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First Church of Christ, Scientist, La Cañada Flintridge, California

Wednesday Meeting Readings

w240821WMGC
Defeating mortal selfhood through humility
Wednesday, August 21, 2024
The Bible
  1. Matt. 5:5

    5Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

  2. Matt. 23:12

    12And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.

  3. Matt. 11:25, 28-30

    25At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.

    28Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

    29Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

    30For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

  4. John 5:30

    30I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.

  5. Col. 3:4, 9 ye, 10, 11 Christ

    4When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

    ... ye have put off the old man with his deeds;

    10And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:

    ... Christ is all, and in all.

  6. Phil. 4:13

    13I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

  7. Phil. 2:3-5

    3Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.

    4Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.

    5Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

  8. Eph. 4:1-3, 17 walk, 18, 20-24

    1I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,

    2With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;

    3Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

    ... walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,

    18Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:

    ... 20But ye have not so learned Christ;

    21If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:

    22That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;

    23And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;

    24And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

  9. II Cor. 5:17

    17Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

  10. Ps. 25:9

    9The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way.

  11. II Kings 5:1-3, 9-14

    1Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honourable, because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria: he was also a mighty man in valour, but he was a leper.

    2And the Syrians had gone out by companies, and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little maid; and she waited on Naaman’s wife.

    3And she said unto her mistress, Would God my lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria! for he would recover him of his leprosy.

    9So Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and stood at the door of the house of Elisha.

    10And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean.

    11But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper.

    12Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage.

    13And his servants came near, and spake unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldest thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash, and be clean?

    14Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

  12. Ps. 51:10, 12, 15-17

    10Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

    ... 12Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

    ... 15O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.

    16For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.

    17The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

  13. Ps. 34:15, 18

    15The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry.

    ... 18The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.

  14. Isa. 57:15

    15For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

  15. I Pet. 5:6, 7

    6Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:

    7Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

  16. James 4:10

    10Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.


Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures
by Mary Baker Eddy
  1. SH 337:5-6

    Material personality is not realism; it is not 6the reflection or likeness of Spirit, the perfect God.

  2. SH 491:25

    Per-sonality is not the individuality of man. A wicked man 27may have an attractive personality.

  3. SH 285:7-11

        What, then, is the material personality which suffers, sins, and dies? It is not man, the image and likeness 9The human counterfeitof God, but man’s counterfeit, the inverted likeness, the unlikeness called sin, sickness, and death.

  4. SH 116:24

        As the words person and personal are commonly and ignorantly employed, they often lead, when applied to Deity, to confused and erroneous conceptions of divinity 27and its distinction from humanity. If the term personality, as applied to God, means infinite personality, then God is infinite Person, — in the sense of infinite personality, but 30not in the lower sense. An infinite Mind in a finite form is an absolute impossibility.

  5. SH 517:15-19

        The world believes in many persons; but if God is per-sonal, there is but one person, because there is but one Divine personalityGod. His personality can only be reflected, 18not transmitted. God has countless ideas, and they all have one Principle and parentage.

  6. SH 343:21

        It would sometimes seem as if truth were rejected be-cause meekness and spirituality are the conditions of its acceptance, while Christendom generally demands so 24much less.

  7. SH 13:20-29

        If we pray to God as a corporeal person, this will 21prevent us from relinquishing the human doubts and Corporeal ignorancefears which attend such a belief, and so we cannot grasp the wonders wrought by infi-24nite, incorporeal Love, to whom all things are possible. Because of human ignorance of the divine Principle, Love, the Father of all is represented as a corporeal 27creator; hence men recognize themselves as merely physical, and are ignorant of man as God’s image or re-flection and of man’s eternal incorporeal existence.

  8. SH 544:24-25

    Man is the likeness of Spirit, but a material personality is not this likeness.

  9. SH 94:14

    Tyranny, intolerance, and bloodshed, wherever found, 15arise from the belief that the infinite is formed after the pattern of mortal personality, passion, and impulse.

  10. SH 576:31-4

    This human sense of Deity yields to the divine 577 577:1sense, even as the material sense of personality yields to the incorporeal sense of God and man as the infinite 3Principle and infinite idea, — as one Father with His uni-versal family, held in the gospel of Love.

  11. SH 30:30-1

    We cannot choose for ourselves, but must work out our salvation in the way Jesus taught. In meekness and might, he was found 31 31:1preaching the gospel to the poor.

  12. SH 597:5-11 (to 1st .)

    The 6great Nazarene, as meek as he was mighty, rebuked the hypocrisy, which offered long petitions for blessings upon material methods, but cloaked the crime, latent in thought, 9which was ready to spring into action and crucify God’s anointed. The martyrdom of Jesus was the culminating sin of Pharisaism.

  13. SH 33:18

        When the human element in him struggled with the divine, our great Teacher said: “Not my will, but The holy struggleThine, be done!” — that is, Let not the flesh, 21but the Spirit, be represented in me. This is the new understanding of spiritual Love. It gives all for Christ, or Truth. It blesses its enemies, heals the 24sick, casts out error, raises the dead from trespasses and sins, and preaches the gospel to the poor, the meek in heart.

  14. SH 49:14-16

        The meek demonstrator of good, the highest instruc-15tor and friend of man, met his earthly fate alone with Heaven’s sentinelGod.

  15. SH 334:10 The

    The invisible Christ was imperceptible to the so-called personal senses, whereas Jesus appeared as a 12The Son’s dualitybodily existence. This dual personality of the unseen and the seen, the spiritual and mate-rial, the eternal Christ and the corporeal Jesus manifest 15in flesh, continued until the Master’s ascension, when the human, material concept, or Jesus, disappeared, while the spiritual self, or Christ, continues to exist in 18the eternal order of divine Science, taking away the sins of the world, as the Christ has always done, even before the human Jesus was incarnate to mortal eyes.

  16. SH 40:25-28

        Our heavenly Father, divine Love, demands that all men should follow the example of our Master and his 27Service and worshipapostles and not merely worship his personal-ity.

  17. SH 456:17-18

    Science 18No dishonest concessions makes no concessions to persons or opinions.

  18. SH 79:12

    Christian Science removes these beliefs and hypotheses through the higher understanding of God, for Christian Science, resting on divine Principle, not on ma-15terial personalities, in its revelation of immortality, intro-duces the harmony of being.

  19. SH 445:8-10, 13-15, 19-24

    Unfold the latent energies and capac-9ities for good in your pupil. Teach the great possibilities of man endued with divine Science. ... Teach the meekness and might of life “hid with Christ in God,” and there will be no desire for 15other healing methods.

        Christian Science silences human will, quiets fear with Truth and Love, and illustrates the unlabored motion 21Divine energyof the divine energy in healing the sick. Self-seeking, envy, passion, pride, hatred, and revenge are cast out by the divine Mind which heals 24disease.

  20. SH 263:1-10

        Mortals are egotists. They believe themselves to be independent workers, personal authors, and even privi-3Human egotismleged originators of something which Deity would not or could not create. The creations of mortal mind are material. Immortal spiritual man 6alone represents the truth of creation.

        When mortal man blends his thoughts of existence with the spiritual and works only as God works, 9Mortal man a mis-creatorhe will no longer grope in the dark and cling to earth because he has not tasted heaven.

  21. SH 312:24-26

    A personal sense of God Man-made theoriesand of man’s capabilities necessarily limits faith and hinders spiritual understanding.

  22. SH 266:16-18

    Thus He teaches mortals to lay down their fleshliness and gain spirituality. 18This is done through self-abnegation.

  23. SH 270:23-24

    Meekness and charity have divine 24authority.

  24. SH 7:18-21

    If spiritual sense always guided Emotional utterancesmen, there would grow out of ecstatic mo-ments a higher experience and a better life 21with more devout self-abnegation and purity.

  25. SH 568:30-32

    Self-abnegation, by which we lay down all for Truth, or Christ, in our warfare against error, is a rule in Christian Science.

  26. SH 464:21-23

        In founding a pathological system of Christianity, the

    author has labored to expound divine Principle, and not The right motive and its rewardto exalt personality.

From the Christian Science Hymnal
Hymn 234: “O Master, let me walk with thee”
Hymn 423: “Give me, O Lord, a meek and contrite heart”
Hymn 388: “When like a stranger on our sphere”


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