Love Never Faileth

August 13, 2014

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Hymns 53, 148, 350

The Bible:

I John 4:8 2nd God, 16
God is love. … And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

Deut. 31:8 1st he
he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.

Matt. 17:14-21
¶ And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatic, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him. Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? how long shall I suffer you? bring him hither to me. And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.

Ps 145:9, 13, 16, 18
The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works. … Thy kingdom isan everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations. … Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing. … The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth.

Ps. 143:1, 7-11
Hear my prayer, O Lord, give ear to my supplications: in thy faithfulness answer me,and in thy righteousness. … Hear me speedily, O Lord: my spirit faileth: hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit. Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning; for in thee do I trust: cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; for I lift up my soul unto thee. Deliver me, O Lord, from mine enemies: I flee unto thee to hide me. Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: thy spirit isgood; lead me into the land of uprightness. Quicken me, O Lord, for thy name’s sake: for thy righteousness’ sake bring my soul out of trouble.

Rom. 8:28, 35, 37
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. … Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

John 11:41 Jesus, 42 (to :)
Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always:

Matt 12:10-13
¶ And, behold, there was a man which had his hand withered. And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? that they might accuse him. And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out? How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days. Then saith he to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole, like as the other.

II Pet. 1:2-4 (to :)
Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises:

Lam. 3:22-26
¶ It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good unto them that wait for him, to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.

1 John 4:16-18 we
we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

II Tim 4:18 (to :)
And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom:

 

Science and Health:

SH 225:21
Love is the liberator.

SH 13:2
Love is impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals. It is the open fount which cries, “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.”

SH 266:18-19 Universal
Universal Love is the divine way in Christian Science.

SH 200:9-13
Life is, always has been, and ever will be independent of matter; for Life is God, and man is the idea of God, not formed materially but spiritually, and not subject to decay and dust.

SH 378:26-28
God never endowed matter with power to disable Life or to chill harmony with a long and cold night of discord.

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 54:8-10, 13-16
Who is ready to follow his teaching and example? All must sooner or later plant themselves in Christ, the true idea of God. … In witness of his divine commission, he presented the proof that Life, Truth, and Love heal the sick and the sinning, and triumph over death through Mind, not matter.

SH 239:18
If divine Love is becoming nearer, dearer, and more real to us, matter is then submitting to Spirit. The objects we pursue and the spirit we manifest reveal our standpoint, and show what we are winning.

SH 454:17-24
Love for God and man is the true incentive in both healing and teaching. Love inspires, illumines, designates, and leads the way. Right motives give pinions to thought, and strength and freedom to speech and action. Love is priestess at the altar of Truth. Wait patiently for divine Love to move upon the waters of mortal mind, and form the perfect concept. Patience must “have her perfect work.”

 

SH 369:16-19
Jesus never asked if disease were acute or chronic, and he never recommended attention to laws of health, never gave drugs, never prayed to know if God were willing that a man should live.

SH 147:32-4
Jesus never spoke of disease as dangerous or as difficult to heal. When his students brought to him a case they had failed to heal, he said to them, “O faithless generation,” implying that the requisite power to heal was in Mind.

SH 23:21-31
In Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and English, faith and the words corresponding thereto have these two definitions, trustfulness and trustworthiness. One kind of faith trusts one’s welfare to others. Another kind of faith understands divine Love and how to work out one’s “own salvation, with fear and trembling.” “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief!” expresses the helplessness of a blind faith; whereas the injunction, “Believe . . . and thou shalt be saved!” demands self-reliant trustworthiness, which includes spiritual understanding and confides all to God.

SH 218:17-23
Why pray for the recovery of the sick, if you are without faith in God’s willingness and ability to heal them? If you do believe in God, why do you substitute drugs for the Almighty’s power, and employ means which lead only into material ways of obtaining help, instead of turning in time of need to God, divine Love, who is an ever-present help?

SH 192:17-24
Moral and spiritual might belong to Spirit, who holds the “wind in His fists;” and this teaching accords with Science and harmony. In Science, you can have no power opposed to God, and the physical senses must give up their false testimony. Your influence for good depends upon the weight you throw into the right scale. The good you do and embody gives you the only power obtainable. Evil is not power.
SH 305:20-30
The inverted images presented by the senses, the deflections of matter as opposed to the Science of spiritual reflection, are all unlike Spirit, God. In the illusion of life that is here to-day and gone to-morrow, man would be wholly mortal, were it not that Love, the divine Principle that obtains in divine Science, destroys all error and brings immortality to light. Because man is the reflection of his Maker, he is not subject to birth, growth, maturity, decay. These mortal dreams are of human origin, not divine.

SH 134:21-30
The true Logos is demonstrably Christian Science, the natural law of harmony which overcomes discord, — not because this Science is supernatural or preternatural, nor because it is an infraction of divine law, but because it is the immutable law of God, good. Jesus said: “I knew that Thou hearest me always;” and he raised Lazarus from the dead, stilled the tempest, healed the sick, walked on the water. There is divine authority for believing in the superiority of spiritual power over material resistance.

SH 226:22-20
I saw before me the sick, wearing out years of servitude to an unreal master in the belief that the body governed them, rather than Mind.
The lame, the deaf, the dumb, the blind, the sick, the sensual, the sinner, I wished to save from the slavery of their own beliefs and from the educational systems of the Pharaohs, who to-day, as of yore, hold the children of Israel in bondage. I saw before me the awful conflict, the Red Sea and the wilderness; but I pressed on through faith in God, trusting Truth, the strong deliverer, to guide me into the land of Christian Science, where fetters fall and the rights of man are fully known and acknowledged.
I saw that the law of mortal belief included all error, and that, even as oppressive laws are disputed and mortals are taught their right to freedom, so the claims of the enslaving senses must be denied and superseded. The law of the divine Mind must end human bondage, or mortals will continue unaware of man’s inalienable rights and in subjection to hopeless slavery, because some public teachers permit an ignorance of divine power, — an ignorance that is the foundation of continued bondage and of human suffering.
Discerning the rights of man, we cannot fail to foresee the doom of all oppression.Slavery is not the legitimate state of man. God made man free. Paul said, “I was free born.” All men should be free. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Love and Truth make free, but evil and error lead into captivity.
SH 412:13
The power of Christian Science and divine Love is omnipotent. It is indeed adequate to unclasp the hold and to destroy disease, sin, and death.

SH 448:26-28
If the student adheres strictly to the teachings of Christian Science and ventures not to break its rules, he cannot fail of success in healing.

SH 494:10
Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need. It is not well to imagine that Jesus demonstrated the divine power to heal only for a select number or for a limited period of time, since to all mankind and in every hour, divine Love supplies all good.

SH 669:24-19
A RESTLESS SENSE OF EXISTENCE DESTROYED
Through reading Science and Health and the illumination which followed, I was healed of ulceration of the stomach and kindred troubles, a restless sense of existence, agnosticism, etc. The torture I endured with the stomach trouble I will not attempt to describe. The attending physician declared that I could live but a short time, and I felt there would be a limit to my endurance of the torture, but the disease was dissipated into nothingness through Christian Science, which brought me peace.
Like many others I had been seemingly lost in the sea of error, without a compass, yet earnestly and honestly seeking a haven. I had investigated all kinds of religions and philosophies that came under my notice, with the exception of Christian Science, which was not then deemed worthy of inquiry, and yet it held the very truth I was searching for — the light which “shineth in the darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”Three years of stubborn resistance to Truth, with increasing suffering, followed — then the light came, and with it a new experience. Now, after nine years of Christian
Science experience, under severe tests, it can be truthfully said that it has not failed me in any hour of need. — J. F. J., Cincinnati, Ohio.