Responsive Reading: Psalm 47 : 1, 4, 6; Psalm 104 : 24, 30, 31

1.     O clap your hands, all ye people; shout unto God with the voice of triumph.

4.     He shall choose our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob whom he loved.

6.     Sing praises to God, sing praises: sing praises unto our King, sing praises.

24.     O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches.

30.     Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth.

31.     The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever: the Lord shall rejoice in his works.

1. John 3 : 1-8

1     There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews:

2     The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.

3     Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

4     Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?

5     Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

6     That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

7     Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

8     The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

2. John 4 : 5-7, 9-24

5     Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.

6     Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.

7     There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.

9     Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.

10     Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.

11     The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?

12     Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?

13     Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:

14     But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

15     The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.

16     Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither.

17     The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband:

18     For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly.

19     The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.

20     Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.

21     Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.

22     Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.

23     But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

24     God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

3. John 20 : 24 (Thomas)-29

24     Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.

25     The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.

26     And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.

27     Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.

28     And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.

29     Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

4. Galatians 5 : 16-18, 22 (the fruit)-25

16     This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.

17     For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.

18     But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.

22     …the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

23     Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

24     And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

25     If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

5. Romans 8 : 2 (the law)

2     …the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

1. 109 : 32-7

The three great verities of Spirit, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, — Spirit possessing all power, filling all space, constituting all Science, — contradict forever the belief that matter can be actual. These eternal verities reveal primeval existence as the radiant reality of God's creation, in which all that He has made is pronounced by His wisdom good.

2. 222 : 31-13

We must destroy the false belief that life and intelligence are in matter, and plant ourselves upon what is pure and perfect. Paul said, "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." Sooner or later we shall learn that the fetters of man's finite capacity are forged by the illusion that he lives in body instead of in Soul, in matter instead of in Spirit.

Matter does not express Spirit. God is infinite omnipresent Spirit. If Spirit is all and is every-where, 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.

3. 140 : 4-22

That God is a corporeal being, nobody can truly affirm. The Bible represents Him as saying: "Thou canst not see My face; for there shall no man see Me, and live." Not materially but spiritually we know Him as divine Mind, as Life, Truth, and Love. We shall obey and adore in proportion as we apprehend the divine nature and love Him understandingly, warring no more over the corporeality, but rejoicing in the affluence of our God. Religion will then be of the heart and not of the head. Mankind will no longer be tyrannical and proscriptive from lack of love, — straining out gnats and swallowing camels.

We worship spiritually, only as we cease to worship materially. Spiritual devoutness is the soul of Christianity. Worshipping through the medium of matter is paganism. Judaic and other rituals are but types and shadows of true worship. "The true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth."

4. 317 : 16-21 next page

The individuality of man is no less tangible because it is spiritual and because his life is not at the mercy of matter. The understanding of his spiritual individuality makes man more real, more formidable in truth, and enables him to conquer sin, disease, and death. Our Lord and Master presented himself to his disciples after his resurrection from the grave, as the self-same Jesus whom they had loved before the tragedy on Calvary.

To the materialistic Thomas, looking for the ideal Saviour in matter instead of in Spirit and to the testimony of the material senses and the body, more than to Soul, for an earnest of immortality, — to him Jesus furnished the proof that he was unchanged by the crucifixion. To this dull and doubting disciple Jesus remained a fleshly reality, so long as the Master remained an inhabitant of the earth. Nothing but a display of matter could make existence real to Thomas. For him to believe in matter was no task, but for him to conceive of the substantiality of Spirit — to know that nothing can efface Mind and immortality, in which Spirit reigns — was more difficult.

Corporeal senses define diseases as realities; but the Scriptures declare that God made all, even while the corporeal senses are saying that matter causes disease and the divine Mind cannot or will not heal it. The material senses originate and support all that is material, untrue, selfish, or debased. They would put soul into soil, life into limbo, and doom all things to decay. We must silence this lie of material sense with the truth of spiritual sense. We must cause the error to cease that brought the belief of sin and death and would efface the pure sense of omnipotence.

Is the sick man sinful above all others? No! but so far as he is discordant, he is not the image of God. Weary of their material beliefs, from which comes so much suffering, invalids grow more spiritual, as the error — or belief that life is in matter — yields to the reality of spiritual Life.

5. 252 : 16-20, 31-8

Material sense lifts its voice with the arrogance of reality and says:

I am wholly dishonest, and no man knoweth it. I can cheat, lie, commit adultery, rob, murder, and I elude detection by smooth-tongued villainy.

Spirit, bearing opposite testimony, saith:

I am Spirit. Man, whose senses are spiritual, is my likeness. He reflects the infinite understanding, for I am Infinity. The beauty of holiness, the perfection of being, imperishable glory, — all are Mine, for I am God. I give immortality to man, for I am Truth. I include and impart all bliss, for I am Love. I give life, without beginning and without end, for I am Life. I am supreme and give all, for I am Mind. I am the substance of all, because I am that I am.

6. 492 : 3-6

For right reasoning there should be but one fact before the thought, namely, spiritual existence. In reality there is no other existence, since Life cannot be united to its unlikeness, mortality.

7. 471 : 13-20

The facts of divine Science should be admitted, — although the evidence as to these facts is not supported by evil, by matter, or by material sense, — because the evidence that God and man coexist is fully sustained by spiritual sense. Man is, and forever has been, God's reflection. God is infinite, therefore ever present, and there is no other power nor presence. Hence the spirituality of the universe is the only fact of creation.