Dost thou “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind”? This Practical religion. command includes much, — even the surrender of all merely material sensation, affection, and worship. This is the El Dorado of Christianity. It involves the Science of Life, and recognizes only the divine control of Spirit, wherein Soul is our master, and sensation has no place.
Are you willing to leave all for Christ, for Truth, and so he counted among sinners? No! Do you really desire The chalice sacrificial. to attain this point? No! Then why make long prayers about it, and ask to be Christ-like, since you care not to tread in the footsteps of our dear Master? If unwilling to drink his cup, wherefore pray with the lips that you may be partakers of it? Consistent prayer is the desire to do right. Prayer means that we desire to, and will, walk in the light, so far as we receive it, even though with bleeding footsteps, and, waiting patiently on the Lord, will leave our real desires to be rewarded by Him.
The world must grow to the spiritual understanding of prayer. If good enough to share Jesus' cup of earthly sorrows, we shall endure them. Until we are thus divinely qualified, and willing to drink his cup, millions of vain repetitions will never pour into prayer the unction of Spirit, in demonstration of power, and “with signs following.” Christian Science reveals the necessity of overcoming the world, the flesh, and evil, and thus destroying all error.
Seeking is not sufficient. It is striving which enables us to enter. Spiritual attainments open the door to a higher understanding of the divine Life.
