Giving Up Your Beliefs by Rev. Christine Emmerling, D.D. 2/15/2026

Today we are beginning a 7-week series for the Lenten Season titled Giving Up Your Beliefs. This Wednesday, Feb. 18th is called Ash Wednesday. It is the first day of the Lenten season which lasts 40 days to April 2nd and is known as Holy Thursday or the last supper.

This period of Lent is symbolic of the 40 days and nights that Christ Jesus spent in the wilderness fasting, meditating, and preparing for his mission as the Christ. The number 40, metaphysically represents an unspecified period of time. It is the period of building a foundation, like going to school, passing tests, and then graduating being ready for the next stage of doing the work. This was the period when Christ Jesus passed the 3 temptations and then returned to begin his ministry.

A wilderness represents a place of uncertainty, doubt, and profound introspection. The wilderness, in a spiritual context, is not a physical location but rather a state of mind where we grapple with the depths of our soul and the complexities of our faith.

In the vast expanse of our spiritual journey, there are moments when we find ourselves in the wilderness where we take time to be silent, pray, contemplate and are tested. Upon passing we are ready to live our new state of being. Rising above the human sense of self to living as our spiritual Self — rising from human conditions to realization of the spiritual kingdom. As Christ Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.”

In today’s world, this period of 40 days is in preparation of the resurrection, and this year Easter Sunday is celebrated on April 5th. As Divine Scientists we take this 40-day period as a spiritual practice to strengthen and deepen our spiritual life; we meditate, pray, reflect in periods of silence and fast. Many people today take Lent as a time to give up vices or sweets, and pick them up again when the 40-days are over.

For us Truth students, this period of fasting is about the thoughts we entertain on a daily basis. Our fasting is about giving up negative, fearful and judgmental thoughts and conversations. We also give up false beliefs that we’ve held on to so dearly. We are building new habits to carry forward. We use this spiritual practice to propel us to the next level of consciousness.

This is a transforming period. We will get our tests, our temptations as Jesus the Christ. The difference is in how we handle them. Do we dive headfirst into the problem? Do we give in to our old ways? Or do we like Jesus the Christ say, “Get behind me, Satan (or Adversary)” then affirm the truth we know, and turn away? These tests are for our benefit.

Satan is our adversary, but is also our tester and therefore our teacher as well. Metaphysically, Satan is not a separate entity, it is an aspect of our ego self that must be understood, transcended, and integrated, and is necessary to our unfoldment as we move along our spiritual journey. As we pass each test we are being resurrected until we have fully given up our humanhood to living our Christhood.

During the Advent Season we prepare to give birth to the Christ child within us. Between Christmas and Lent we have been embodying this new idea of Self allowing it to take hold, grow within us. Now during Lent we nurture it, giving expression to it by sacrificing our old self and ways. We are pulling the weeds, of doubt, fear, and false beliefs. We do this so we can have room to spread out, grow strong, and be fruitful. Each year we go through this process, as a spiral, always moving upward in our realization of our Christhood and the true kingdom.

Often misunderstood is to sacrifice. Our first thoughts are suffering, that we are giving away and will be without. When we think of the sacrificial lamb, we think of pain and suffering. It is only the human that suffers not wanting to let go of its worldly kingdom driven by our ego. Yet sacrifice means to raise up, to make sacred, and to serve a higher purpose for the spiritual kingdom of God in everlasting life.

Think of it as giving up all to have all. Giving up all that attaches us to the third dimensional world of appearances. To living from the 4th dimension of cause and freely living in the spiritual kingdom.

Somehow along the way spiritual beings forgot who they are. Ever since we have become entangled within our creations, and call this the 3rd dimension of material form, earth and life. We even have gone to the extent to believe our creations have power over us, the creator, and that we are subject to physical material laws. The 3rd dimension is nothing more than a state of consciousness -- a dream of forgetfulness of our true nature in God. We are in the process of waking up.

We can imagine ourselves as spiritual beings in a self made cocoon. Much like a caterpillar in becoming a butterfly. Imagine our body is like the cocoon housing our soul. From within our cocoon we believe this is all that life is. We feel secure within our shell, although, limiting and confining. We can only perceive our world in this shell of a cocoon. We see but shadows of our own reflection upon the shell, and we believe this to be the real world.

Then one day something out of the ordinary knocks into us -- cracks our cocoon and a ray of light comes in. We are inspired to explore, but we must break free. It is exciting yet frightening of what we will find. We will have to give up our safe abode for the unknown. Yet it is all we’ve known to be sustaining us. Can there be life outside of our cocoon? There is evidence of it — we can see the light, We can feel its warm rays.

The light upon our body is nurturing and strengthening. Yet we struggle to break free for our surroundings are so tight, and the shell has become so thick and strong held by our beliefs.

Again, out of nowhere another hard knock breaking open even more. This greater light gives us new insights. Our faith is strengthened to continue on, and our sense of self is transforming.

We continue breaking through our cocoon. We are now surrounded by the light. Our cocoon can no longer hold us in and we are free. Now in a new form that is free to fly. Flying freely in the light of our true home without physical boundaries -- beautiful beyond words.

We join others that have too broken free. We find that they are the ones that woke us up from our deep sleep -- helping us to break free to join them in joy and everlasting life. Now we too become the invisible helper for those lying asleep in their cocoon.

This little story is to help us see that we can move beyond our physical life experience. That we can wake up right here and now. Its not about waiting til one dies, that doesn’t promise heaven. If not awake, we will just create another cocoon much like the prior one either here or there — wherever there is.

How do we wake up? We give up our earthly limiting and fearful beliefs. We detach from our mundane life and all that goes with it knowing there is so much more for us as spiritual beings. Daily meditate upon God and the spiritual kingdom, have periods of deep silence to be in silent communion with God, and listen to that still small voice for our guidance and inspiration.

The following practice was given by Malinda Cramer in Divine Science and Healing and in Divine Science Its Principle and Practice, I shall read this through, and then I will say it as a practice. “Practice daily the transferring of thought from creature to Creator, and think that which represents the Creator.

Think life, love, intelligence, knowledge, power, and presence of All Good. Practice thinking what it would be like to be present everywhere at the same time sustaining, embracing, and pervading all that live.

Think what it means to be one with all power, all substance, all law and all love; today, and forever the same. Just in proportion as you succeed will you comprehend the all-pervading Spirit and be rewarded with divine knowledge.

Extend your thought beyond limitation, transcend forms, enter the Source of all form, traverse all time, become eternity in thought, live in the present. Lift the thought above all heights, descend below all depths, that you may conceive of and know the omnipresent Spirit and the true relationship existing between the Creator and creation; and that what is perceived is contained within the perceiver. To thus perceive and think is freedom.”

Now turn inward to your sacred place: “Let us begin to transfer our thoughts from creature to Creator, from human being to Christ being - our true spiritual nature, and think that which represents the Creator. Think life, love, intelligence, knowledge, power, and presence of All Good... I am that.

Expand our sense of self to what it would be like to be present everywhere at the same time sustaining, embracing, and pervading all that live... I am that.

Think what it means to be one with all power, all substance, all law and all love; today, and forever the same... I am that.

Extend thought beyond limitation, transcend forms, enter the Source of all form... I am that.

Traverse all time, eternity is living this present moment... I am that.

Lift the thought above all heights - to the cosmos... I am that.

Descend below all depths of the seas and earth... I am that.

Now know the omnipresent Spirit and our true relationship existing with the Creator... I am that.

What is perceived is contained within the perceiver. To thus perceive and think is freedom.” I am that, I am. Let us bring our attention back.

As we master these teachings we begin to realize that the truth of God and the truth of mankind are one. Then we extend this light of truth to everyone everywhere. Giving up the sense of separation for the all is One and the One is all! So, it is!