"The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ" ELIZABETH EARL JONES, CSB          Some years ago a popular magazine offered a prize for the best recipe for making a happy home. The woman who won the prize gave her excellent advice in two words, "Keep sweet!" The memory of this recipe has often been a help to at least one who read it, — especially in these days of world-wide upheaval and strife. The sense of cruelty in the world, if one permits it to linger in thought, robs life of all its sunshine and sweetness, taints our concept of human relationships, and causes the fruits of self-sacrifice to seem bitter and hard.          Sweetness and warmth keep perpetually aglow the lamp of inspiration. Inspiration describes that state of consciousness which is positive and practical, as well as beautiful, buoyant, and true. The heaviness of heart which comes like a cloud to overcast the sunshine of inspiration, cannot be too quickly recognized for the thief it is, and cast out. At best it is a negative state of mind, and all that a hypnotist asks of his subject is a negative state. Fear, discouragement, evil forebodings, doubt, indifference, mental weariness, sorrow, regret, are all negative beliefs, and ready channels for depression and every evil illusion. Warmth, spontaneity, hope, confidence, joy, spiritual energy, are all positive conditions of thought, and hence are transparencies for Life, Truth, and Love.          Even impulsiveness is preferable to stolidity, just as a running brook accomplishes more good than a frozen one; but the divine sweetness which is so beautifully described in the New Testament as "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ," comes of the exquisite poise of a proper sense of values, — holding always to the ideal, but never indifferent to or ignoring the human need. The grace of God is divine Love meeting the human need. In the first chapter of John's gospel we read: "The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." And again John describes that rich rounding out and completeness of the Son of God as manifested by Jesus, as "full of grace and truth."          So often we fail or fall short of accomplishing the good we honestly and lovingly seek to accomplish, simply because our reflection of grace and our reflection of power are not equal; we are too lenient or else too severe, — our net breaks and we lose our fishes. It was the grace of Jesus which, under supreme pressure and anguish, caused him when on the cross to remember so tenderly the needs of those around him. Turning to his mother, he said, "Woman, behold thy son!" Then he said to John, the beloved disciple, "Behold thy mother!" When their need was met, he turned himself sublimely and unreservedly to pure Mind alone, with the words, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." The power and grace of Jesus on the cross is glorious beyond human ken. On page 54 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy writes: "Through the magnitude of his human life, he demonstrated the divine Life. Out of the amplitude of his pure affection, he defined Love."          Knowing that man reflects God, and that "what things soever he [God] doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise," Jesus never tried to avoid heartaches from unrequited affection by shutting out of his life the thought of those who persecuted or distressed him. He met their seeming lack of love with such a flood of pure affection that it lifted him, and those who were willing to be lifted, far above sorrow and disappointment. Jesus wept over Jerusalem, but he never said the Jerusalem was not necessary to his happiness; he never hardened his heart to save himself pain or to avoid the demand for growth which was set before him.          God, the divine intelligence of creation, never made a superfluous idea; therefore God maintains each idea in its harmonious relationship to the whole, and none may say or think that another is unworthy of His love, since each and all are absolutely necessary to the harmony and happiness of the whole.          In the Father's house (Mind) there is no death to shut us out from one another. St. Paul tells us in the twelfth chapter of I Corinthians: "Now are they many members, yet but one body. And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary." To express "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ" is to keep our thoughts sweet and warm toward each and all.          It is generally supposed that the sixth commandment refers only to the destruction of human life, but Christian Science gives it a wider interpretation. As God is Life, Truth, Love, it is equally murder to attempt the destruction in our own hearts, or in the hearts of others, of one single ray of love or truth. Life eternal is not gained by destroying our present human sense of life; neither is divine Love attained by destroying our present sense of affection; nor is absolute Truth reached by a disregard for its humanly expressed value.          As selfishness, fear, tyranny, cruelty, and the like are put out of our thoughts the divine reality is put on. Human love unselfed becomes spiritual, pure, tender, true, enduring. Human life purified reveals the ever present, underlying fact of Life as Spirit, not matter; and a humanly expressed sense of truth, that is, truthfulness, leads to an understanding and demonstration of the one infinite Truth, God.          Christian Science is constructive, not destructive. Like Christ Jesus it comes not to destroy but to fulfill, — to heal, bless, sweeten, uplift. It is the mortal resistance to Truth, Life, or Love which causes all the suffering on earth. Criticism, resentment, indifference, an unforgiving spirit, all violate the sixth commandment. Why? Because all these things foster hate, and John said, "Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer." Jesus told us we should not hate even our enemies. He said, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."          It is not enough to say, "We will love the good they reflect, but hate the evil;" we must dissociate all evil from our thought of others, or else we are but dodging the moral law of loving another as one's self. The sun shines and the refreshing raindrops fall equally and impartially upon all nations and peoples. In the Father's love there is room and welcome for all. Only the evil beliefs about men and nations cannot enter the divine Mind, while its heavenly gates are open day and night and the Christ is ever calling to us these words of welcome: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."          "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ" is that irresistible human expression of divine Love which, through its steady shining and buoyant sweetness, heals even the desire to oppose it. Our beloved Leader says (Poems, p. 7): — Thou to whose power our hope we give, Free us from human strife. Fed by Thy love divine we live, For Love alone is Life; And life most sweet, as heart to heart Speaks kindly when we meet and part.   "The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ" by Elizabeth Earl Jones, CSB The Christian Science Journal, February, 1919

 

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