So happy you're here for today's inspiration on the Christian Science Daily Lift.

Sharing with us is Christian Science practitioner and teacher Russ Gerber.

He's from Mission Viejo, California.

I once heard an interview with an author who was asked about his first meeting with a potential publisher in New York City. The author was pitching a book. The publisher

stopped him mid-proposal and said books on that topic weren't selling.

He called the author over to the window, pointing to the crowds below,

he said that there were thousands of people down there, every one of whom wanted to change their life.

And a book about that would be interesting to him. I was once someone in that crowd.

At one point, I was so discouraged. I yearned to know how I could live a better life.

What made the biggest difference was discovering or rediscovering the spiritual idea of life that Christ Jesus gave and advocated for everyone.

In his sermon on the Mount found in the Bible, Jesus described a life that is not self-absorbed,

but is animated by an abundance of love for everyone, including those we might consider

enemies. This life isn't found physically. The life that Jesus described and lived is based on God,

the one true life that is infinite spirit,

and on the spiritual fact that man is God's likeness,

entirely spiritual and individually expressed.

As we learn more about the all-good nature of our creator,

changes take place in our thoughts and outlook. We think less of ourselves in the old way as mortal material beings and victims of circumstance. We become conscious of the divine

idea of life that Jesus stood for, the truth that we are and always have been, the perfect and

dearly loved spiritual creation of a perfect, all-loving creator. Thinking in this more spiritual way,

paying more and more attention to the thoughts that God is giving each of us is transformative.

It replaces a just one of the crowd view of ourselves

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