It is recorded in the Bible that a guy named Elihu told a guy named Job, If you sin, do you really think it bothers the Creator and Intelligence of the universe? Or if you do a good thing, do you think He is benefited? (Job 35 paraphrased) Today, thousands of years later (!), the questions still need to be asked because too many of us are still thinking and acting like God is manlike, needing our obedience and support!

According to our audio selection today, you can speak beautifully, be able to prophesy about the future, have a great understanding of metaphysics, etc., faith to move mountains!!, generous with your money, even sacrifice your body - but without charity, it is worth zippo!!

I Corinthians 13

When I shop at the supermarket, do I love each one I meet, the grumpy, the sad, the cheerful, the good, the bad, and the ugly? There is no doubt that each and everyone needs the encouragement of unconditional love. If I am selective in my love, I am double-minded.

You have to be pretty bigoted to claim to know exactly where good ends and evil begins. Shakespeare recognized "There is neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so." This is the human condition! So how can we discern what we need to.

It could be a parent, a friend, a fellow-church member, a false practitioner, a minister, etc.:

Dear Lord, Help so-and-so who is on a wrong path, to see the light.

From the standpoint of God, the all-knowing, infinite, we are confronted with the following: God knows evil and therefore predestinates it, OR "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity:" (Habakkuk)

Too often I hear something like "I am trying to know the truth." Is it possible "to try" to know? Would that not be like "trying" to be conscious, or "trying" to exist? 

Here's my take: when one knows something, right on the heels of knowing comes a voice, as one's own but not! "I am trying." Where does the voice come from? Considering the "trying" thing undermines the "knowing" thing and leaves the subject helpless, we can be sure that it is not from a loving God!

Does it really matter what the motive is as long as the job gets done? Take a simple example - saying thank you to someone. In one case, it is a matter of custom and not heart-felt, in another it is to please the person, and in another case it is a genuine expression of gratitude, a recognition of the love expressed. We all know the difference. The first is sort of a dead ceremony - blah, blah; the second feels a little uncomfortable; the last motive touches the heart - feels good all around.

This morning I read about Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. He started well. Built defenses against Israel who had been threatening. (Ahab, the king of Israel, was the ultimate materialist, a God-sneering scumbag!) Jehoshaphat went to great lengths to bring his people back to the worship of God, and his nation prospered mightily. But next we read,

I Corinthians 13 revisited.

Though I am a superb lecturer leaving my audience uplifted and inspired,
Though I have a profound understanding of metaphysics and the Bible, etc.,
Though I have a tremendous healing record,
Though I am incredibly generous with my wealth helping those in need,
Though I am willing to sacrifice my body in service to others,

... and have not love, it is all worthless. WHAT???? I thought all this WAS love. What is going on here?

The marvel of the Psalms is the use of physical imagery to so effectively describe the spiritual. 

A wonderful example I turned to this morning is Psalm 84

"Science reverses the conclusions of personal sense in every instance and abides by a given statement of man to bring out the harmony and immortality, that theories have

On the stage of life where persons act, the Bible cuts through the nonsense: “God is no respecter of persons.” Why so? Should we also not respect persons? A little etymology helps here. Person is derived from the Latin persona: a part in a drama, assumed character, originally "a mask, a false face.” 

When the serpent beguiled Eve in the garden of Eden, it was very reasonable, easily showing that God's restriction of eating from the tree of knowledge was not reasonable.

When Hitler beguiled the intelligentsia of Britain and the US, he was so reasonable that every reasonable person had to admit that he was a tremendous force for good and could not possibly have evil intentions!

Reading James (Bible) this morning - after he describes the rich, well-dressed man getting the royal treatment, while the poor man in shabby clothes is treated as a second-class citizen: "if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors."

As children, we are taught to be careful around a stove, to look both ways before crossing a street, to be cautious with the approach of strangers, etc. But generally, we are not taught to avoid respecting persons, even though the Bible warns that respecting persons is a sin. Instead, it is customary to trust the well-dressed, educated-looking person, but to be wary of the badly dressed, ill-educated one. A smooth-talker often gets a pass while others are under scrutiny. 

If our starting point is a good God which never causes evil, what are we to do with adversity? Let's see now. We could bitch and moan, whimper, or perhaps condemn ourselves for letting bad things happen - OR, we could decide right then and there to get the full blessing from the experience. There is no doubt that the first responses listed here make us miserable and leave us only with a bag of troubles. The latter response aligns us with the Principle of the universe, and invariably leads us to a better place.

We've talked about the laws of the universe, the Golden Rule being one - "do to others as you would have them do to you." Another one is, "the more you receive, the more is required of you." Being spiritual laws, nobody is about to put you in jail for breaking them, however that does not make them less imperative, in fact they are absolutely inescapable.

How often do we hear something like: I just want to know my purpose. What am I here for? 

This morning I opened to this in Isaiah: "The Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it?"

Let's see now.

Can I trust the media to inform me what is true? If you ask ten people about what they saw of an incident, you get ten different versions of "reality." If the media agrees on anything, you can be sure it is a narrative guided by those who have decided what you should think - not too reliable!

After addressing an audience of several thousand of her followers, Mary Baker Eddy said she did not see one Christian Scientist out there. Elsewhere she lamented that most of the healing going on in the name of Christian Science was faith-healing or mind-cure - not Christian Science healing. That was when she was around. We can be sure it is far worse today.