Sunday August 1st, 2021 Roundtable
Love Inspires, Illumines, Designates, and Leads the Way
This week’s Lesson Sermon Subject: Love
Click here to play the audio as you read:
Morning Prayers
(1884) Love is a mighty spiritual force.
(1887) Let the good you can do and the stimulation of action keep your mind from dwelling on the past, for the present demands your care, and you must go forth to meet the future calm and strong. God is your refuge and a strong deliverer. He will hide you under His wings till the storms are past and the sunlight of His presence cheers and invigorates you with new strength and exaltation.
(10/11/91) Your tender night vision and thoughts by day are indications of pure desires to be clothed in white robes. ‘And not a sparrow falleth’ without due observation. Your desire to be Christly will be satisfied, not in its fullest, but in its meekest want. Yes, He who clothes the lilies will tend you and gird you with strength in Truth and Love, and so establish the labor of your hands in His vineyard. Never distrust. never doubt the All-love, for it never faileth. As your day, so shall your strength be. Be patient, and let faith grow stronger and stronger each day of this pilgrimage.
— from Divinity Course and General Collectanea, (the “Blue Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, page 139
Discussion points
472 — WATCH that you realize that Jesus’ statement, “Give and it shall be given unto you,” is a law that carries with it the power of enforcement. To obey it with right motives means to exercise it, and hence to experience its promise.
— from 500 Watching Points by Gilbert Carpenter
Golden Text — “All things work together for good to them that love God.” — I Romans 8 : 28
There was rarely a time that healings of one kind or another did not take place when in Mrs. Eddy’s presence. Many were those who publicly testified of their healings through her preaching and sermons. Along these lines, Mrs. Eddy herself alludes to what St. Paul so beautifully elucidates in I Corinthians 13, when she says: I walk the earth in the atmosphere of Love which holds me in spiritual gravitation. The Love that I reflect repels every error of mortal mind, for Love is the only law and Love is all activity. …Every advance step will show you this until victory is won and you possess no other consciousness but Love divine.
—Excerpt from The Healer, by David Keyston
…do not be offended by anyone, for they do not know you as you really are; if they did they would love you. … Click below to read more
Article — “There Is No Death”A letter sent to Herbert Eustace from one of his students
In the Blue Book, Martha Wilcox is quoted saying that one of the first lessons she learned in Mrs. Eddy’s house was that “the ‘objects of sense’ when correctly understood, are really ‘ideas of Soul’.” “There are not two groups of creation — but just one.” So, in reality, there is no material world apart from the spiritual. Whenever we go out we can declare that we only meet Spirit today, whatever and whoever we come across, whatever we touch, whatever we hear, whatever we see, whatever we receive is Spirit, good, is already approved and blessed by God and can only bless us. Be prepared!
—Forum post, “No Two Worlds – Material and Spiritual” by Melinda for March 29th, 2020
“Love is the fulfilling of the law.” Did you ever think what he meant by that? In those days men were working the passage to Heaven by keeping the Ten Commandments, and the hundred and ten other commandments which they had manufactured out of them. Christ came and said, “I will show you a more simple way. If you do one thing, you will do these hundred and ten things, without ever thinking about them. If you love, you will unconsciously fulfill the whole law.”
You can readily see for yourselves how that must be so. Take any of the commandments. “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.” If a man love God, you will not require to tell him that. Love is the fulfilling of that law. “Take not His name in vain.” Would he ever dream of taking His name in vain if he loved Him? “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” Would he not be too glad to have one day in seven to dedicate more exclusively to the object of his affection? Love would fulfill all these laws regarding God. And so, if he loved man, you would never think of telling him to honor his father and mother. He could not do anything else. It would be preposterous to tell him not to kill.
You could only insult him if you suggested that he should not steal — how could he steal from those he loved? It would be superfluous to beg him not to bear false witness against his neighbor. If he loved him it would be the last thing he would do. And you would never dream of urging him not to covet what his neighbors had. He would rather they possessed it than himself. In this way “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” It is the rule for fulfilling all rules, the new commandment for keeping all the old commandments, Christ’s one secret of the Christian life.
— from The Greatest Thing in the World by Henry Drummond
[Nemi Robertson] wrote a letter to Mrs. Eddy at a time when she was exercised in her mind about a patient who showed great resentment toward Mrs. Eddy. Although she had not actually mentioned the patient, the reply from Mrs. Eddy contained the advice: “Turn your patient’s thought to God, and let Love show me to him just as I really am!” The patient was healed.
— from The Healer, by David Keyston, page 145
In hours of darkness and despair, in moments of pain and weakness, one’s sorrow is not lightened by cold words of clean-cut logic. The wounds more quickly heal when into them is poured the wine of true sympathy and the oil of Love, and they are bound up by the hand of tenderness and compassion. When one is weary with the pressure of many burdens, it is not logic, but the friendliness of Love, which gives inward peace. It is not logic, but Love, shining out upon the stormy sea of error, which leads the wanderer home. Love, not logic, bends above the couch of suffering. Love sheds the light of hope across the way, as the frail bark glides out upon the waters which break on the shores of eternity. Love is the bow of promise set amidst the clouds of human woe; its piercing rays transform the cloud’s seeming blackness into glistening gold. Love is the strong arm which, encircling him, places his feet upon the dry land of spiritual intelligence. Intellectual apprehension is the “voice of one crying in the wilderness” of material belief, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” He for whose approach we watch, is Love, “in whom shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” The light of intellect is the gray dawn of the morning which heralds the coming day, “wherein is needed no sun, neither light, for the Lord God giveth light;” and God is Love.
— from Christian Science Series, by Mary Baker Eddy, October 1889
Article — from Notes on True Vision by John Morgan
Daily Duties: from Christian Science Manual by Mary Baker Eddy
The second test of love is that it is not puffed up. When God begins to manifest wisdom through us, it is a temptation for us to believe that it emanates from our own intelligence. The praise that flows into one who is merely a channel for God, is as foolish as would be praise given to a radio from which proceed various splendid programs. It is a temptation to feel that the flattering things others say about us is true, because the wisdom we express and the inspiration we voice come from within. When others believe that we are divinely wise of ourselves, it is a temptation to believe that error, and accept that idea about ourselves, rather than to realize that we are wise only as, and if, we reflect divine wisdom. We are wise because of what we reflect and not because of what we embody. To be puffed up is the most effective way of losing inspiration, because the moment you believe and accept the thought that you are wise from within, you stop trying to reflect wisdom from without, and so lose your ability to do so.
— from Mary Baker Eddy, Her Spiritual Precepts by Gilbert Carpenter
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.”
— from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, page 454
Inspired: Breathed in; inhaled; infused. Informed or directed by the Holy Spirit.
— from 1828 Webster’s Dictionary
Illumine: To illuminate; to enlighten; to throw or spread light on; to make light or bright. To enlighten, as the mind; to cause to understand.
— from 1828 Webster’s Dictionary
Designate: To mark out or show, so as to make known; to appoint; to select or distinguish for a particular purpose; to assign.
— from 1828 Webster’s Dictionary
It matters not what be thy lot, So Love doth guide;
Click here to play the Hymn: — Hymn 162 From The Christian Science Hymnal, 1932 edition The words to this hymn were written by Mary Baker Eddy
Link — Love is the Liberator, July 2021