Responsive Reading: Psalm 119 : 33-37, 40

33.     Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes; and I shall keep it unto the end.

34.     Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart.

35.     Make me to go in the path of thy commandments; for therein do I delight.

36.     Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to covetousness.

37.     Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken thou me in thy way.

40.     Behold, I have longed after thy precepts: quicken me in thy righteousness.

1. Psalm 71 : 1 (to :), 3, 6 (my praise), 16

1     In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust:

3     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.

6     …my praise shall be continually of thee.

16     I will go in the strength of the Lord God: I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only.

2. Isaiah 42 : 1-6

1     Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.

2     He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.

3     A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.

4     He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law.

5     Thus saith God the Lord, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein:

6     I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles;

3. Matthew 8 : 5-10, 13

5     And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him,

6     And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.

7     And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him.

8     The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.

9     For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.

10     When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.

13     And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.

4. John 4 : 5 (to 2nd ,), 6, 7, 9-11, 13-21, 23, 24

5     Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar,

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?

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.

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.

5. Romans 8 : 1-6, 9 (to 1st .), 10 (the Spirit), 11, 14

1     There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

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

3     For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:

4     That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

5     For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.

6     For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

9     But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.

10     …the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

11     But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

14     For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.

6. I Thessalonians 5 : 19

19     Quench not the Spirit.

1. 331 : 11 (The)-16

The Scriptures imply that God is All-in-all. From this it follows that nothing possesses reality nor existence except the divine Mind and His ideas. The Scriptures also declare that God is Spirit. Therefore in Spirit all is harmony, and there can be no discord; all is Life, and there is no death.

2. 124 : 25-26 (to 1st .)

Spirit is the life, substance, and continuity of all things.

3. 468 : 8-15

Question. — What is the scientific statement of being?

Answer. — There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual.

4. 138 : 14-18

The supremacy of Spirit was the foundation on which Jesus built. His sublime summary points to the religion of Love.

Jesus established in the Christian era the precedent for all Christianity, theology, and healing.

5. 139 : 4-9

From beginning to end, the Scriptures are full of accounts of the triumph of Spirit, Mind, over matter. Moses proved the power of Mind by what men called miracles; so did Joshua, Elijah, and Elisha. The Christian era was ushered in with signs and wonders.

6. 494 : 15 (Jesus)-24

Jesus demonstrated the inability of corporeality, as well as the infinite ability of Spirit, thus helping erring human sense to flee from its own convictions and seek safety in divine Science. Reason, rightly directed, serves to correct the errors of corporeal sense; but sin, sickness, and death will seem real (even as the experiences of the sleeping dream seem real) until the Science of man's eternal harmony breaks their illusion with the unbroken reality of scientific being.

7. 428 : 22-29

The great spiritual fact must be brought out that man is, not shall be, perfect and immortal. We must hold forever the consciousness of existence, and sooner or later, through Christ and Christian Science, we must master sin and death. The evidence of man's immortality will become more apparent, as material beliefs are given up and the immortal facts of being are admitted.

8. 425 : 23-28

Consciousness constructs a better body when faith in matter has been conquered. Correct material belief by spiritual understanding, and Spirit will form you anew. You will never fear again except to offend God, and you will never believe that heart or any portion of the body can destroy you.

9. 170 : 14-17, 22-30 next page

The demands of Truth are spiritual, and reach the body through Mind. The best interpreter of man's needs said: "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink."

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.

The description of man as purely physical, or as both material and spiritual, — but in either case dependent upon his physical organization, — is the Pandora box, from which all ills have gone forth, especially despair. Matter, which takes divine power into its own hands and claims to be a creator, is a fiction, in which paganism and lust are so sanctioned by society that mankind has caught their moral contagion.

Through discernment of the spiritual opposite of materiality, even the way through Christ, Truth, man will reopen with the key of divine Science the gates of Paradise which human beliefs have closed, and will find himself unfallen, upright, pure, and free, not needing to consult almanacs for the probabilities either of his life or of the weather, not needing to study brainology to learn how much of a man he is.

Mind's control over the universe, including man, is no longer an open question, but is demonstrable Science. Jesus illustrated the divine Principle and the power of immortal Mind by healing sickness and sin and destroying the foundations of death.

Mistaking his origin and nature, man believes himself to be combined matter and Spirit. He believes that Spirit is sifted through matter, carried on a nerve, exposed to ejection by the operation of matter. The intellectual, the moral, the spiritual, — yea, the image of infinite Mind, — subject to non-intelligence!

No more sympathy exists between the flesh and Spirit than between Belial and Christ.

The so-called laws of matter are nothing but false beliefs that intelligence and life are present where Mind is not. These false beliefs are the procuring cause of all sin and disease. The opposite truth, that intelligence and life are spiritual, never material, destroys sin, sickness, and death.

10. 491 : 9-16

Man's spiritual individuality is never wrong. It is the likeness of man's Maker. Matter cannot connect mortals with the true origin and facts of being, in which all must end. It is only by acknowledging the supremacy of Spirit, which annuls the claims of matter, that mortals can lay off mortality and find the indissoluble spiritual link which establishes man forever in the divine likeness, inseparable from his creator.

11. 167 : 17-19, 22-31

To have one God and avail yourself of the power of Spirit, you must love God supremely.

It is not wise to take a halting and half-way position or to expect to work equally with Spirit and matter, Truth and error. There is but one way — namely, God and His idea — which leads to spiritual being. The scientific government of the body must be attained through the divine Mind. It is impossible to gain control over the body in any other way. On this fundamental point, timid conservatism is absolutely inadmissible. Only through radical reliance on Truth can scientific healing power be realized.

12. 393 : 8-15

Mind is the master of the corporeal senses, and can conquer sickness, sin, and death. Exercise this God-given authority. Take possession of your body, and govern its feeling and action. Rise in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike good. God has made man capable of this, and nothing can vitiate the ability and power divinely bestowed on man.