Where can we find safety?

Can any weapons, any amount of money, any medical, political, or sociological practices guarantee absolute security?Real safety can be found only in an understanding of God. "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High," says the Bible, "shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty." n1

n1 Psalms 91:1.

To enter that secret place we don't have to stir an inch from where we are right now, because that place is not a physical one. That place is the great love of God -- His allness, His total power for good, His tender, unchanging care for man and the universe.

God is not matter or in matter. God, Spirit, exists insteadm of matter. God is not s superhuman being with mortal characteristics. He is infinite Spirit, incorporeal Love, not recognizable by limited physical sense. The real man -- our actual identity -- is not physical but spiritual.

How can such an unestanding of God give us safety?

Christ Jesus, the master Christian, said, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."n2 Our spiritual sense -- that which brings us the quiet feeling that God Himself is truly the source of our very intelligence, life, and substance -- keeps us close to Him. Spiritual sense opens our thought of God's goodness so that we can experience the operation of His law of good right in our own lives. Christ Jesus proved this law when he healed multitudes of sick people, fed thousands with a small supply of food, walked on water, and raised others and himself from death.

n2 John 4:24.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, was a longtime student of the Bible. From a healing of the effects of an accident -- a healing accomplished through God's power -- she realized that what Jesus achieved was not miraculous or personal or confined to ancient times,but resulted from the Master's clear undersanding that God, good, the creator of man , could cause only good.

If good is real -- and it is -- good's opposite, evil, can't be real as well. Knowing this helps us to deny and prove as unreal evil's various claims of danger and disease. This takes persistence and prayer and consistent discipline of our thoughts and living habits. But such consecration is wonderfully rewarding, becaused it enables us to demonstrate our safety under God's law and to help others do the same.

The story of Noah in the Bible provides a vivid illustration. Noah was close to God. He got the message of an impending disaster, a flood, throught the foresight that accompanies spiritual sense -- through spiritual intuition. He obeyed, and built an ark while the ground was still dry. This took moral courage. When the rains came, he, his family, and the animals he had taken with him were all kept safe in this ark, which rose with the rising waters and stayed above them.

In the glossary of Science and Health with Key to the Scirptures,m where Mrs. Eddy gives the spiritual interpretation of some of the key names and concepts from the Bible, she writes of the ark in this way: "ARK. Safety; the idea, or reflection, of Truth, proved to be as immortal as its Principle; the understanding of Spirit, destroying the belief in matter.

"God and man coexistent and eternal; Science showing that the spiritual realities of all things are created by Him and exist forever. The ark indicates temptation overcome and followed by exaltation."n3

n3 Science and health,m p. 581.

We all need to go into the ark and stay there. We can rejoice in the "the spiritual realities" and know that our real identity -- and the identity of all -- coexists forever with our loving Father-Mother God. Spiritual understanding is our protection. It is from God. It keeps us safe. DAILY BIBLE VERSE I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust. Psalms 91:2-4

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