Sunday, March 8th, 2020 Roundtable

Goodness never fails to receive its reward, for goodness makes life a blessing. As an active portion of one stupendous whole, goodness identifies man with universal good. Thus may each member of this church rise above the oft-repeated inquiry, What am I? to the scientific response: I am able to impart truth, health, and happiness, and this is my rock of salvation and my reason for existing.

— Miscellany by Mary Baker Eddy, page 165

138 —WATCH lest your prayers, or mental work, include an effort to gain more spiritual power from God, when you should seek to enlarge your capacity to reflect more of His power. Is God’s power something that He sends or withdraws, as it is sought or not sought? God is sending forth more than you receive; hence your effort must be to increase your capacity to receive. A still higher realization shows man to be the very power of God, expressed.

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— from 500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter

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Golden Text — ““I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”” — Philippians 4 : 13

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Much is said in Science about malpractice, but there is nothing very mysterious about it, when it is learned that it refers to the action of the human mind. At times, however, when it operates maliciously, it has the tendency to etch the mortal mind picture more deeply on consciousness, which causes the things of Spirit to seem less real. When it is malicious, it represents mortal mind freed somewhat from the universal limitations of belief, and working in a way to make its false impressions more aggressive. One mortal can reach the thought of another through malicious mental malpractice more readily than through what might be termed normal human thinking. Animal magnetism, or mal­practice, claims to write with an engraver’s tool, thus scoring the blackboard of thought deeply, and making its errors more forcible and less easy to erase; and yet there is no such false action in reality. It is all mortal belief.

It was this action that Mrs. Eddy referred to in the sixteenth edition of Science and Health, when she wrote on page 428, “You will also learn that the transfer of mental pictures, from one mortal mind to another, tends to a speedy inoculation with the virus of error.” One may conclude that this sentence was revised to read as it does in our present edition, in order that this mental bugbear may not seem so real to a student, that he becomes fearful of it, or believes that its mental pictures become so etched in thought, that they cannot be removed by the constant recognition of God’s power to dislodge them, as Mrs. Eddy once declared. Her words were, “Sometimes I seem to hear the voice of the Father like this — My child, there is nothing in mortal mind to fear, not even the educated thought that knows what it is doing. But these different claims must needs remain until thou art not afraid. They are here only for thee to learn that they cannot harm. When that is learned their mission is accomplished and away they go. The way to learn their powerlessness is through the constant recognition of God’s power to dislodge them.” This statement is dated October 16, 1892.

— from Precepts, compiled by Gilbert Carptenter

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The one Ego, the one Mind or Spirit called God, is infinite individuality, which supplies all form and comeliness and which reflects reality and divinity in individual spiritual man and things.

— Citation 1 from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
by Mary Baker Eddy, page 281 : 14-17

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I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me [I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who [a]infuses inner strength into me; I am [b]self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency].

— Philippians 4:13 from Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

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Forum post — I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
by Jeremy from NJ

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For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things are with him.

— Job 23 : 14 from the Responsive Reading in the Bible portion of this week’s Lesson

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God is my strength and power: and he maketh my way perfect.

— II Samuel 22 : 33 from citation 1 in the Bible portion of this week’s Lesson

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Forum post — But There Is A God In Heaven That Revealeth Secrets
by Florence Roberts

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My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him.

— Psalm 62:5 from the King James Bible

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Forum post — Daniel: “Among the Captives”? Hardly by Parthens

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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

— Preamble to the Declaration of Independence

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Forum post — Not a victim. by Lynda from PA

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Every function of the real man is governed by the divine Mind.

— from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy,
page 151

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Evil thoughts and aims reach no farther and do no more harm than one’s belief permits. Evil thoughts, lusts, and malicious purposes cannot go forth, like wandering pollen, from one human mind to another, finding unsuspected lodgment, if virtue and truth build a strong defence.

— from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy,
page 234

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Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.

— Psalm 33: 1 from Amplified Bible, Classic Edition

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Remember, thou canst be brought into no condition, be it ever so severe, where Love has not been before thee and where its tender lesson is not awaiting thee. Therefore despair not nor murmur, for that which seeketh to save, to heal, and to deliver, will guide thee, if thou seekest this guidance.

— from Miscellany, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 149

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There is but one Christ. And from everlasting to everlasting this Christ is never absent. In doubt and darkness we say as did Mary of old: “I know not where they have laid him.” But when we behold the Christ walking the wave of earth’s troubled sea, like Peter we believe in the second coming, and would walk more closely with Christ; but find ourselves so far from the embodiment of Truth that ofttimes this attempt measurably fails, and we cry, “Save, or I perish !” Then the tender, loving Christ is found near, affords help, and we are saved from our fears.

— from 1900, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 7

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As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings:

— Deuteronomy 32 :11 from the King James Bible

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Rule in Mrs. Eddy’s household: Simplicity, accuracy, and economy. Excuses are intolerable.

— from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, (the “Blue Book”),
by Mary Baker Eddy, page 261

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Poem — No Excuses Necessary! by Mary Beth Singleterry

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Final Readings