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| Subject: Sunday School class notes for Jan 1, 2012 Lesson |
Sunday School class notes for Jan 1, 2012 Lesson on Life
What makes you happy? What makes you feel blessed? It is some person, place or thing? Let’s look at Peoles Idea of God, a sermon Mrs. Eddy once gave (In Prose Works)
“As our ideas of Deity become more spiritual, we express them by objects more beautiful.” Pe 14:1-2
Notice it does not say as your objects become more beautiful your conception of Deity becomes more spiritual. Objects are not ends in and of themselves, they are by-products of the quality of your thought.
Are you following the lead of some other attractive personality, looking at what is displayed in a department store and thinking you could be better off if you had a new closet full of clothes, a different car, a better looking body, etc?
Fighting for your identity: If I stole your wallet, would your fight for it? Of course. Are you fighting half as much for your spiritual identity? Have you ever thought of yourself as a masterpiece…that “unselfed better self”? Remember the story of the art collector who bought a painting at an auction and then went home to remove the outer layer of oil paint to reveal a painting underneath the fresh paint. Then he revealed the signature of a great master and knew he had a masterpiece in his possession. Would the subject matter of the fresher painting be relevant or would his whole attention, focus and purpose be to reveal more of the masterpiece?
How do we get to a mental state where we are seeing ourselves that way and fighting for our true identities. It must be in daily study
Ret 86:14
There should be no blot on the escutcheon of our Christliness when we offer our gift upon the altar. ESCUTCHEON: There should be no blot on the escutcheon of our Christliness when we offer our gift upon the alter.
(Ret 86:14)
Students Ref.: n. a shield. 1. A shield on which a coat of arms is represented; the shield of a family.
2. That part of a vessel’s stern on which her name is written.
Escutcheon is reputation, what you stand for, how you appear to the world—really, it is the quality of your thought.
Man 31:4-9
“Moral Obligations. SECTION 1. The Readers of The Mother Church and of all its branch churches must devote a suitable portion of their time to preparation for the reading of the Sunday lesson, — a lesson on which the prosperity of Christian Science largely depends.”
Reading your lesson each morning prepares you to do your own thinking, declare who you really are and free yourself from unconsciously copying the vocabulary, opinions and mannerisms of those around you. When you do that you are not doing your own thinking.
Will reading the lesson, memorizing sentences, repeating them, denying error, affirming Truth, actually heal you? Not really. Those are just words. Healing is always a result of inspiration/revelation…the revealed truth about you—the masterpiece, the unselfed, better self. The words are important in that they align your thought with God and allow you to rise to a receptive level where inspiration/revelation appears to thought. Once you see the masterpiece you do not have to intellectually understand it. It just is, and that’s that. Seeing it, you are healed.
454:31
“Remember that the letter and mental argument are only human auxiliaries to aid in bringing thought into accord with the spirit of Truth and Love, which heals the sick and the sinner.”
Remember the story of Naaman (below). Are you obedient to the simple request of reading your lesson and on the seventh day (church or Sunday School) coming our clean (healed)?
II Kings 5:1-14
“Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honourable, because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria: he was also a mighty man in valour, but he was a leper. And the Syrians had gone out by companies, and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little maid; and she waited on Naaman's wife. And she said unto her mistress, Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy. And one went in, and told his lord, saying, Thus and thus said the maid that is of the land of Israel. And the king of Syria said, Go to, go, and I will send a letter unto the king of Israel. And he departed, and took with him ten talents of silver, and six thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of raiment. And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, saying, Now when this letter is come unto thee, behold, I have therewith sent Naaman my servant to thee, that thou mayest recover him of his leprosy. And it came to pass, when the king of Israel had read the letter, that he rent his clothes, and said, Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man doth send unto me to recover a man of his leprosy? wherefore consider, I pray you, and see how he seeketh a quarrel against me. And it was so, when Elisha the man of God had heard that the king of Israel had rent his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying, Wherefore hast thou rent thy clothes? let him come now to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel. So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha. And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean. But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage. And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean? Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.”
Some of you have said that church is boring. You do not like being read to and you want to fall asleep. Remember Jesus’ words: Mark 14:37 “And he cometh, and findeth them sleeping, and saith unto Peter, Simon, sleepest thou? couldest not thou watch one hour?”
What us being read to you is the most powerful exciting thinking going on in the world. The only reason it would bore you is due to the mesmeric suggestion that you want to be entertained or want the service to be more “cool”. Nothing is more “cool” than being healed!
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