Responsive Reading: Psalm 103 : 1–4  •  Acts 19 : 11, 12

1.     Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name.

2.     Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:

3.     Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;

4.     Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies.

11.     And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul:

12.     So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.

1. Luke 19 : 1-10

1     And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho.

2     And, behold, there was a man named Zacchæus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich.

3     And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature.

4     And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycomore tree to see him: for he was to pass that way.

5     And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchæus, make haste, and come down; for to day I must abide at thy house.

6     And he made haste, and came down, and received him joyfully.

7     And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, That he was gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner.

8     And Zacchæus stood, and said unto the Lord; Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.

9     And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham.

10     For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.

2. Mark 1 : 29-39

29     And forthwith, when they were come out of the synagogue, they entered into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John.

30     But Simon’s wife’s mother lay sick of a fever, and anon they tell him of her.

31     And he came and took her by the hand, and lifted her up; and immediately the fever left her, and she ministered unto them.

32     And at even, when the sun did set, they brought unto him all that were diseased, and them that were possessed with devils.

33     And all the city was gathered together at the door.

34     And he healed many that were sick of divers diseases, and cast out many devils; and suffered not the devils to speak, because they knew him.

35     And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.

36     And Simon and they that were with him followed after him.

37     And when they had found him, they said unto him, All men seek for thee.

38     And he said unto them, Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also: for therefore came I forth.

39     And he preached in their synagogues throughout all Galilee, and cast out devils.

3. Matthew 10 : 1, 5-8

1     And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.

5     These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not:

6     But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

7     And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.

8     Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.

4. Acts 20 : 7-10

7     And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.

8     And there were many lights in the upper chamber, where they were gathered together.

9     And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead.

10     And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him.

5. Romans 6 : 12-23

12     Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.

13     Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.

14     For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

15     What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid.

16     Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?

17     But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.

18     Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.

19     I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.

20     For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.

21     What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.

22     But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.

23     For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

6. Matthew 5 : 48

48     Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

1. 475 : 28 (Man)-29 (to ,)

Man is incapable of sin, sickness, and death. The real man cannot depart from holiness,

2. 26 : 14-18

Divine Truth, Life, and Love gave Jesus authority over sin, sickness, and death. His mission was to reveal the Science of celestial being, to prove what God is and what He does for man.

3. 205 : 7-13

When will the error of believing that there is life in matter, and that sin, sickness, and death are creations of God, be unmasked? When will it be understood that matter has neither intelligence, life, nor sensation, and that the opposite belief is the prolific source of all suffering? God created all through Mind, and made all perfect and eternal.

4. 207 : 20 (There)-26

There is but one primal cause. Therefore there can be no effect from any other cause, and there can be no reality in aught which does not proceed from this great and only cause. Sin, sickness, disease, and death belong not to the Science of being. They are the errors, which presuppose the absence of Truth, Life, or Love.

5. 343 : 14-20

Jesus strips all disguise from error, when his teachings are fully understood. By parable and argument he explains the impossibility of good producing evil; and he also scientifically demonstrates this great fact, proving by what are wrongly called miracles, that sin, sickness, and death are beliefs — illusive errors — which he could and did destroy.

6. 259 : 6 (In)-21

In divine Science, man is the true image of God. The divine nature was best expressed in Christ Jesus, who threw upon mortals the truer reflection of God and lifted their lives higher than their poor thought-models would allow, — thoughts which presented man as fallen, sick, sinning, and dying. The Christlike understanding of scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea, — perfect God and perfect man, — as the basis of thought and demonstration.

If man was once perfect but has now lost his perfection, then mortals have never beheld in man the reflex image of God. The lost image is no image. The true likeness cannot be lost in divine reflection. Understanding this, Jesus said: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."

7. 480 : 19 (Again)-6

Again, God, or good, never made man capable of sin. It is the opposite of good — that is, evil — which seems to make men capable of wrong-doing. Hence, evil is but an illusion, and it has no real basis. Evil is a false belief. God is not its author. The supposititious parent of evil is a lie.

The Bible declares: "All things were made by Him [the divine Word]; and without Him was not anything made that was made." This is the eternal verity of divine Science. If sin, sickness, and death were understood as nothingness, they would disappear. As vapor melts before the sun, so evil would vanish before the reality of good. One must hide the other. How important, then, to choose good as the reality! Man is tributary to God, Spirit, and to nothing else. God's being is infinity, freedom, harmony, and boundless bliss. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Like the archpriests of yore, man is free "to enter into the holiest," — the realm of God.

8. 417 : 20-26

To the Christian Science healer, sickness is a dream from which the patient needs to be awakened. Disease should not appear real to the physician, since it is demonstrable that the way to cure the patient is to make disease unreal to him. To do this, the physician must understand the unreality of disease in Science.

9. 396 : 26-32

Keep distinctly in thought that man is the offspring of God, not of man; that man is spiritual, not material; that Soul is Spirit, outside of matter, never in it, never giving the body life and sensation. It breaks the dream of disease to understand that sickness is formed by the human mind, not by matter nor by the divine Mind.

10. 353 : 1-24

The Christianly scientific real is the sensuous unreal. Sin, disease, whatever seems real to material sense, is unreal in divine Science. The physical senses and Science have ever been antagonistic, and they will so continue, till the testimony of the physical senses yields entirely to Christian Science.

How can a Christian, having the stronger evidence of Truth which contradicts the evidence of error, think of the latter as real or true, either in the form of sickness or of sin? All must admit that Christ is "the way, the truth, and the life," and that omnipotent Truth certainly does destroy error.

The age has not wholly outlived the sense of ghostly beliefs. It still holds them more or less. Time has not yet reached eternity, immortality, complete reality. All the real is eternal. Perfection underlies reality. Without perfection, nothing is wholly real. All things will continue to disappear, until perfection appears and reality is reached. We must give up the spectral at all points. We must not continue to admit the somethingness of superstition, but we must yield up all belief in it and be wise. When we learn that error is not real, we shall be ready for progress, "forgetting those things which are behind."

11. 476 : 32-4

Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick.

12. 248 : 26-32

We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives. Let unselfishness, goodness, mercy, justice, health, holiness, love — the kingdom of heaven — reign within us, and sin, disease, and death will diminish until they finally disappear.