Fasting From Material Sense

Wednesday, Jan 18, 2017
Hymns 452, 301, 195
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The Holy Bible

Is. 58:6, 8
Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily. . . .

Matt. 4:2-4
And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered.
And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Luke 18:9-14
And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:
Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.
And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

Is. 58:1-5
Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.
Yet they seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God: they ask of me the ordinances of justice; they take delight in approaching to God.
Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours.
Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.
Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?

Mark 9:15, 17-18, 24, 25, 26, 27-29 (NLT)
When the crowd saw Jesus, one of the men in the crowd spoke up and said, “Teacher, I brought my son so you could heal him. He is possessed by an evil spirit that won’t let him talk. And whenever this spirit seizes him, it throws him violently to the ground. Then he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast out the evil spirit, but they couldn’t do it. . . .I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!” When Jesus saw that the crowd of onlookers was growing, he rebuked the evil spirit. “. . . . “I command you to come out of this child and never enter him again!” Then the spirit screamed and threw the boy into another violent convulsion and left him. The boy appeared to be dead. . . . But Jesus took him by the hand and helped him to his feet, and he stood up. Afterward, when Jesus was alone in the house with his disciples, they asked him, “Why couldn’t we cast out that evil spirit?” Jesus replied, “This kind can be cast out only by prayer and fasting.

John 8:15
Ye judge after the flesh . . .

John 7: 24
Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.
I Cor. 2:9
As it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

II Cor. 5:7, 8
[W]e walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

Col. 3:1-2, 8, 10, 12, 15
If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. … But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. … And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: … Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; … And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.

SCIENCE AND HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES by Mary Baker Eddy

SH 264:24
Spiritual living and blessedness are the only evidences, by which we can recognize true existence and feel the unspeakable peace which comes from an all-absorbing spiritual love.

SH 51:28
Jesus was unselfish. His spirituality separated him from sensuousness, and caused the selfish materialist to hate him; but it was this spirituality which enabled Jesus to heal the sick, cast out evil, and raise the dead.

SH 52:13-14, 29-32
“Despised and rejected of men,” was Isaiah’s graphic word concerning the coming Prince of Peace. The accusations of the Pharisees were as self-contradictory as their religion. The bigot, the debauchee, the hypocrite, called Jesus a glutton and a wine-bibber.

SH 53:3-5
Jesus was no ascetic. He did not fast as did the Baptist’s disciples; yet there never lived a man so far removed from appetites and passions as the Nazarene.

SH 20:10
He knew that men can be baptized, partake of the Eucharist, support the clergy, observe the Sabbath, make long prayers, and yet be sensual and sinful.

SH 597:4-10 – The motives and affections of a man were of little value, if only he appeared unto men to fast. The great Nazarene, as meek as he was mighty, rebuked the hypocrisy, which offered long petitions for blessings upon material methods, but cloaked the crime, latent in thought, which was ready to spring into action and crucify God’s anointed.

SH 52:2-3, 4
His master was Spirit; their master was matter. . . . His affections were pure; theirs were carnal. His senses drank in the spiritual evidence of health, holiness, and life; their senses testified oppositely, and absorbed the material evidence of sin, sickness, and death.

SH 313:24
He plunged beneath the material surface of things, and found the spiritual cause.

SH 15:7-9
The Father in secret is unseen to the physical senses, but He knows all things and rewards according to motives, not according to speech.

SH 242:9-20
There is but one way to heaven, harmony, and Christ in divine Science shows us this way. It is to know no other reality — to have no other consciousness of life — than good, God and His reflection, and to rise superior to the so-called pain and pleasure of the senses. Self-love is more opaque than a solid body. In patient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error, — self-will, self-justification, and self-love, — which wars against spirituality and is the law of sin and death.

SH 52:19-23
The “man of sorrows” best understood the nothingness of material life and intelligence and the mighty actuality of all-inclusive God, good. These were the two cardinal points of Mind-healing, or Christian Science, which armed him with Love.

SH 54:1-5, 10-13, 16-17
Through the magnitude of his human life, he demonstrated the divine Life. Out of the amplitude of his pure affection, he defined Love. With the affluence of Truth, he vanquished error. That he might liberally pour his dear-bought treasures into empty or sin-filled human storehouses, was the inspiration of Jesus’ intense human sacrifice. . . . This was the highest proof he could have offered of divine Love.

SH 19:6
Jesus aided in reconciling man to God by giving man a truer sense of Love, the divine Principle of Jesus’ teachings, and this truer sense of Love redeems man from the law of matter, sin, and death by the law of Spirit, — the law of divine Love.

SH 220:26-30
The belief that either fasting or feasting makes men better morally or physically is one of the fruits of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” concerning which God said, “Thou shalt not eat of it.”

SH 221:1-4, 14-20
I knew a person who when quite a child adopted the Graham system to cure dyspepsia. For many years, he ate only bread and vegetables, and drank nothing but water. At this point Christian Science saved him, and he is now in perfect health without a vestige of the old complaint. He learned that suffering and disease were the self-imposed beliefs of mortals, and not the facts of being; that God never decreed disease, — never ordained a law that fasting should be a means of health.

SH 14:12-16, 18
Become conscious for a single moment that Life and intelligence are purely spiritual, — neither in nor of matter, — and the body will then utter no complaints. If suffering from a belief in sickness, you will find yourself suddenly well. . .. Hence the hope of the promise Jesus bestows: “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; . . . because I go unto my Father,” — [because the Ego is absent from the body, and present with Truth and Love.] The Lord’s Prayer is the prayer of Soul, not of material sense.

SH 95:30-32
Material sense does not unfold the facts of existence; but spiritual sense lifts human consciousness into eternal Truth.

SH 272:3-5
The spiritual sense of truth must be gained before Truth can be understood. This sense is assimilated only as we are honest, unselfish, loving, and meek.

SH 365:15
If the Scientist reaches his patient through divine Love, the healing work will be accomplished at one visit, and the disease will vanish into its native nothingness like dew before the morning sunshine. If the Scientist has enough Christly affection to win his own pardon, and such commendation as the Magdalen gained from Jesus, then he is Christian enough to practise scientifically and deal with his patients compassionately; and the result will correspond with the spiritual intent.

SH 495:14-15, 20
When the illusion of sickness or sin tempts you, cling steadfastly to God and His idea. Let Christian Science, instead of corporeal sense, support your understanding of being, and this understanding will supplant error with Truth, replace mortality with immortality, and silence discord with harmony.

FRUITAGE: SH 634:15-17 (np)
As the son of a physician, a graduate in pharmacy, and an ex-druggist, I had a perfect contempt for what I thought Christian Science to be. About six and a half years ago, however, having exhausted all material means at my command, — materia medica, electricity, gymnastics, cycling, and so on, — and being in a hopeless state, the study of Christian Science was taken up. I had been a sufferer from catarrh and sore throat for over thirty years, and in the last five were added several others, including dyspepsia, and bronchitis, and a loss in flesh of sixty pounds.
I was completely healed, and regained health, strength, and flesh through the spiritual understanding of Christian Science, the result of about six weeks’ study. . . . While most grateful for the physical healing, my gratitude for the mental and spiritual regeneration is beyond expression. When I learned that Jesus’ mission of healing sickness as well as sin did not end with his short stay upon earth, but is practical in all ages, my joy was unbounded. . . . Every thought of prejudice immediately vanished before the proofs that Christian Science is indeed the elucidation and practical application of Jesus’ teachings, which are demonstrable truth, “The same yesterday, and to-day, and forever.” — C. N. C., Memphis, Tenn.

SH 150:4
To-day the healing power of Truth is widely demonstrated as an immanent, eternal Science, instead of a phenomenal exhibition. Its appearing is the coming anew of the gospel of “on earth peace, good-will toward men.” This coming, as was promised by the Master, is for its establishment as a permanent dispensation among men; but the mission of Christian Science now, as in the time of its earlier demonstration, is not primarily one of physical healing. Now, as then, signs and wonders are wrought in the metaphysical healing of physical disease; but these signs are only to demonstrate its divine origin, — to attest the reality of the higher mission of the Christ-power to take away the sins of the world.

SH 249:1-4
Let us accept Science, relinquish all theories based on sense-testimony, give up imperfect models and illusive ideals; and so let us have one God, one Mind, and that one perfect, producing His own models of excellence.