While we can pop into a shop to buy a light bulb, a candle, a lantern – something that can emit light – it is instructive that no market or vendor sells anything that can give off darkness. This is because darkness is simply the absence of light. The only way to darken a room, for example, is to block out the light or switch off the source of light. And yet, darkness can seem very real.
The world can often feel so dark, and this feeling is not attributable to sunlight not reaching the Earth. Many have struggled with dark thoughts. But Christ Jesus, addressing his disciples in his well-known Sermon on the Mount, assures them that they are the light of the world (see Matthew 5:14-16). And that light which was shining through them, their spiritual nature and character, is in reality shining through everyone. We may wonder, then, how to see, experience, or feel this light, especially since, if it is indeed present, it should dispel a sense of darkness.
The Apostle Paul, writing to the church in Corinth, gives an answer: “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (II Corinthians 4:6). Does this not show that the light inherently present in everyone, exemplified as it was in Jesus, is the Christ?
Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered the Christ Science which Jesus taught his disciples, writes in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” that Christ is “a divine influence ever present in human consciousness,” illuminating it with the evidence that proves God is with us – “Immanuel” (p. xi). Elsewhere in Science and Health, she also refers to Christ as “the guiding star of being” and the “daystar of divine Science” (p. vii).
If we are yearning to experience this guiding light that dispels darkness, we have Jesus’ Christly example, and it is important to be willing to follow it. In the Bible, Jesus shows every follower how to love as he loved, and do the works he did and commanded us to do.
As we gain a more spiritual understanding of God, we understand better who we are as God’s spiritual creation. This is not an ineffectual, futile struggle, but it is practical and fruitful. Through relevant Scriptural study and spiritual watchfulness, we have the essential tools we need to gain this spiritual understanding. Many are also finding that obedience and adherence to the rules taught in Christian Science are indispensable to spiritual growth and practical progress.
Shining with Christly light is about letting the spiritual qualities that we each uniquely reflect as God’s ideas be expressed. These Christly qualities are good, and they are always present.
Christian Science explains this by metaphorically regarding God as the sun, Christ as the full light of the sun, and all men and women as individual rays (see Mary Baker Eddy, “The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany,” p. 344). We don’t need to manufacture this Christly light to be the unique and needed ray that we are. It is inherent. Thought is illumined as we are receptive to the Christly messages and spiritual ideas God is giving us constantly.
Jesus said categorically that those who follow his Christly example are the light of the world. And Jesus urged that we let our light shine. How can we do that? Letting our true, spiritual nature shine involves not only listening to the good thoughts that come from God, but choosing to accept and yield to them. Sometimes, this may be a struggle, but the more often we succeed in choosing the good, the quicker we shall recognize it, and – knowing the benefits that come from letting this inherent light shine – we will more readily yield to Christ.
For over 150 years, many individuals have continued to prove that the rules of the Science of Christ-healing provided in Science and Health are efficacious. Not only does the book open up the spiritual import of the Bible, but the ideas it presents, when understood, also result in healing. The Science of Christ is freely accessible and available for anyone to learn and to practice.
The Apostle Paul admonishes that, as God’s children, we should “shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15). Let us remember that the ability of a ray to radiate the sunlight of an ever-shining sun is effortless. Let your light shine today.
Adapted from an editorial published in the June 2026 issue of The Christian Science Journal.
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