Don't look on the 'outward appearance'

More from this week's Bible Lesson on Unreality and how shining the light of Truth on a problem or situation brings healing.

In section four we read about a leper who approached Jesus. This took courage because, by the law of his da,y he was forbidden to come within a certain distance of others. They saw leprosy as a punishment inflicted by God for some great sin. But this is not how Jesus saw those who came to him for healing. The verse from II Corinthians sets up the spiritual lesson for us and asks a very important question: "Do you look on things after the outward appearance?". How often are we tempted, when faced with the appearance of disease or lack or inharmony, to believe that it is the reality and then try to heal it through prayer? What we do in Christian Science is to pray, not about the outward appearance, but to start from the premise that God, good, fills all space and that each of us is His image and likeness, already and always whole, completely supplied, and living a harmonious life. We pray to heal the false belief or suggestion that disease or lack or inharmony is present. The correction must take place in thought and then it removes the false belief and suggestion and the problem is healed.

The leper tells Jesus that he beleives if Jesus chooses to he can make the man clean of leprosy. This man had great faith and absolute conviction that Jesus could do it, he just feared that Jesus might see him as unworthy and choose not to do it. Jesus, ever filled with compassion, did not look on the outward appearance but saw right through the illusion to the pure and innocent child of God. He tells the man that he will heal him...be thou clean. See yourself as who you really are and be cleansed of this false belief. As soon as he spoke, all evidence of the leprosy disappeared. That's what happens when the light of Truth shines on some dark problem and its unreality fades.

This section in Science and Health sums it up this way: "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light". (Isa 9:2)  I love what Mrs. Eddy writes about the practitioner's role in healing. "To the Christian Science healer, sickness is a dream from which the patient needs to be awakened. Disease should not appear real to the physician, since it is demonstrable that the way to cure the patient is to make disease unreal to him." (S&H 417)

Here's something that is so wonderful! "Christian Science brings to the body the sunlight of Truth, which invigorates and purifies. Christian Science acts as an alterative, neutralizing error with Truth. It changes secretions, expels humors, dissolves tumors, relaxes rigid muscles, restores carrious bones to soundness. The effect of this Science is to stir the human mind to a change of base, on which it may yield to the harmony of the divine Mind". (S&H 135) How does Mrs. Eddy know this? Because she applied it and demonstrated all those things for others. She healed as Jesus healed and wrote Science and Health so we can too. If you think reading the book can't help you and your problem just read the last 100 pages, filled with testimonies of those healed of all manner of sickness and all manner of disease as they read it. Don't have a copy? Email me at candace@dragontayl.com and I'll send you one as a gift.