Sermon on the Mount - Second Great Commandment

Wednesday Readings List

February 17, 2016

Sermon on the Mount - Second Great Commandment

We cannot fulfill the First Great Commandment of loving God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind unless we are loving our neighbor and so-called enemies as God loves them. How can we love even people who wrong us?

 

Hymn 179
Love one another,—word of revelation;
Love frees from error’s thrall,—Love is liberation.
Love’s way the Master trod;
He that loves shall walk with God.
Love is the royal way.

 

Love knows no evil, neither shade of sadness;
Love casts out every fear, lifts the heart to gladness.
Love heals our every ill,
All the law does love fulfill.
Love is our answered prayer.

 

Love now is dawning over every nation;
Showing true brotherhood, publishing salvation,
Love bids all discord cease.
Conquering hate, enthroning peace,
Love, Love alone is power.

 

Matt. 22:36-40
A lawyer, asked Jesus a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 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. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

 

I John 4:20, 21
If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also.

 

SH 515:21-24
Man is the family name for all ideas, — the sons and daughters of God. All that God imparts moves in accord with Him, reflecting goodness and power.

 

SH 264:32-1
The universe of Spirit is peopled with spiritual beings, and its government is divine Science.
 
SH 271:22-24 – The Sermon on the Mount is the essence of this Science.

 

Matt. 5:1, 2, 7, 9
And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, . . . Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. . . . Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

 

Matt. 5: 38-42
Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.

 

Matt. 5:22-24
Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: . . . Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

 

Matt. 6:9, 12, 14
After this manner therefore pray ye: Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. . . . For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

 

Luke 15:11-32
And he said, A certain man had two sons: And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry. Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and entreated him. And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.

 

Matt. 7:1-5
Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

 

Matt. 7:12
Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.

 

Matt. 5:43-45
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.

 

Luke 23: 13-14, 21, 32-34
And Pilate, when he had called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, Said unto them, Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the people: and, behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him. . . . But they cried, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. . . . And there were also two other, malefactors, led with him to be put to death. And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him.
 
Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.

 

John 13:34
A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

 

I Pet. 1:3-4
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you.

 

I John 3:1-2
Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God.

 

I John 2:10
He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.

 

I John 4:7-8, 10-11
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. . . . Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

 

SH 467:1-4, 7-8
Question. — What are the demands of the Science of Soul?
Answer. — The first demand of this Science is, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” . . . The second is like unto it, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

 

SH 88:18-20
To love one’s neighbor as one’s self, is a divine idea; but this idea can never be seen, felt, nor understood through the physical senses.
 
SH 9:11
If selfishness has given place to kindness, we shall regard our neighbor unselfishly, and bless them that curse us; but we shall never meet this great duty simply by asking that it may be done. There is a cross to be taken up before we can enjoy the fruition of our hope and faith.

 

SH 94:14-16
Tyranny, intolerance, and bloodshed, wherever found, arise from the belief that the infinite is formed after the pattern of mortal personality, passion, and impulse.

 

SH 314:10-12
The Jews, who sought to kill this man of God, showed plainly that their material views were the parents of their wicked deeds.
 
SH 285:7-11
What, then, is the material personality which suffers, sins, and dies? It is not man, the image and likeness of God, but man’s counterfeit, the inverted likeness, the unlikeness called sin, sickness, and death.

 

SH 516:24
Genesis i. 27. So God created man in His own image.

 

SH 521:21
Genesis ii. 6. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

 

SH 522:5
The first record assigns all might and government to God, and endows man out of God’s perfection and power. The second record chronicles man as mutable and mortal, — as having broken away from Deity and as revolving in an orbit of his own. Existence, separate from divinity, Science explains as impossible.

 

SH 243:32-4
Inasmuch as God is good and the fount of all being, He does not produce moral or physical deformity; therefore such deformity is not real, but is illusion, the mirage of error. Divine Science reveals these grand facts.

 

SH 292:31-2
In his resurrection and ascension, Jesus showed that a mortal man is not the real essence of manhood, and that this unreal material mortality disappears in presence of the reality.

 

SH 444:27-30
Immortals, or God’s children in divine Science, are one harmonious family; but mortals, or the “children of men” in material sense, are discordant and ofttimes false brethren.

 

SH 475:7-9, 11-13, 14-15, 19, 28-1
The Scriptures inform us that man is made in the image and likeness of God. . . . Man is spiritual and perfect; and because he is spiritual and perfect, he must be so understood in Christian Science. . . . .He is the compound idea of God, including all right ideas; . . . that which has no separate mind from God; that which has not a single quality underived from Deity; that which possesses no life, intelligence, nor creative power of his own, but reflects spiritually all that belongs to his Maker. . . . Man is incapable of sin, sickness, and death. The real man cannot depart from holiness, nor can God, by whom man is evolved, engender the capacity or freedom to sin. A mortal sinner is not God’s man.

 

SH 476:28-5
When speaking of God’s children, not the children of men, Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is within you;” that is, Truth and Love reign in the real man, showing that man in God’s image is unfallen and eternal. Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God’s own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy.
 

 

SH 467:8-13
It should be thoroughly understood that all men have one Mind, one God and Father, one Life, Truth, and Love. Mankind will become perfect in proportion as this fact becomes apparent, war will cease and the true brotherhood of man will be established.

 

SH 576:31-4
This human sense of Deity yields to the divine sense, even as the material sense of personality yields to the incorporeal sense of God and man as the infinite Principle and infinite idea, — as one Father with His universal family, held in the gospel of Love.

 

Hymn 163
Jesus, what precept is like thine:
Forgive, as ye would be forgiven;
If heeded, O what power divine
Would then transform our earth to heaven.

 

So from our hearts must ever flow
A love that will all wrong outweigh;
Our lips must only blessings know,
And wrath and sin shall die away.

 

For it is Mind’s most holy plan
To bring the wanderer back by love;
Then let us win our brother man,
And glorify our God above.

 

Hymn 30 – “Love” by Mary Baker Eddy
Brood o’er us with Thy shelt’ring wing,
‘Neath which our spirits blend
Like brother birds, that soar and sing,
And on the same branch bend.
The arrow that doth wound the dove
Darts not from those who watch and love.

 

If thou the bending reed wouldst break
By thought or word unkind,
Pray that his spirit you partake,
Who loved and healed mankind:
Seek holy thoughts and heavenly strain,
That make men one in love remain.

 

Learn, too, that wisdom’s rod is given
For faith to kiss, and know;
That greetings glorious from high heaven,
Whence joys supernal flow,
Come from that Love, divinely near,
Which chastens pride and earth-born fear,

 

Through God, who gave that word of might
Which swelled creation’s lay:
“Let there be light, and there was light.”
What chased the clouds away?
‘Twas Love whose finger traced aloud
A bow of promise on the cloud.

 

Thou to whose power our hope we give,
Free us from human strife.
Fed by Thy love divine we live,
For Love alone is Life;
And life most sweet, as heart to heart
Speaks kindly when we meet and part.

 

 

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