FROM THE BIBLE:
GENESIS
WEDNESDAY EVENING READINGS MARCH 7, 2012 “THE TRUE NATURE OF GOD”
1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: 26 ¶ And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.
EXODUS
20:6 I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. 7 Thou shalt have none other gods before me. 8 Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth:
9 Thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: 29 O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever! 32 Ye shall observe to do therefore as the Lord your God hath commanded you: ye shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.
PSALMS
139:1 O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. 7 Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? 8 If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. 9 If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; 10 Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. 147: 5 Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite. 3 He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. 4 He telleth the number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.
JEREMIAH
2:5 Thus saith the Lord, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain? 6 Neither said they, Where is the Lord that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, that led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt? 8 The priests said not, Where is the Lord? and they that handle the law knew me not: the pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit. 28 … where are thy gods that thou hast made thee? let them arise, if they can save thee in the time of thy trouble: 16:20 Shall a man make gods unto himself, and they are no gods? 21 Therefore, behold, I will this once cause them to know, I will cause them to know mine hand and my might; and they shall know that my name is The Lord. 23:23 Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off? 24 Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord. 10:10 … the Lord is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king:
AND FROM JOHN IN THE NEW ENGLISH BIBLE
8:31 Turning to the Jews who had believed on him, Jesus said, ‘If you dwell within the revelation I have brought, you are indeed my disciples; 32 you shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free. 4:23 the time approaches, indeed it is already here, when those who are real worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Such are the worshippers whom the Father wants.
24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth. 17:3 This is eternal life: to know thee who alone art truly God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.
AND AGAIN FROM THE KING JAMES VERSION: I JOHN
5:20 … we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. 4:8 … God is love. 12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. 13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. 16 God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
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PHILIPPIANS
2:5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 12 … work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
MALACHI
2:10 Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?
I CORINTHIANS
8:6 … to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him. 3 … if any man love God, the same is known of him.
I CHRONICLES
28:9 … know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever.
SCIENCE & HEALTH WITH KEY TO THE SCRIPTURES BY MARY BAKER EDDY
SH 587:5
God. The great I AM; the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal; Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love; all substance; intelligence.
SH 330:19
God is what the Scriptures declare Him to be, — Life, Truth, Love. Spirit is divine Principle, and divine Principle is Love, and Love is Mind, and Mind is not both good and bad, for God is Mind; therefore there is in reality one Mind only, because there is one God.
SH 275:10
To grasp the reality and order of being in its Science, you must begin by reckoning God as the divine Principle of all that really is. Spirit, Life, Truth, Love, combine as one, — and are the Scriptural names for God. All substance, intelligence, wisdom, being, immortality, cause, and effect belong to God. These are His attributes, the eternal manifestations of the infinite divine Principle, Love. No wisdom is wise but His wisdom; no truth is true, no love is lovely, no life is Life but the divine; no good is, but the good God bestows.
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SH 2:23-26
God is Love. Can we ask Him to be more? God is intelligence. Can we inform the infinite Mind of anything He does not already comprehend? Do we expect to change perfection?
SH 256:13-16
The everlasting I AM is not bounded nor compressed within the narrow limits of physical humanity, nor can He be understood aright through mortal concepts.
SH 256:24
No form nor physical combination is adequate to represent infinite Love. A finite and material sense of God leads to formalism and narrowness; it chills the spirit of Christianity.
SH 117:7-10
Christian Science attaches no physical nature and significance to the Supreme Being or His manifestation; mortals alone do this.
SH 116:20
Christian Science strongly emphasizes the thought that God is not corporeal, but incorporeal, — that is, bodiless. Mortals are corporeal, but God is incorporeal.
SH 331:18
God is individual, incorporeal. He is divine Principle, Love, the universal cause, the only creator, and there is no other self-existence. He is all‐inclusive, 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 individuality except as infinite Spirit or Mind. Hence all is Spirit and spiritual.
SH 13:20-29
If we pray to God as a corporeal person, this will prevent us from relinquishing the human doubts and fears which attend such a belief, and so we cannot grasp the wonders wrought by infinite, incorporeal Love, to whom all things are possible. Because of human ignorance of the divine Principle, Love, the Father of all is represented as a corporeal creator; hence men recognize themselves as merely physical, and are ignorant of man as God’s image or reflection and of man’s eternal incorporeal existence.
S&H 116:24
As the words person and personal are commonly and ignorantly employed, they often lead, when applied to Deity, to confused and erroneous conceptions of divinity and its distinction from humanity. If the term personality, as applied to God, means infinite personality, then God is infinite Person,–in the sense of infinite personality, but not in the lower sense. An infinite Mind in a finite form is an absolute impossibility.
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SH 336:32-1
God is individual and personal in a scientific sense, but not in any anthropomorphic sense.
SH 351:16-21
We cannot bring out the practical proof of Christianity, which Jesus required, while error seems as potent and real to us as Truth, and while we make a personal devil and an anthropomorphic God our starting-points, — especially if we consider Satan as a being coequal in power with Deity, if not superior to Him.
SH 94:14
Tyranny, intolerance, and bloodshed, wherever found, arise from the belief that the infinite is formed after the pattern of mortal personality, passion, and impulse.
SH 312:24-26
A personal sense of God and of man’s capabilities necessarily limits faith and hinders spiritual understanding.
SH 93:21-22, 30
The belief that Spirit is finite as well as infinite has darkened all history. This belief tends to becloud our apprehension of the kingdom of heaven and of the reign of harmony in the Science of being.
SH 258:1–6
A mortal, corporeal, or finite conception of God cannot embrace the glories of limitless, incorporeal Life and Love. Hence the unsatisfied human craving for something better, higher, holier, than is afforded by a material belief in a physical God and man.
SH 506:5
Understanding is a quality of God, a quality which separates Christian Science from supposition and makes Truth final.
SH 3:14-15 to (to ,) … to understand God is the work of eternity, ..5
Publications Quotation: Miscellaneous Writings 96:7-16 By Mary Baker Eddy
“Do I believe in a personal God?
“I believe in God as the Supreme Being. I know not what the person of omnipotence and omnipresence is, or what the infinite includes; therefore, I worship that of which I can conceive, first, as a loving Father and Mother; then, as thought ascends the scale of being to diviner consciousness, God becomes to me, as to the apostle who declared it, “God is Love,” — divine Principle, — which I worship; and “after the manner of my fathers, so worship I God.”
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