Being delivered by recognizing Christ

To recognize a song, you have to have heard it before.

To recognize a face, you have to have seen it before.

To recognize Christ, means you already have a relationship to the Christ. Christ in already your heart.

And what is amazing, is that everyone is already capable of recognizing the Christ, no matter who they are, or what kind of life they've led. Everyone has an intuitive sense that awakens when you recognize something spiritually good. And that can only happen because the Christ is already within you, already known in your heart-of-hearts.

When Mary Magdalene (see Luke 7) barged univited into Simon the Pharisee's house to wash Jesus feet with her tears, dry them with her hair, and anoint them with perfumed ointment, she was proving this very thing. She recognized the Christ because that Christliness was already within her. Had that not been the case, she would have never acted like she did. Fear or shame or ignorance would have kept her out. But her impulsive actions acknowledged something that even the priestly Simon couldn't: that Jesus was the Christ. Mary knew it.

Her devotion and love of Christ was "Love being reflected in love" - her debts, her sins, being forgiven - forsaken - in the awakening of her native state, her original Christliness, her natural likeness to God. The tears she shed were her painful past being released in the joy of her awakening to her true relation to God. And she received the blessing that Simon missed, because "she loved much" because much was forgiven her. While Simon clung to his pride and position, Mary dropped her mistaken sense of self (ego) in her love for the Christ.

She entered that house - not as the prostitute (though that is all Simon saw) - but as the daughter of God. And to paraphrase Mrs. Eddy: "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect [woman], who appeared to him where sinning mortal [woman] appeared to [Simon]. In this perfect [woman] the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct [Christly] view of [her healed and sealed her own Christly awakening].

Mary Magdalene continued to sit at Jesus feet the rest of her life. That was her true life purpose. She recognized the Christ because it was already within her, and she went on to live and to learn and to love much.

This Christ is also already within you. Right this moment. May you seek"...Truth, Christ ... like Mary Magdalene, from the summit of devout consecration, with the oil of gladness and the perfume of gratitude, with tears of repentance and with those hairs all numbered by the Father.

And may you recognize your own Christliness, be awakened by it, redeemed by it, changed by it, impelled by it, and in so doing, awaken that Christly recognition in everyone you meet.