Sunday, June 21st, 2026 Roundtable
One is Your Father, Which is in Heaven
This week’s Lesson Sermon Subject: Is The Universe, Including Man, Evolved By Atomic Force?
Click here to play the audio as you read:
Morning Prayer
Be like a little child. Turn your thoughts to Love and say, O Love, take me in; give me one Mind, one consciousness and make me to love my neighbor as myself. Let your heart cry out to divine Love. A child cries out to its mother for more light, more truth, more love. Ask Love for what you need and for what Love has to give; then take it and demand of yourself to rise up and live it. Read daily your Bible and Science and Health, and say the Lord’s Prayer in your own words. Ask for His kingdom to come, for more Life, Truth and Love to govern all your desires, aims and motives; to feed you with a faith and a clear knowledge of good; to make you patient, forgiving, long-suffering, merciful, and compassionate, even as the dear God is this to you and you desire Him to be. And then reflect this God in all His qualities. Dear God, I ask for divine Love to leave me not to be tempted, nor to yield to temptation in any direction. I ask for wisdom and grace to know and to do just what God would have me do.
from Collectanea, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 151
Daily Watch
66 — WATCH lest you become discouraged in your general mental work for humanity, because the results of your work do not appear at once. You should know that, in spite of the fact that at present you may see no results, every bit of scientific work you do is effectual, because it is the very power of God expressed; therefore it knows no limits.
Discussion points
Whatever holds human thought in line with unselfed love, receives directly the divine power.
from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 192
Creative Force and Atomic Power by Paul R. Smillie
Matthew 23
Call no man your father upon the earth; for one is your Father, which is in heaven.
Escape from the Supposed Law of Heredity by William P. McKenzie
In Science man is the offspring of Spirit. The beautiful, good, and pure constitute his ancestry.
from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 63
The kingdom of heaven is within you and this is your armor by Mary Baker Eddy
The Shouting of the Sons of God by Ella W. Hoag
from the March 12, 1927 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel
Every student of the Bible is familiar with the deep experiences which came to Job when he was learning the difference between self-righteousness with its resulting disasters and the righteousness which is of God and which always brings sweet contentment and peace. Through these experiences Job was awakening somewhat from the dream of fleshliness to the realities of spiritual existence. He so longed to know God and be true to Him that his trials served to loosen his hold on matter and its deceptive sense-testimony, and therefore his ear could hear when God spoke to him of that wonderful time “when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.”
From his day to ours there have been many who have begun to see in some degree the undesirability of materiality, and their hearts have reached out longingly for that spiritual good which is lasting and truly satisfying. Such as these have pondered deeply and often God’s words to Job, and have prayed that they too might have their ears so open to the divine voice that the joy of those primeval days might flow into their experience.
Jesus understood the bliss that belongs to the sons of God, and he prayed that his disciples might have his joy fulfilled in them. He understood and demonstrated man’s divine sonship, and insisted that his followers should do the same, when he commanded, “Call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.” John realized that this demand of Jesus meant universal sonship with God, for he declared, “Now are we the sons of God.” It was not, however, until Christian Science was revealed that the realization of the truth of John’s statement was made fully possible of demonstration to all here and now.
With the advent of this divine Science there was given to men not only the complete assurance of the truth of man’s divine sonship, but also the exact method whereby it is to be demonstrated. Mrs. Eddy in “The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany” (p. 242) presents this method in a most clear and completely succinct manner when she writes, “Christian Science is absolute; it is neither behind the point of perfection nor advancing towards it;” and she adds, “Unless you fully perceive that you are the child of God, hence perfect, you have no Principle to demonstrate and no rule for its demonstration.”
Now it would seem that one had only to be assured that he is here and now the perfect child of his perfect Father-Mother God for him to enter at once and whole-heartedly on the blessed work of proving the truth of such divine and blissful sonship. With even the most limited concept of what God’s glorious perfections must include, how could one ever falter in the endeavor to claim as God’s child his divine right to all these perfections? Over and over again has our Leader explained that we have but to dwell in thought with this truth of being, allowing our lives to be governed thereby, for us to come proportionably into the recognition of our heavenly inheritance.
Christian Scientists accept the theory of this method in its entirety, and they are learning gradually to put it into practice in manifold ways. There is one point that we shall all do well to consider often and with decided profit. We should always recognize the value of shouting for God and His glories. Now the shouting with which the sons of God were accredited in the long ago was joined with the song of the morning stars. It was therefore far from the blatant vociferations which men are accustomed to associate with the term “shouting” to-day. On the contrary, must it not have been the expression of that heavenly exultation which may be found in the tenderest, but withal the most powerful, of the tones of Spirit?
Such divinely imbued shouting must carry with it the invincible ability to silence every effort of error to lift its arrogant voice against the celestial song of the angels of God, as reverberant in the true thoughts and holy desires of the blessed sons of God. As Christian Scientists we may therefore well claim our right to shout mentally for all that is good and pure and beautiful and grand. As we continually keep our mental tones vibrant with love for God and man, we shall come consciously into unity with the songs of the morning stars. Then will the glad shouts of God’s sons be heard universally in a grand, triumphant, joyful song of health and holiness and harmony!
The Christlike understanding of scientific being and divine healing includes a perfect Principle and idea, — perfect God and perfect man, — as the basis of thought and demonstration.
from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 259
If Christian Science children did, however, consider that their children were their own
creations, that is, offsprings of thought wedded to error –– instead of the creations of God
appearing to them, they would be worse off than the merely ignorant.
from Mary Baker Eddy’s Six Days of Revelation, the green book, page 281
Sunday School Lesson June 21, 2026 “Our Father”
Responsive Reading: Isaiah 44 : 8, 21-23, 28
8. Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any.
21. Remember these, O Jacob and Israel; for thou art my servant: I have formed thee; thou art my servant: O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of me.
22. I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins: return unto me; for I have redeemed thee.
23. Sing, O ye heavens; for the Lord hath done it: shout, ye lower parts of the earth: break forth into singing, ye mountains, O forest, and every tree therein: for the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and glorified himself in Israel.
28. He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid.
The Christ Blots Out Mistake And Penalty by Paul Stark Seeley
From the September 1943 issue of The Christian Science Journal
A net in which many mortals become entangled is the belief that because they have made a serious mistake, they must suffer indefinitely a penalty. It may be a bad investment with years of resulting recrimination; a moral lapse that seems to have cast a darkening cloud on life’s way; a domestic or business partnership unwisely entered into with consequent friction and thwarted hopes; an ill-chosen vocation, leading to disappointment and a feeling that one’s life has been a failure; or a crime committed, followed by what seems an unerasable stigma.
Christian Science shows the way out of such enmeshments. It extricates and liberates the individual from the dungeons of hopelessness, and the prisons from which aggressive evil thoughts would say there is no way of escape. No mistake is so base as to put any individual beyond the power of God’s changeless, saving love.
The verb “turn” has much meaning in the establishing of one’s God-ordained superiority to this phase of evil’s lie, called mistake and penalty. Says the Bible, “When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, … if thou turn to the Lord thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice … he will not forsake thee.” Mary Baker Eddy says in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” (p. 316), “The real man being linked by Science to his Maker, mortals need only turn from sin and lose sight of mortal selfhood to find Christ, the real man and his relation to God, and to recognize the divine sonship.”
“Mortals need only turn.” If you walk with your back to the sun, the way before you is shadowed. If you turn about and walk toward the sun, the shadows are all behind you. So everyone can escape from the shadowy picture of a mortal who has made a mistake and must indefinitely suffer a penalty, simply by unreservedly turning thought from the darkness of material creation to the promised land of God and His son.
A Christian Scientist once purchased a sizable piece of real estate at the top of the market. When prices returned to normal, the mistake was apparent. The argument was persistent that a serious mistake had been made, and that penalty in the way of heavy financial loss was inevitable. As he strove earnestly to turn from all that mortal mind was arguing, he began to ask, “Who makes mistakes?” God certainly does not, nor does His man, who is always expressing Him. He began to see that it is only erring mortal mind and its wrong-minded mortal man that thinks and acts mistakenly.
He saw in some degree that he was not really a mistake-making mortal, but the constant individual expression of the never-mistake-making God. Though to human sense a mistake had been made, it was wholly outside God’s universe, and was only a dream phenomenon of erring belief. He knew that as Mind’s idea he could disassociate his sense of selfhood from it, and its threatening penalty. At the very time mortal mind argued he had been making the mistake, his real self was indissolubly one with God, infinite Mind, expressing the unerring activity of the Ego which never is conscious of mortal mind or mistake-making mortals, or resulting penalties.
He saw that this aggressive argument of mistake and penalty could not come into God’s universe, could not come between him and everlasting Love, nor stop for an instant the operation of Love’s unfailing law of provision for man. The lie of mistake and penalty could not substitute itself for his continuing, God-reflecting, God-provided-for individuality. No phase of mortal mind’s lying concept of creation could impose itself on, adhere to, or amalgamate with his manhood, forever within the fortress of God’s infinitude.
The result of his turning to the true idea of man and God was that his belief in and fear of the mistake soon lessened. In time, ways not formerly considered for developing the property came to light, with resulting increase in value and benefits to others, as well as to himself. Income from sources not previously apparent removed any sense of penalty in the way of loss.
So every form of mistake and penalty can be erased from consciousness, with harmonious adjustments resulting, if the individual is genuinely willing to turn from the mistaken concept of life and mind as mortal, and of man as a mortal capable of thinking and acting mistakenly with resulting penalties. The wise thinker will not allow himself to become entrapped in such a cul-de-sac of mortal belief, nor will he consent to accept such a fate as the lot of his brother, provided always that the individual is willing to turn from the wrong, embrace and consistently live the right.
What a grand thing it is to know that the doors of heaven are eternally open. They can never be shut. Every individual has his place secure therein. Only his own acceptance of, and submission to, the belief in another mind and life than God, and the errors consequent thereon, can even seem to imprison and penalize him. Mistake-making thinking and acting, and all the scenes and scenery that appear to attend them, are made of the dream substance of mortal belief. Never do they disengage his identity, which is forever spiritual, God-governed, God-placed, and God-conditioned from its inviolability, its God-ordered activity, relationships, and continuing perfection, unentangled in the maze of mortality’s dream.
Said the prophet, “If the wicked turn from his wickedness, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall live thereby.” All wrong-mindedness, including belief in mistake and penalty, is wickedness. To erase and cancel it, the individual must be willing to turn to the right idea of God and man, and consistently to think and live in accord with the Word of his God.
No one should write on the screen of consciousness his own or another’s mistakes with an indelible pencil. They and their would-be penalties dissolve and disappear before the recognition of the allness of that saving Love which erased so completely any sense of mistake and penalty from the life of the Magdalen, turned Paul so completely from his mistaken course of persecution, and enabled Peter, after his denial of his Lord, so to correct his unfaithfulness as to receive from his Master the holy commission, “Feed my sheep.” These great characters were willing humbly, honestly, and courageously to turn to God and His Christ, to find there the spiritual idea of Life and man, the antidote for any and all mistakes and penalties. So can we.
Says our loving Leader (Unity of Good, p. 20): “How is a mistake to be rectified? by reversal or revision, —by seeing it in its proper light, and then turning it or turning from it.”
How is a mistake rectified? from Unity of Good by Mary Baker Eddy, page 20
Don’t bring up the past unless there is a lesson to be learned.
Ecclesiastes 3:15
…God requireth that which is past.
The human history needs to be revised, and the material record expunged.
from Retrospection and Introspection, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 22
The power of Christian Science and divine Love is omnipotent. It is indeed adequate to unclasp the hold and to destroy disease, sin, and death.
from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 412
5. John 8 : 1, 2, 12 (saying), 28 (I do), 29
1 Jesus went unto the mount of Olives.
2 And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them.
12 …saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
28 I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.
29 And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.
If living in disobedience to Him, we ought to feel no security, although God is good.
from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 19
Final Readings
The Shepherd by Frances Mack Mann
from the April 27, 1899 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel (originally printed in the Denver Republican)
We find in both the Old and New Testaments that the type of the shepherd was a favorite one for Biblical writers. It was a touching one in a pastoral country like Palestine.
The sheep and shepherd were inseparable in that lonely, mountainous country. They were mutually dependent. The shepherd was drawn to the sheep for companionship; the sheep were drawn to the shepherd for protection. There were dangers from wolves, lions, robbers, torrents, and storms, which each shared.
This manner of life seems to have brought out in the man a sense of Love, so that the shepherds were among the first to know of the advent of Jesus to earth. We find by the parable of Jesus that there were both true and false shepherds. The duty of the true shepherd was in the morning to lead the sheep out where there were green pastures and running waters, carefully he tended the flock all day, keeping them away from dangers, and if one strayed away he went afar after it until he found it and brought it again to the fold. He slept with them at night. But the false shepherd, the hireling, cared only for the money he was receiving for his work, and ran away at the first approach of danger.
Jesus explaining this to his disciples called himself the true shepherd and they were the sheep. The Word of God is to every age, and the correction, denunciation, and reproof of the prophet Ezekiel to the shepherds found in Ezekiel, 34 : 4, because “The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them”—applies alike to the hireling of to-day.
There are certain qualities of Mind that must come out in a true shepherd’s life. Prominent among them are faithfulness, courage, gentleness, and love.
If these are not found in our lives we are not good shepherds.
David tells us in the Twenty-third Psalm that God is our shepherd, and that He leadeth us. Surely as we come into a fuller realization of the Love that is God we shall all have “One fold and one Shepherd,” and all men will dwell in quietness, peace, and confidence forever. No longer warring over creeds, and the opinions of men, but willing that the Truth that comes (as James tells us only by revelation) may lead our fellow men as well as ourselves, “For with thee is the fountain of life, in thy light we shall see light.”