God is Love. Efficacious, ever-present Love is infinite healing power. The gentle touch of divine Love upon human thought releases us from our ignorance of God and its accompanying fear, encourages us to yield to the government of Love, and heals disease. Because the human body is the objective state of mortal thought, our bodies manifest health and harmony when our thought is governed by divine Truth and Love. Health can be thought of as the consciousness of Love’s presence. When we are aware of the presence and power of Love, we are conscious of the true substance of health. In the light of Love, discord and disease disappear. The Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, states, “Let unselfishness, goodness, mercy, justice, health, holiness, love—the kingdom of heaven—reign within us, and sin, disease, and death will diminish until they finally disappear.”¹

Does this mean that if love isn’t reigning in our thought, we have no hope for health and freedom? No. Human thought isn’t the healer; it is what needs healing. Divine Mind, God, Love, is always the healer. Christ, Truth, is the message of divine Love acting upon human thought and freeing it from fear, hate, and disease. As the human mind yields to the divine, it is transformed and healed. The body then expresses this healthy state of thought.

Certainly pure, good, loving thoughts benefit our bodies, but we shouldn’t despair simply because we haven’t overcome all sin. Christ Jesus taught us to forgive others their faults—and then we’ll be forgiven. Such forgiveness doesn’t condone sin or leave humanity to stagnate in sin. Rather it helps to teach us the nature of Love and of man’s true being as Love’s likeness. As we learn of divine Love, and learn who we really are, we discover true satisfaction and joy and become willing to part from sin.

John wrote in one of his letters, “If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.”² God is greater than our heart —our emotions, feelings, and so forth. He is infinitely greater than mortal mind with its confusing, mistaken view of reality. God isn’t sitting somewhere waiting to bestow His love upon us. He loves us now, utterly, because He is ever-present Love, and because He created and knows us as His children.

What presents this picture of man as an unworthy sinner but the serpentine whispering of the carnal mind? Love dissolves that false view. God knows all things; He knows who man really is. God knows us always as His perfect, immortal children. We aren’t imperfect mortals, as mortal mind tempts us to believe we are. Man isn’t a mortal of any kind, separated from God, thinking unworthy thoughts. Man is the image of God, good. He is the idea of Truth and Love. In the light of Love we see ourselves as He sees us, as His beloved children.

Our acceptance of this truth reveals love in our own hearts. Love has an interesting effect on us—we want to be governed by God and to yield to the pure, unselfish purpose of Love in helping others. We become willing to let the kingdom of heaven reign within us.

Sometimes we may encourage another to feel the tender presence and care of Love and hear in response, “But I don’t feel love.” How can we meet this challenge?

We can become armed with Love. The Bible tells us, “. . . the Lord he is God; there is none else beside him.”³There is no power but God; God, good, Spirit, is All-in-all. Therefore matter and evil have no substance or power—no genuine reality. Referring to Christ Jesus, Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes: “The ‘man of sorrows’ best understood the nothingness of material life and intelligence and the mighty actuality of all-inclusive God, good. These were the two cardinal points of Mind-healing, or Christian Science, which armed him with Love.”⁴

I remember one day when I felt overwhelmed with the suggestion that I didn’t feel love. How could I find peace and healing? At first I thought that there was no solution; I would just need to wait for a more advantageous moment when I felt love. Then I thought about the method of healing in Christian Science. This Science acknowledges the absolute allness of God. Since God, Love, is both ever present and all-powerful, there is no need to wait for moods or circumstances to change. What appear to be difficult circumstances, unreceptive moods, or the absence of Love are the clouds of material sense claiming to hide Truth.

Since Christian Science treatment is effective in ruling out the false sense called disease, couldn’t it also be effective in ruling out the false sense that I didn’t feel loved or loving or lovable? It could.

I began by affirming the truth that I was at that point loved. Since God loves all His creation and I was His offspring, God loved me. I knew that God is omnipresent, so Love was loving me right there and then.

Christian Science teaches that man is the spiritual idea of Love. Not only is he loved by God, he is loving—right now, always, forever. And since God made man in His image, expressing goodness, grace, beauty, man is lovable. Because God, good, is the only creator, I was in truth that man.

Yet I found I was still faced with the argument, I don’t feel loved, loving, or lovable. So I asked myself, “What is saying I don’t feel loved?” I could see it was material sense, the carnal mind. I felt relief at this recognition, because I realized that corporeal sense testimony is false and powerless. So from this basis—the falsity of material sense—I began to affirm that it didn’t matter if the material senses suggested I didn’t feel loved—I wasloved, by God. It didn’t matter if I didn’t feel loving—I was loving. I was always the expression of Love. It didn’t matter if I didn’t feel lovable; I was the expression of God, the only source of goodness and love, and was therefore lovable. And because I was the image of God, the all-knowing Mind, I was in truth fully conscious of these spiritual facts.

I held to these truths for a while, and gently the picture changed. I felt loved, loving, and lovable. What a joy to see that the lies of corporeal sense, or the carnal mind, flee before the spiritual facts.

We can be distracted from feeling the presence of Love by the thought that it is only felt or known in some spectacular experience. While Love is grand, it is also unpretentious and intimate. It is seen in modest expressions of kindness, compassion, and forgiveness.

If you find yourself tempted by the suggestion that you don’t feel the presence of Love, challenge that suggestion. Ask yourself if you have experienced any kindness or unselfishness from anyone or if you have felt compassion or gentleness toward another. If so, you have felt the presence of Love, for these are all qualities derived from Love. They are evidence of the presence and activity of Love in human thought, and we can experience the blessing of such qualities right now.

When we are tempted to think we need a big revelation on the mount, we can remember that Jesus’ teachings point to evidence of God’s love in the lily of the field and the sparrow. To find that Love’s message is everywhere is really to be on the mount of revelation. God’s glory shines through all aspects of His creation, no matter how simple.

A personal sense of things can undermine our growing experience of Love by persuading us that feeling loved is coupled with the presence of a special person in our lives. Since man is the image of God, he expresses Love, but the source of love is always God. God’s image is not a mortal personality with a mind separate from God. Man is a spiritual idea, the immortal reflection of the one divine Mind. Mortal personality is a counterfeit of the true man. For us to see it as a source of love would hide from us both Love and the true nature of man as the expression of Love.

We should rejoice to see the spiritual qualities of Love our family and friends express. When we understand that their love is an expression of divine Love, we’re better able to see both them and ourselves as God’s man—as the idea of ever-present Love—and we lose our fear of lack or separation. Divine Love doesn’t come with the visit of a dear friend; it doesn’t go when he or she leaves. It is constant and consistent. As we cease to think of love as personal, we will discover the presence of Love everywhere.

Love is not just a good feeling; it is a divine power. It expresses God’s will, not human will. The government of Love is seen in the triumph of purity, humility, integrity, and holiness in our thoughts and actions. We set aside sensuality and sin and leave all for Christ. Divine Love heals us, for health is the consciousness of Love’s presence. As goodness and love reign in us, sin and disease diminish and ultimately disappear.

Material sense may well suggest to us, “I don’t feel loved,” because material sense doesn’t know Love. But man does, for man is the immortal idea of God—and this is who we really are. Christ, the message of divine Love to human thought, frees us from material sense. Through prayer we defeat the suggestions of error and learn we are always loved, loving, and lovable. The role of the Christ acting upon human thought is to lift us above the false sense of mortality, sin, and disease so that we may know ourselves as God knows us—the immortal expression of Love.