Sunday, February 2nd, 2025 Roundtable
The Fruits of Loving God
This week’s Lesson Sermon Subject: Love
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Morning Prayer
Let the voice of Truth and Love be heard above the dire din of mortal nothingness, and the majestic march of Christian Science go on ad infinitum, praising God, doing the works of primitive Christianity, and enlightening the world.
from Miscellany, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 245
The government of divine Love is supreme. Love rules the universe, and its edict hath gone forth: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” and “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” Let us have the molecule of faith that removes mountains, — faith armed with the understanding of Love, as in divine Science, where right reigneth.
from Miscellany, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 278
God is Father, infinite, and this great truth, when understood in its divine metaphysics, will establish the brotherhood of man, end wars, and demonstrate “on earth peace, good will toward men.”
from Miscellany, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 279
Daily Watch
467 — WATCH that you be like a spider, always ready to rebuild your web whenever it seems to be destroyed; but your web is a web of love, the healing atmosphere of good. How patiently and persistently the spider is ready to make a new web, when the old one is brushed away. No matter how many times the devil claims to brush God out of our thoughts, we are ready to rise up to realize His presence, and to pour out this consciousness to bless all.
Discussion points
2. 454
Love inspires, illumines, designates, and leads the way.
illumine
1. To illuminate; to enlighten; to throw or spread light on; to make light or bright.
2. To enlighten, as the mind; to cause to understand.
3. To brighten; to adorn.
“To get personal absolutely stops all progress for the moment because you have got in a third and that means that God is not All-in-all. You must see God as all there is to any person for your communion is with God every instant. In fact it is because of your oneness with God that you are even aware of a person, place or thing. God embraces within Himself all person, place and thing and you know this.”
Metaphysical Statements Excerpted From Letters By Herbert W. Eustace, C.S.B. p. 43. Letter written 10/8/1935
The Greatest Thing in the World by Henry Drummond
All Love Does by Mary Baker Eddy
Golden Text: Romans 8 : 28
“All things work together for good to them that love God.”
Psalm 91 : 14-16
14 Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.
15 He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him.
16 With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.
Hymn 160, words by Mary Baker Eddy
Kindness
1. Good will; benevolence; that temper or disposition which delights in contributing to the happiness of others, which is exercised cheerfully in gratifying their wishes, supplying their wants or alleviating their distresses; benignity of nature. kindness ever accompanies love.
2. Act of good will; beneficence; any act of benevolence which promotes the happiness or welfare of others. Charity, hospitality, attentions to the wants of others, etc., are deemed acts of kindness or kindnesses. Acts 28:2.
Mrs. Eddy’s demonstration of love would not permit her to harbor aught but a forgiving thought. On January 29, 1904, she said to her household, “Wrongs are done to me, and yet I turn right around and do them a kindness; not because I intend to do so, but I cannot help it; I do it without thinking.”
Here we have our Leader revealing a great metaphysical point about herself, in a way that to the thoughtless might seem merely a declaration of sentiment, or of an inherently sweet nature. In reality it was her declaration that she functioned under God, so that whatever she said or did by way of treating people in a kindly way, was not because she was a good woman, moral, unselfish and sweet tempered, but because she had demonstrated God’s government to such an extent that it had become second nature; whatever God required her to do, she had to do it.
To think of Mrs. Eddy as doing good because it was an inherent human instinct, was not the right conception of her. In Christian Science students should not express unselfishness and share with others, just because they believe they have loving natures of themselves; but because they know they are governed by God. To be sure, they should always act in a way that will call forth human commendation and regard, but they should do it wholly as Mrs. Eddy did. She made a law for herself that she could not help being kind, because she was governed by a kind God. Christian Science does not merely engender the development of human virtues; it requires one to reflect God. Mrs. Eddy claimed no self-derived virtue. She did not express love from a human motivation of unselfishness and kindness, but from the basis of obedience to and the reflection of God. She did what He told her to do. When He told her to be stern, she had to be stern, no matter how much she might have wished to be otherwise.
In her famous class of ’98 she was asked if Scientists ought to reprove error in others, or if the realization of Love would destroy it without an audible rebuke. She answered, “One of the hardest things I have had to do was to deal with this very question. I would rather at any time dwell on Love alone, and get away from error; but that would not do. It would allow error to increase. Jesus rebuked sharply. I must do so until I arrive at that place in Mind where I cannot see error, where God, Spirit, is All-in-all.” …
If we would be followers of Mrs. Eddy, we must follow her in all her ways. We must be guided by God to know when to commend, when to rebuke, when to speak forcefully or when to give the soft answer that turneth away wrath.
Our Leader’s own inclination was never to rebuke — but God required her to do so, and it was a cross she had to bear.
Mary Baker Eddy, Her Spiritual Precepts by Gilbert Carpenter
Recollections of Mary Baker Eddy by James F. Gilman
A student must learn to aim at the error that an individual is expressing, without personalizing it.
Mary Baker Eddy, Her Spiritual Precepts by Gilbert Carpenter