Temptations Annulled

Temptations Annulled

By

Julio C. Rivas, CS

 

            The metaphysical/spiritual commentaries below have generated multiple healings in many.

 

M. B. Eddy: “The Science Jesus taught and lived must triumph over all material beliefs and about life, substance, and intelligence, and the multitudinous errors growing from such beliefs.”

Our spiritual intelligence can laser through the fraudulent deceptions (temptations) of materiality.  Our exploration of TRUTH and the application of its lessons give us spiritual freedom.  As long as individuals are growing in spiritual wisdom and power the Church of TRUTH/LOVE cannot be coopted by hierarchical authority and it cannot decline or be lost.  The Science of CHRIST-TRUTH consoles, awakens, educates, heals and blesses. 

(New Living Bible) He ate nothing during those days and afterward Jesus was starving. ³ The devil said to him, “Since you are God’s Son, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”  ⁴ Jesus replied, “It’s written, People won’t live only by bread.”

Substance, security, plenty and happiness are in and of SPIRIT.  Matter-sense cannot give us anything.  It imprisons us in a delusion of material suffering and false happiness.  When hungering for something good we can have more of it by perceiving and striving for its spiritual substance, and by comprehending that MIND-LOVE produces limitless goodness.


⁵ Next the devil led him to a high place and showed him in a single instant all the kingdoms of the world. ⁶ The devil said, “I will give you this whole domain and the glory of all these kingdoms. It’s been entrusted to me and I can give it to anyone I want. ⁷ Therefore, if you will worship me, it will all be yours.”  ⁸ Jesus answered, “It’s written, You will worship the Lord your God and serve only him.”

The kingdoms of the world are dreams.  Since materiality is a mortal dream it does not have anything but dreams to offer.  We can have infinite, spiritual substance by discerning the allness of SPIRIT and its continual, rich providing.  By accepting the beauty, majesty and beneficence of SPIRIT-LOVE we reflect its bounty. 


⁹ The devil brought him into Jerusalem and stood him at the highest point of the temple. He said to him, “Since you are God’s Son, throw yourself down from here; ¹⁰ for it’s written: He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you ¹¹ and they will take you up in their hands so that you won’t hit your foot on a stone.”  ¹² Jesus answered, “It’s been said, Don’t test the Lord your God.”^[

Egotism will cast us headlong into a precipice of spiritual failure.  By knowing that we are SOUL’s oeuvre we remain safe in it.  Our attentiveness to LOVE’s wisdom protects us from egotistical, foolish and empty acts.  Materialized thinking is blind to the infinite ways in which LOVE sustains and empowers us all the time.  But our spiritual sensibility is certain of the paramount concord and progressive impetus which MIND-GOD bestows on everyone.    

 

 

Spiritual Opportunities Are Bursting Everywhere

Spiritual Opportunities Are Bursting Everywhere

 

By

 

Julio C. Rivas, CS

 

 

Today we have wonderful opportunities to prove the healing power of metaphysical, Christian understanding.   In turn, the future will brings us grander spiritual discoveries and awe-inspiring achievements. 

 

While materiality is on its relentless pursuit to blind us to SPIRIT-TRUTH, its efforts are doomed to failure.  LOVE’s intelligent revelations are matter-transcending and that is why they redeem, satisfy and amaze us. 

 

Religions and denominational institutions may thrive, and then some will wane and die.  But LOVE’s intelligent revelations and healing grace are continuous.  They are amplifying their healing impact on humanity.    

 

Revolutionary, metaphysician M. B. Eddy commented that infinite TRUTH’s leavening effects on human consciousness are unstoppable. 

 

Just like the mythological Phoenix bird which burns itself in a fire in order to live again, spiritual apprehension burns away the materialism from religious and secular reasoning so that we can discover more of the preeminence and munificence of SPIRIT-LIFE. 

 

Christ’s activity in human consciousness never declines, never wanes, never ages and never stops.  It is LOVE-TRUTH’s answer to human ignorance, failure and suffering.  

 

Scientific, Christian metaphysics is washing away materiality and revealing that MIND and its immeasurable ideas are ultimate reality. 

 

Imagine how insignificant the early Christians must have appeared to the larger society of their day.  They were first viewed as irrelevant.  But their spiritual zeal, love and wisdom won over thousands of people. 

 

I love reading about the early Christians.  Their lives were transformed by cognizing SPIRIT-REALITY and this had an impact throughout society. 

 

Although the word “martyr” has come to mean a victim, it originally meant to be a witness to the power of SPIRIT-LOVE.  As it was then, today TRUTH makes us victors over evil and suffering.  By synchronizing our thinking with the subsuming glory of SPIRIT-TRUTH we gain multiple triumphs over adversity. 

 

Such a victor and a witness to TRUTH in the early Christian era was a young woman by the name of Perpetua. 

 

The historical record tells us that a number of young Christians had been arrested by the Roman authorities in the city of Carthage, and among them was Perpetua, a newly married woman of good family and upbringing.  She was about 22 years old and had a young infant son still being breast fed.   She was sent to a dirty, stinky, crowded and rat-infested dungeon to await her day of execution. 

 

While praying to understand more of MIND-LOVE’s sovereignty, Perpetua had a vision.  The vision showed her a ladder reaching way up past the clouds.  The ladder served as a symbol of her ascending, spiritual consciousness.     

 

To the sides of the ladder were attached all sorts of metal weapons (daggers, swords, hooks, spikes) which could mangle the flesh of anyone attempting to climb the ladder.   These weapons represented materiality’s attempts to discourage Perpetua from gaining additional spiritual knowledge and power.  

 

At the foot of the ladder sat a dragon of enormous size and it would attack those who tried to climb the ladder.  It terrified anyone approaching the ladder.  This dragon is a symbol for concentrated, aggressive and intimidating evil.  But it also symbolizes the desperation evil feels when it knows that divine Truth is advancing to uncover its deceptions. 

 

In fact, we can seize such moments and puncture the puffed up, but feeble, pretensions of evil. 

 

So in spite of the dragon’s incinerating attacks, Perpetua ran to climb the ladder.  She was convinced that the dragon –puffed up evil -- was impotent before her conscious oneness with LOVE-MIND. 

 

When Perpetua reached the dragon, the beast cowered before her-- it succumbed to the presence of TRUTH in Perpetua’s thought.  The dragon went behind the ladder and stuck his head out from underneath the lowest rung.  Full of spiritual boldness, Perpetua stepped on the dragon’s head and climbed the ladder.  When she reached the top she felt subsumed by infinite LOVE.  She was safe and flourishing within it. 

 

Full of this inspired vision Perpetua went on to face the wild beasts in the Roman coliseum on her assigned day and none of the beasts could harm her.  When Perpetua did die it was on her terms and by her own choice.  She gave up her life to save the one of a young Roman soldier who was going to be killed by his superiors if Perpetua did not die. 

 

As Jesus taught us, to give up one’s life to save another is not giving in to death but triumphing with LOVE and gaining more of our immortality in LIFE-GOD .

 

Our expression of TRUTH-LOVE alters the world.  We can share with the world the pure love and might of the Christ-spirit.  Humanity experiences redemption when it is exposed to the invigorating, purifying and enhancing influence of LOVE’s wisdom and selfless grace. 

 

Let us be known for proving that man is truly divine LOVE’s spiritual masterpiece.  This kind of spiritual commitment, valor and vigor is as transformative today as it has been throughout human history.

 

    

 

Christly, healing grace from “Christ and Christmas”

Christly, healing grace from “Christ and Christmas”

 

By

 

Julio C. Rivas, CS

 

 

“Christ was not crucified – that doom was Jesus’ part; for Sharon’s rose must bud and bloom in human heart.”

 

Christ is an eternal, blooming, fragrant “flower” of Life-Love.  Our Christ-self cannot suffer nor die; only the fleshly counterfeit does.  By awakening from the flesh-dream, our ever-radiant, beautiful and healthy identity blossoms in our humanity.  Christ reveals our immortal health, love, triumph and joy. 

 

“Forever present, bounteous, free, Christ comes in gloom; and aye, with grace towards you and me, for health makes room.”

 

When we are sinking into illness, fear, misery, despair and depression, Christly wisdom/love awakens us to Love-Life’s outpouring of healing grace and immutable health.   Christ makes us whole. 

 

“Thus olden faith’s pale star now blends in seven-hued white!  Life, without birth and without end, emitting light!”

 

Traditional faith is made luminous by spiritual understanding.  With it we can experience Life as it really is, without beginning or end, always partaking in infinite goodness and emitting it to others. 

 

 

LOVE-MIND Obliterates Evil

LOVE-MIND Obliterates Evil

 

By

 

Julio C. Rivas, CS

 

 

All forms of evil are obliterated by TRUTH-GOD.  Our expression of divine INTELLIGENCE-GOD gives us spiritual authority to overcome evil’s subtle (serpentine) and threatening (dragon-like) machinations.  MIND-given intelligence, alertness and authority are victorious in every circumstance.

 

Insightful theologian M. B. Eddy asserts MIND’s sovereignty when she writes that “Christian Science brings to light Truth and its supremacy, universal harmony, the entireness of God, good, and the nothingness of evil.” 

 

“The Lord is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble” proclaims the Bible.  It means that ignorant, perfidious and malicious forms of evil are exterminated by our synchronicity with the superiority of MIND-TRUTH. 

 

According to the New York Times mass murders have been on the rise.  There were 2 per decade for most of the 20^th century.  It spiked up to 9 of them in the 1980s and 11 in the 1990s.  Since the year 2000 through 2011 there were 26, with 7 more in 2012, including the latest two in Connecticut and Oregon. 

 

FBI crime data describes the typical mass murderer as a white male, loner, with some college education, from a stable, upper-middle to middle class family.  They are likely to suffer from mental illness, they blame others for their personal failings, and they become obsessed with hatred and revenge.  But the primary predictor for their violent rampages is alcohol and/or drug abuse.

 

Single victim murders contrast with mass murders in that alcohol/drug abuse is not the primary predictor.  For the male killer it is revenge, power, money and rage.  For the female killer the motive is a distorted sense of love for a boyfriend, husband, ex, or child 

 

Serial killers’ motives are multiple and they evolve through the series of killings.  These killers are known to experience a sick thrill from their actions. 

 

All this information can be used to pray specifically and effectively to nullify evil’s machinations.  Evil thoughts and actions scream “Pay attention to me! Fear me! I can control you!”  But LOVE-MIND’s intelligent ideas and motives quash them. 

 

We can counter mental illness by understanding that man is the expression of MIND-INTELLIGENCE.  Our genuine self is not a pawn of a deranged, alcohol-drug-addicted, material brain. We are the restful, peaceful, loving, productive manifestation of MIND.   Our spiritual composition is endowed with the equipoise and elements of SPIRIT.  This view heals material, chemical imbalances. 

 

Infinite LOVE-SOUL is the determiner of our genuine identity.  LOVE’s fulfillment, confidence and generosity abound in our spiritual composition.  This recognition obliterates evil motives like revenge, greed, rage, hatred, control, and possessive, perverted feelings about love. 

 

After Elijah ordered the killing of 300 priests of Baal he still failed to remove the apostasy of Judah.  Then alone in the desert and considering suicide he discovered and submitted himself to the intelligence and grace of LOVE-MIND.  He became a new man, one who reflected LOVE’s authority over evil. 

 

David from the Old Testament proved the power of depending on MIND-LOVE.  It is what provided him with the intelligence, savvy and grace to overcome adversity and to defeat larger-sized armies in battle.

 

When we succumb to evil thoughts we lose our spiritual power.  Materialized, sinful thinking disconnects us from LOVE’s overflowing goodness and wisdom.  This impairs our ability to uncover and destroy evil purposes. 

 

King Saul is an example of someone who did not correct evil thoughts when they first presented themselves to his thinking.  When his faithful servant David was winning the battles assigned to him by the king, Saul became consumed by envy and hatred toward David.   Instead of celebrating David’s victories King Saul felt threatened by them and attempted to murder David. 

 

David, who communed daily with MIND-GOD, detected King Saul’s murderous attempts and avoided them.  Although David was deeply hurt by Saul’s betrayal he let Saul know that he still loved him. 

 

Saul, on the other hand, did not submit to LOVE’s corrective wisdom.  He experienced further mental, emotional and physical deterioration.   His poor judgment led him and his sons and friends to be killed in battle.

 

M. B. Eddy’s states that “Hatred, envy, dishonesty, fear, and so forth, make a man sick, and neither material medicine nor Mind can help him permanently, even in body, unless it makes him better mentally, and so delivers him from his destroyers.” 

 

She also wrote that “The so-called sinner is a suicide” because it causes one’s self-destruction.  It describes well what happened to King Saul.

 

Jesus Christ took the mask off evil by calling it a lie and proving it so.  The writer of Revelation describes in allegorical language how our cognition of GOOD-GOD’s sovereignty disables all of evil’s deceptions. 

 

St. John discerned evil’s manipulative deceptions and foresaw mankind’s victory over them.  Echoing John’s vision of triumph, M. B. Eddy wrote, “To infinite, ever-present Love, all is Love, and there is no error, no sin, sickness, nor death.” 

 

We can know with Christly certainty that LOVE-MIND has instilled in us the necessary power, intelligence and love to overcome evil.  The spiritual forces of LOVE define us and fill our lives. 

 

 

 

Be Healed Now

Be Healed Now

 

By

 

Julio C. Rivas, CS

 

 

Biblical Scripture proclaims, “Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ….”  

 

Radical theologian and healer M. B. Eddy adds, “’Now, ‘ cried the apostle, ‘is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation,’ – meaning, not that now men must prepare for a future-world salvation, or safety, but that now is the time in which to experience that salvation in spirit and in truth” (S&H p. 39:18-22). 

 

All healings prove the empyrean and timeless magnificence of LOVE and of LOVE’s incorporeal man.  Even difficulties that have endured for years are healed because we gain some cognizance of the now-ness of LOVE-TRUTH’s healing efficacy.   

 

The dishonest tax collector Zaccheaus was transformed into an honest man in one encounter with Jesus Christ.  The dead 12-year-old girl was raised back to life in one visit.  Jesus Christ healed thousands instantly.

 

There are also millions who have been redeemed from extreme suffering by one moment of clear spiritual understanding. 

 

We live in the now-ness of immortal LOVE-TRUTH’s liberating power.  This makes immeasurable health, love and bounty attainable at all moments. 

 

The dream of material existence keeps us unaware of SPIRIT’s preeminence.  SPIRIT’s health-goodness-enforcing laws are unknown within the dream and it appears that we are trapped in material problems.

 

It is spiritual education which awakens us to LOVE-SPIRIT’s harmonious government and to man’s SPIRIT-obtained, supernal excellence.  We possess a spiritual essence and it is exempt from illness, failure and lack. 

 

Because all human ills are mortal dreams we can wake up from them via spiritual education and application. 

 

Dreaming that we are trapped in a tank with a killer shark is no more dangerous or difficult to resolve than dreaming that we are in the tank with a goldfish.  We wake up and we are free.  Spiritual metaphysics teaches and proves that TRUTH-GOD awakens us from the worst dilemmas. 

 

The Christ-spirit within everyone is awake to LOVE’s subsuming preeminence and to man’s spiritual magnificence.  It knows LOVE’s preponderance and reliability.  It shouts “The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my strength, in whom I will trust....” 

 

MIND is All-in-all.  Every troubled place, person or circumstance can be redeemed by become conscious of MIND’s harmony-disseminating laws.  MIND is omni-active goodness and this fact is ours to assert and apply. 

 

Outstanding healer M. B. Eddy wrote, “Since God is All, there is no room for His unlikeness” (S&H 339: 7). 

 

Our spiritual apprehension and certainty emits PRINCIPLE-LOVE’s eminence.   This is why it defeats evil and its myriad material problems.

 

TRUTH rouses us to discern our incorporeal, spiritual essence.  It reveals that our genuine essence emanates from SPIRIT and resembles its wholeness.   This realization annuls material imperfection. 

 

These ever-active, demonstrable, divine laws healed a man who was diagnosed with needing hip-replacement surgery.  Our prayers allowed us to behold his SPIRIT-drawn, healthy substance and mobility.  By focusing thought on the spiritual excellence that SPIRIT maintained as his inviolate divine reality, we woke up from the material dream of a damaged and deteriorated material hip.

 

A subsequent medical examination confirmed that his hip had healed. Tears streamed down his face when he found out. 

 

He began a more physically active life before.  Long, daily walks and weekly tennis became a part of his life. 

 

Spiritual comprehension, alertness and conviction manifest dominance over difficulties.  A MIND-aligned consciousness cancels the suffering dreams of matter-enslaved thinking. 

 

Our PRINCIPLE-mandated, spiritual birthright is immutable health, wisdom and freedom.  Our conscious alignment with omnipotent MIND makes this provable now. 

Healing obtained from "Christ and Christmas"

                                   Healing inspiration from the poem "Christ and Christmas"

                                                                               by

                                                                  Julio C. Rivas, CS

"Forever present, bounteous, free, Christ comes in the gloom; and aye, with grace towards you and me, for health makes room."   (from "Christ and Christmas")

LOVE-TRUTH saturates us with Christ's healing grace.  Christ-sense  is infusing our bodies, relationships and activities with immeasurable and commanding health, intelligence and might.  This cancels the illusions of error.  Christ reigns in you, me and all.

"Thus olden faith's pale star now blends in seven-hued white!  Life, without birth and without end, emitting light!"

The paleness of matter-tied faith in God is superceded by the effulgence of spiritually comprehending the ALL of SPIRIT-LIFE.  Our cognition of its majesty -- its all-force, all-intelligence, all-cause, all-effect -- bursts outwardly with superlative understanding, love and healing.  

Healing drawn from “Christ and Christmas”

Healing drawn from “Christ and Christmas”

 

By

 

Julio C. Rivas, CS

 

 

“Fast circling on, from zone to zone, -- bright, blest, afar, -- o’er the grim night of chaos shone one love, brave star.” 

 

“In tender mercy, Spirit sped a loyal ray to rouse the living, wake the dead, and point the way.” 

 

 

A Healing Prayer:

 

I welcome the supernal “star” of Christly love and wisdom.  I submit to its brilliant, vitalizing and transformative grace.  I see it bursting forth with radiant goodness for me and everyone. 

 

Because Christ-sense draws on the superlative effulgence of TRUTH-LOVE, it is shining with healing on all.   Its celestial brightness supplants hopelessness and despair with outstanding and powerful answers.

 

LOVE’s blazing light dissipates all darkness.   It enforces superlative peace and erases all mental, physical and emotional chaos.

 

SOUL redeems all regions of thought, and rights every human condition. 

 

SPIRIT’s laws propagate health, compassion, fulfillment and opportunity to every receptive consciousness.  Their goodness-multiplying wonders affect us speedily and with supreme efficacy.

 

MIND synchronizes our thinking, body and relationships with supernal harmony.  Family, friends, associates and enemies are united by MIND with intelligent and caring purpose.

 

LIFE’s proliferating health and intelligence ejects confusing, painful and terminal prognostications.  LIFE anoints us with heavenly attributes.  It blesses every zone of our thought, body and life.