Wednesday, August 31st, 2016 Testimony Meeting

Psalm 18: 1-2

1 I will love thee, O Lord, my strength.
2 The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.

Psalm 116: 1-2

1 I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications.
2 Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.

Joshua 23: 1-2 (to them); 3-8 (ye); 11

1 And it came to pass a long time after that the Lord had given rest unto Israel from all their enemies round about, that Joshua waxed old and stricken in age.
2 And Joshua called for all Israel, and for their elders, and for their heads, and for their judges, and for their officers, and said unto them,…
3 … ye have seen all that the Lord your God hath done unto all these nations because of you; for the Lord your God is he that hath fought for you.
4 Behold, I have divided unto you by lot these nations that remain, to be an inheritance for your tribes, from Jordan, with all the nations that I have cut off, even unto the great sea westward.
5 And the Lord your God, he shall expel them from before you, and drive them from out of your sight; and ye shall possess their land, as the Lord your God hath promised unto you.
6 Be ye therefore very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, that ye turn not aside therefrom to the right hand or to the left;
7 That ye come not among these nations, these that remain among you; neither make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause to swear by them, neither serve them, nor bow yourselves unto them:
8 But cleave unto the Lord your God, as ye have done unto this day.
11 Take good heed therefore unto yourselves, that ye love the Lord your God.

Matthew 22: 1 Jesus … spake unto them again; 15; 35-39

1 … Jesus … spake unto them again…
15 Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk.
35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Matthew 6: 24

24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

Romans 8: 28

28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

9: 17-24

Dost thou “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind”? This 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, in which Soul is our master, and material sense and human will have no place.

4: 17-22

Simply asking that we may love God will never make us love Him; but the longing to be better and holier, expressed in daily watchful- ness and in striving to assimilate more of the divine character, will mould and fashion us anew, until we awake in His likeness.

326: 8-11

All nature teaches God’s love to man, but man cannot love God supremely and set his whole affections on spiritual things, while loving the material or trusting in it more than in the spiritual.

454: 17-19

Love for God and man is the true incentive in both healing and teaching. Love inspires, illumines, designates, and leads the way.

6: 3-6

We cannot serve two masters. Do we love God supremely? Are we honest, just, faithful? Are we true to ourselves? “God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”

287: 7-9; 15-18

Divine Love reforms, regenerates, giving to human weakness strength, serving as admonition, instruction, and governing all that really is.

In love for man we gain the only and true sense of love for God, practical good, and so rise and still rise to His image and likeness, and are made partakers of that Mind whence springs the universe.

140: 4-12

That God is a corporeal being, nobody can truly affirm. The Bible represents Him as saying: “Thou canst not see My face; for there shall no man see Me and live.” Not materially but spiritually we know Him as divine Mind, as Life, Truth, and Love. We shall obey and adore in proportion as we apprehend the divine nature and love Him understandingly, warring no more over the corporeality, but rejoicing in the affluence of our God.

328: 21-32

He alone ascends the hill of Christian Science who follows the Way-shower, the spiritual presence and idea of God. Whatever obstructs the way,—causing to stumble, fall, or faint, those mortals who are striving to enter the path,—divine Love will remove; and uplift the fallen and strengthen the weak. Therefore, give up thy earth-weights; and observe the apostle’s admonition, “Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those which are before.” Then, loving God supremely and thy neighbor as thyself, thou wilt safely bear thy cross up to the throne of everlasting glory.

100: 26-7

The Christian Scientist loves man more because he loves God most. He understands this Principle,—Love. Who is sufficient for these things? Who remembers that patience, forgiveness, abiding faith, and affection, are the symptoms by which our Father indicates the different stages of man’s recovery from sin and his entrance into Science? Who knows how the feeble lips are made eloquent, how hearts are inspired, how healing becomes spontaneous, and how the divine Mind is understood and demonstrated? He alone knows these wonders who is departing from the thraldom of the senses and accepting spiritual truth,—that which blesses its adoption by the refinement of joy and the dismissal of sorrow.

4: 1-4

He is near to them who adore Him. To understand Him, without a single taint of our mortal, finite sense of sin, sickness, or death, is to approach Him and become like Him.

4: 20-25

Who lives in good, lives also in God, – lives in all Life, through all space. His is an individual kingdom, his diadem a crown of crowns. His existence is deathless, forever unfolding its eternal Principle. Wait patiently on illimitable Love, the lord and giver of Life. Reflect this Life, and with it cometh the full power of being.