mammon at the same time; but is not this what frail
mortals are trying to do? Paul says:
"The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the
flesh." Who is ready to admit
this?
353:1‑24
The Christianly scientific real is the
sensuous unreal. Sin, disease, whatever
seems real to material sense, is unreal in divine Science. The physical senses and Science have ever
been antagonistic, and they will so continue, till the testimony of the
physical senses yields entirely to Christian Science.
How can a Christian, having the stronger
evidence of Truth which contradicts the evidence of error, think of the latter
as real or true, either in the form of sickness or of sin? All must admit that Christ is "the way,
the truth, and the life," and that omnipotent Truth certainly does destroy
error.
The age has not wholly outlived the sense of
ghostly beliefs. It still holds them
more or less. Time has not yet reached
eternity, immortality, complete reality.
All the real is eternal.
Perfection underlies reality.
Without perfection, nothing is wholly real. All things will continue to disappear, until
perfection appears and reality is reached.
We must give up the spectral at all points. We must not continue to admit the
somethingness of superstition, but we must yield up all belief in it and be
wise. When we learn that error is not
real, we shall be ready for progress, "forgetting those things which are
behind."
409:27‑21
We have no right to say that life depends on
matter now, but will not depend on it after death. We cannot spend our days here in ignorance of
the Science of Life, and expect to find beyond the grave a reward for this
ignorance. Death will not make us
harmonious and immortal as a recompense for ignorance. If here we give no heed to Christian Science,
which is spiritual and eternal, we shall not be ready for spiritual Life
hereafter.
"This is life eternal," says Jesus,‑‑is, not shall be; and then he defines everlasting life as a present
knowledge of his Father and of himself,‑‑the knowledge of Love, Truth, and
Life. "This is life eternal, that
they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast
sent." The Scriptures say,
"Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God," showing that
Truth is the actual life of man; but mankind objects to making this teaching
practical.
Every trial of our faith in God makes us
stronger. The more difficult seems the
material condition to be overcome by Spirit, the stronger should be our faith
and the purer our love. The Apostle John
says: "There is no fear in Love, but perfect Love casteth out fear. . . .
He that feareth is not made perfect in Love." Here is a definite and inspired proclamation
of Christian Science.
425:29‑11
If you have sound and capacious lungs and
want them to remain so, be always ready with the mental protest against the opposite
belief in heredity. Discard all notions
about lungs, tubercles, inherited consumption, or disease arising from any
circumstance, and you will find that mortal mind, when instructed by Truth,
yields to divine power, which steers the body into health.
The discoverer of Christian Science finds the
path less difficult when she has the high goal always before her thoughts, than
when she counts her footsteps in endeavoring to reach it. When the destination is desirable,
expectation speeds our progress. The
struggle for Truth makes one strong instead of weak, resting instead of
wearying one.
458:11‑15 (to 1st .)
It is anything but scientifically Christian
to think of aiding the divine Principle of healing or of trying to sustain the
human body until the divine Mind is ready to take the case. Divinity is always ready.
570:14
Millions of unprejudiced minds‑‑simple
seekers for Truth, weary wanderers, athirst in the desert‑‑are waiting and
watching for rest and drink. Give them a
cup of cold water in Christ's name, and never fear the consequences. What if the old dragon should send forth a
new flood to drown the Christ‑idea? He
can neither drown your voice with its roar, nor again sink the world into the
deep waters of chaos and old night. In
this age the earth will help the woman; the spiritual idea will be
understood. Those ready for the blessing
you impart will give thanks. The waters
will be pacified, and Christ will command the wave.
Silent prayer followed by the
audible repetition of the Lord’s Prayer.
Hymn 254
Christ My Refuge – Mary Baker Eddy
O'er waiting harpstrings of the mind
There sweeps a strain,
Low, sad, and sweet, whose measures bind
The power of pain,
And wake a white‑winged angel throng
Of thoughts, illumed
By faith, and breathed in raptured song,
With love perfumed.
Then His unveiled, sweet mercies show
Life's burdens light.
I kiss the cross, and wake to know
A world more bright.
And o'er earth's troubled, angry sea
I see Christ walk,
And come to me, and tenderly,
Divinely talk.
Thus Truth engrounds me on the rock,
Upon Life's shore,
'Gainst which the winds and waves can shock,
Oh, nevermore!
From tired joy and grief afar,
And nearer Thee,‑‑
Father, where Thine own children are,
I love to be.
My prayer, some daily good to do
To Thine, for Thee;
An offering pure of Love, whereto
God leadeth me.
Sharing of experiences, testimonies and remarks by members of the congregation.
Hymn 318
Based on the Danish of Nikolaj F. S. Grundtvig
Suffer the children to come to me,
This was the Master's tender plea;
Gentle and loving, they are mine,
Ah, will not ye who see this sign
Come unto me?
He who receiveth the Word as they,
Teachable, ready to choose my way,
He shall have peace of sin forgiven,
He shall in this wise enter heaven;
Come unto me.
See ye the lilies, how fair they grow,
Clothed in a glory kings ne'er know;
They, like the sparrows, praise the Lord,
Publish my call with clear accord,
Come unto me.
