`The recipe for all healing'
THROUGHOUT the ages mankind has turned to the Bible for guidance and comfort. It is filled with messages that bless and heal, with answers to the troubles that we all face. And, on the most profound level, it shows us the path to salvation. Christ Jesus loved the Scriptures and knew them well. When tempted by Satan three times, the Master responded by quoting the Scriptures, with all the power of God backing them, as his authority for rejecting the temptations.
``The Bible contains the recipe for all healing,''1 Mary Baker Eddy2 writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Mrs. Eddy turned to the Scriptures constantly. When she was in very serious condition as the result of a fall, she asked for her Bible, and as she read she found healing. This led her to search the Scriptures and to the discovery of Christian Science through discernment of their spiritual meaning.
The Bible has always been a source of inspiration to me and my family. I recall a time when my mother was faced with a very distressing conflict with another person. Praying for guidance, she opened the Scriptures to the counsel to love one's neighbor. That's what she did with all her heart, and in a very short time the situation was amicably resolved.
I recall that the threat of a miscarriage halted when I read in Psalms, ``For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast.''3
I've never forgotten being in a summer cottage in New England with the full force of a hurricane coming our way. Radio reports were frightening, but again the Bible came to my rescue. It has always been my practice to turn to the Bible's pages not only for comfort but to know God better and to know his love for me and all mankind. Thoughtfully I opened its pages, and my eyes fell on these words: ``Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.''4 At once my fears were stilled, and although the hurricane came, the danger dissipated, and the storm soon blew out to sea.
During World War II the ninety-first Psalm was a constant source of inspiration to my husband while he was in active combat. Little marks of mud on his serviceman's Bible are still visible from its use in many a foxhole and battle. What a staff it was for him to lean on during those testing times.
Christian Science is fully in accord with the Bible, and students of this Science study it daily. The first religious tenet of Christian Science establishes for all time that the Bible is the basis from which Scientists work: ``As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life.''5 Throughout the pages of the Bible we can find answers to the challenges that face us daily. But more important, we find the path to salvation. We come to see how essential it is to have one God and to bring our lives more and more into harmony with the Christliness expressed by Jesus. In this way we reflect the purity and love of Spirit, which enables us to put off the sins of the flesh, to put off whatever would blind us to the supremacy of divine power and to man's God-given spiritual wholeness.
A most helpful way of feeling closer to God is to read the Bible each day. Open its pages, ask Him for guidance, and you will be led to messages that will sustain you throughout the day. There may even be times when you can share the truths that you have found. Let the Bible's healing messages guide you, steer you through waters troubled or calm.
1Science and Health, p. 406. 2The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. 3Psalms 33:9. 4Isaiah 26:3. 5Science and Health, p. 497. You can find more articles like this one in the Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly magazine. DAILY BIBLE VERSE Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Romans 15:4
