First Church of Christ, Scientist, La Cañada Flintridge, California
Wednesday Meeting Readings
- Gen. 28:10-13, 15, 16, 20, 21
10¶ And Jacob went out from Beer–sheba, and went toward Haran.
11And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep.
12And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.
13And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac: the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed;
... 15And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of.
16¶ And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew it not.
20And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on,
21So that I come again to my father’s house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God:
- Ps. 18:1-6, 16, 24-26 (to ;), 27 (to ;), 28-32
1I will love thee, O Lord, my strength.
2The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.
3I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies.
4The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.
5The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me.
6In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears.
... 16He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters.
... 24Therefore hath the Lord recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his eyesight.
25With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful; with an upright man thou wilt shew thyself upright;
26With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure;
... 27For thou wilt save the afflicted people;
... 28For thou wilt light my candle: the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.
29For by thee I have run through a troop; and by my God have I leaped over a wall.
30As for God, his way is perfect: the word of the Lord is tried: he is a buckler to all those that trust in him.
31For who is God save the Lord? or who is a rock save our God?
32It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect.
- I Kings 19:1-12
1And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword.
2Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to-morrow about this time.
3And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life, and came to Beer–sheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there.
4¶ But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers.
5And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat.
6And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again.
7And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee.
8And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God.
9¶ And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah?
10And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.
11And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:
12And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
- Phil. 4:1, 4, 5, 7-9
1Therefore, my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved.
... 4Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice.
5Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand.
... 7And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
8Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
9Those things, which ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do: and the God of peace shall be with you.
- SH 275:20, 26 (only)
Divine metaphysics, as revealed to spiritual understand-21ing, shows clearly that all is Mind, and that Mind is The divine completenessGod, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, — that is, all power, all presence, all Science. 24Hence all is in reality the manifestation of Mind.
The true understanding of God is spiritual.
- SH 287:13
- SH 331:18 God
God is individual, incorporeal. He is divine Prin-ciple, Love, the universal cause, the only creator, and The universal causethere is no other self-existence. He is all-21inclusive, and is reflected by all that is real and eternal and by nothing else. He fills all space, and it is impossible to conceive of such omnipresence and in-24dividuality except as infinite Spirit or Mind. Hence all is Spirit and spiritual.
- SH 223:2-8
Paul said, “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not 3fulfil 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 6instead of in Spirit.
Matter does not express Spirit. God is infinite omni-present Spirit.
- SH 587:19
- SH 473:7-10
- SH 594:19
- SH xi:1-21
Many imagine that the phenomena of physical heal-ing in Christian Science present only a phase of the 3action of the human mind, which action in some unex-plained way results in the cure of disease. On the con-trary, Christian Science rationally explains that all 6other pathological methods are the fruits of human faith in matter, — faith in the workings, not of Spirit, but of the fleshly mind which must yield to Science.
9 The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus’ time, from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their real-12ity in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation. Now, as then, these mighty works 15are not supernatural, but supremely natural. They are the sign of Immanuel, or “God with us,” — a divine influence ever present in human consciousness and re-18peating itself, coming now as was promised aforetime, To preach deliverance to the captives [of sense], And recovering of sight to the blind, 21To set at liberty them that are bruised.
- SH 72:21-23
- SH 300:13
The temporal and unreal never touch the eternal and real. The mutable and imperfect never touch the im-15The tares and wheatmutable and perfect. The inharmonious and self-destructive never touch the harmonious and self-existent. These opposite qualities are the tares 18and wheat, which never really mingle, though (to mortal sight) they grow side by side until the harvest; then, Sci-ence separates the wheat from the tares, through the real-21ization of God as ever present and of man as reflecting the divine likeness.
- SH 471:13-19
The facts of divine Science should be admitted, — although the evidence as to these facts is not supported 15by 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 re-18flection. God is infinite, therefore ever present, and there is no other power nor presence.
- SH 543:8-15
In divine Science, the material man is shut out from 9the presence of God. The five corporeal senses cannot Dwelling in dreamlandtake cognizance of Spirit. They cannot come into His presence, and must dwell in dream-12land, until mortals arrive at the understanding that ma -terial life, with all its sin, sickness, and death, is an illu-sion, against which divine Science is engaged in a warfare 15of extermination.
- SH 284:28-32
- SH 200:9-13
- SH 572:19-18 (to .)
In Revelation xxi. 1 we read: —
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first 21heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
The Revelator had not yet passed the transitional 24stage in human experience called death, but he already Man’s present possibilitiessaw a new heaven and a new earth. Through what sense came this vision to St. John? Not 27through the material visual organs for seeing, for optics are inadequate to take in so wonderful a scene. Were this new heaven and new earth terrestrial or celestial, mate-573573:1rial or spiritual? They could not be the former, for the human sense of space is unable to grasp such a view. 3The Revelator was on our plane of existence, while yet beholding what the eye cannot see, — that which is in-visible to the uninspired thought. This testimony of Holy 6Writ sustains the fact in Science, that the heavens and earth to one human consciousness, that consciousness which God bestows, are spiritual, while to another, the 9unillumined human mind, the vision is material. This shows unmistakably that what the human mind terms matter and spirit indicates states and stages of con-12sciousness.
Accompanying this scientific consciousness was an-other revelation, even the declaration from heaven, su-15Nearness of Deitypreme harmony, that God, the divine Principle of harmony, is ever with men, and they are His people. Thus man was no longer regarded as a mis-18erable sinner, but as the blessed child of God.
Hymn 139: “...I feel God's presence with me here”
Hymn 484: “God is here with me”
Hymn 556: “Our Father knows my need today”
