This article was contributed by a member of the Christian Science community in Canberra. It was published in the September 19, 2025 issue of the Canberra Weekly magazine.
Most of my friends are not believers in God. Some say straight out that there is no God. Others ask: If there is, is He or She relevant to today’s modern world. They tell me that they can be good people and live happy lives without believing in a mystical being.
Standing in the Sea of Galilee.
If I didn’t have a Christian Science background, I would definitely be with them and not be a believer either. Christian Science shows me a concept of God that helps me make sense of the world. Christian Science is Bible based. While we understand that much of the Bible is allegorical and meant to be interpreted from a spiritual perspective and not taken literally, Jesus’ instructions we do take seriously. He gives us the rules that help us live a better, more productive life.
From Jesus we learn that God is Principle, or law maker. We also learn that God is Love (I John 4:8). Not that God is loving, but that God IS Love. Love has so many shades: kindness, affection, loyalty, generosity, forgiveness, empathy, cooperation. This list goes on. These are the qualities that make life seem worthwhile and that bring peace and harmony to any situation. You will notice that none of these qualities has a material form or is restricted to a particular place – they can be anywhere and everywhere at once. It is said that it is Love that makes the world go around. I don’t think that a world completely devoid of Love could exist! It is essential to existence.
The opposite to Love is hate – cruelty, selfishness, retaliation, greed, stubbornness. These are the qualities that tear families and societies apart. They bring no joy. The world, right now, is in great need of more of the love qualities and less of the hate.
If God is Love then we know something of the nature of God. God is not a material being; God can be everywhere at once; God is essential to life. Knowing God as Love allows me to see God everywhere – in every act of kindness or generosity, in every smile.
Knowing that God is both Love and Principle, or law maker, gives me trust that Love will always be victorious. For me, putting God first, means putting Love first and this is one way I can bring peace to each experience.
These readings are from the Bible and the textbook of Christian Science, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. They illustrate how man – all of us – as the image and likeness of God, has dominion over all material circumstances.
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And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
How do you deal with the unthinkable? There are so many different ways. In this interview Liz and Matthew Hammond, share how they’re thinking and praying in the aftermath of a huge loss in their family. And what they share is both touching—and healing.
Click here to listen to Liz and Matthew share how they coped with this life-changing experience.
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? (The Bible – KJV: Psalm 27: 1)
I will call upon God; and the Lord shall save me. Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice. (The Bible KJV: Psalm 55: 16, 17)
He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. (The Bible KJV: Psalm 91: 4)
Rise in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike good. God has made man capable of this, and nothing can vitiate the ability and power divinely bestowed on man.
Simply asking that we may love God will never make us love Him; but the longing to be better and holier expressed in daily watchfulness and in striving to assimilate more of the divine character, will mould and fashion us anew, until we awake in His likeness.
In the Saxon and twenty other tongues good is the term for God. The Scriptures declare all that He made to be good, like Himself, — good in Principle and in idea. Therefore the spiritual universe is good, and reflects God as He is.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy p286:16)
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