YES, HE is Talking to YOU! (continued)
Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
Today we look at the third stanza of The Great Invocation which brings into play the Will and the Power of God as a factor in the life of humanity. His Will and His Power are here seen as the originator of His Purpose. We could say here that there is a Purpose and it is His Will and it is accomplished by His Power. This third stanza prays:
From the centre where the Will of God is known
Let purpose guide the little wills of men–
The purpose which the Masters know and serve.
As we see from the chart that is repeated again below the Will of God and the Power of God are the potency of the Father; and of the unresolved Godhead that manifests in the Son and in the Holy Spirit. All this is of course much beyond our ability to comprehend. We are limited by words and terms in our ability to express the Divinity and the Magnificence of it all. On the lower level, the threefold man, we will say as we have been saying that the Spirit IS Life and this Life manifests as the Soul which in its turn gives Life to the physical appearance.
|
Aspect of God |
Potency |
Aspect of Man |
|
Father |
Will or Power |
Spirit or Life |
|
Son |
Love and Wisdom |
Soul or Christ Within |
|
Holy Spirit |
Light or Activity |
Life Within the Form |
We should understand then that we are not the appearance; we are not the body. We are the Life within the body that animates it and this animating Life principal can be considered as a our equivalent of the Holy Spirit. Through our being in the Presence of God, in the Kingdom of God, in the here and the now, much revelation can come and thereby much understanding. Until this point, or some closeness to it, even the most straightforward texts that outline the nature of God and of Man can not be properly understood. These are among the mysteries and the secrets that Jesus tells us of, and for which some revelation is hidden within His parables.
In this stanza of the prayer we are asking for intercession directly from God, from the Father. This is the center where the Will of God is known. Acknowledging that our God does have a Purpose and Plan that we are a part of, we are asking that we, as men, be guided by it and not by the carnal life of the flesh. Do we know His Will, His Plan and His Purpose? We can only grasp bits of this from the teachings of the Master who says in one place: “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them…” (Matthew 7:21-24). Jesus goes on here to tell us of the nature of the wise man and of the foolish but the point is already made. The Will of the Father is to hear His sayings and to do them. Anything else, prophecy, casting out devils or any wonderful works in His name are meaningless unless we are among those “whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them“
So simply put this is the Will and the Purpose and the Plan; especially for those who proclaim themselves Christian. His Will must become our Will. In another place the Master tells us that “…this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing , but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:39-40). Now we have discussed these passages in past posts (In the Words of Jesus parts 63-70, 118) but today we look at them from a new perspective and that is that the Will of God and the Purpose and the Plan is for our salvation; that is, our attaining to the Kingdom of God. This is the Plan and the Purpose and this is the guiding Will that we pray for in this prayer. We should see in His sayings that “I should lose nothing , but should raise it up again at the last day” and that we “may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day” that He and our Christ Within are lifting us up in this Life to the Kingdom of God and thereby raising us up completely out of this manifested life at the end of it, to be one with Christ and His True Church.
The last part of this stanza asks that we, as humanity, can be one with the purpose of Christ and His Saints, His True Church, which is covered here by the word Masters of whom it is said that “Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints” (Colossians 1:26). This prayer can be then seen in the same way as the Apostle Paul tells us: “To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints” (1 Thessalonians 3:13) which saying is, in essence, much the same. Our prayer is for the Will of God to guide the little wills of men.
In the first three stanza of this, The Great Invocation, we find our prayer to be for the three potencies of God, Light, Love and His Will to be sent forth for a greater effect into the world of men and for the guidance that this brings.
Today we will look at what is called the Parable of Counting the Cost. This is not actually a parable at all but a series of connected sayings that must be looked at together. Some do put this all together, as in the NAS and the NIV versions of the bible, under the general heading of The Cost of Discipleship and this is the way that we will approach it. We separate the actual parable parts with underlining: “And there went great multitudes with him: and he turned , and said unto them, If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish. Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace. So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple. Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his savour, where with shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill; but men cast it out. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear” (Luke 14:25-35).
The hardest part for man to understand from this series of sayings is that it is only in being His disciple, only in following Him and His word are we truly “accounted worthy” of the Kingdom of God. We somehow believe that it is in believing and in the grace of God that we find acceptance into the Kingdom but most all of the Master’s words speak against this perspective. Believing and grace may give us salvation and that is a higher afterlife than for those who do not believe but it is only in DOING His words and keeping His commandments that we will find ourselves in His Kingdom and we will find it to be here and now. This is what Jesus is telling us here; are we willing to become His disciples? then we must be willing to give up ALL. Let us look closer:
First some terms; the idea of “hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children“, etc. should be seen in the context of ‘love them less’ which brings it into the more proper idea of what Jesus would mean and reconciles this saying with another version of it from Matthew which reads as “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37). Next is the idea of “doth not bear his cross, and come after me” which is a hard saying to interpret. We know what the cross represented in that day as a way of execution and there is no other meaning that can be found for the word or for the way it is used. We should know that the Master is not meaning that we should all be crucified except figuratively in the flesh as is told us by Paul saying: “and they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” (Galatians 5:24). Perhaps He is saying that we must be ready and willing to die either death. Going further is the question, as the cross was the burden that Christ bore, what is the burden we are willing to bear? This then can be seen as the is the crux of this saying: what are we willing to give up in this life in order to be a real disciple of the Christ? That is His word; that we be ready and willing to “forsaketh all that he hath”; yea, and his own life also?
The parabolic value here is in the next part; ‘counting the cost’. Taken alone these verses are a question about the specific things; building a tower or a king going to battle. The answer, which the Master also supplies, is one of embarrassment and failure; embarrassment for leaving a building undone and failure for having to surrender in battle. In both cases because they had not “counteth the cost“. We should see that the Master talks here about counting the cost of discipleship; this is where the examples should point us and not to any other story line. These are, as we said, hard sayings and show off the demanding nature of being a disciple of the Lord. He has never colored this in any way that would detract from our understanding that this is a difficult task but one that is only difficult when we consider the things of the flesh important.
This brings us back, as do most topics, to the idea of focus. When our point of focus is on the things of God then we are on the Path to discipleship or we are at the least aspiring disciples. Conversely when our point of focus is on the things of this world we will find ourselves not willing to spend, or at times even consider spending, ‘the cost of discipleship’. We may waffle back and forth between these two poles and in so doing we must remember the words of the Master saying “Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24 , Luke 16:13). That we must choose He tells us. Many of us today move from one to the other, from God to mammon, and for the most part without thought. We desire to join the Master but we are living in this world; a very difficult work to be sure and a work that we must do on our own. There is a saying by a one who is accounted as a Master, as this term is cited above, and who is commonly called the Tibetan, he is a disciple of Christ who speaks to the problems of the disciple living in the world today; he says: The problem of all disciples remains the same. This is to live simultaneously the acutely sensitive inner life of the Pilgrim upon the path of life, of a human being in the world of human events; to live the group life of the pledged disciple and the mass life of humanity; to fulfil his own spiritual destiny, through the medium of a controlled personality and, at the same time, to participate fully in the life of humanity upon Earth—this is no easy task (from a Treatise on the Seven Rays Vol. IV; Esoteric Astrology). This is also a reflection upon the sayings of Jesus who tells us of the difficulty and the cost. The cost as outlined above in our parable and the difficulty is clearly and simply stated within His saying: “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matthew 7:13-14). We must remember however that this is only a cost and a difficulty that is measurable from the human perspective of the flesh and we must realize that if our focus is on Him and on His Kingdom that this will no longer be our perspective.
So what do we have here in this Parable of Counting the Cost? Taking it in its entirety as we have, this is a treatise, in very few words, on the Path of Discipleship and on the way to the Kingdom. The Master tells us here, and tells us frequently in other places as well, that there is a cost and that this cost includes forsaking our attachment to all that, as men in form, we hold dear. When, however, we realize that we are not this form and that life in this form is the grand illusion, we will then see clearly as Souls and all of the Master’s words will become more real and doable.
One last point on the matter of salt which is spoken of as an analogy to the essence of discipleship. In the Gospel of Mark the Master is talking only to His disciples when He speaks of salt and Mark goes out of the way to say this. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus’ talk of salt is part of the Sermon on the Mount and thereby everyone hears it. This is true at the same time, in both books, of His sayings on things that are carnal (eye, hand, etc.) and that offend would be better cut off. In the Gospel of Luke, our subject sayings, it is clear that this is to the multitudes as well and Jesus prefaces this with His words “If any man come to me”. Though this is not in itself important, we should get the idea that these things are not only spoken to disciples but to those who would become disciples as well. What we said of salt previously (In the Words of Jesus part 37) from Matthew, we will say again here: He begins with a statement on the nature of humanity comparing man to the salt of the earth. “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thence forth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men” (Matthew 5:13). As salt, our importance is in our savor and in our ability to flavor; to give to others of our quality. If we let this savor fade, if we lose it by living a carnal life which is not attending to the things of God and not letting our Inner Man live, then how can we get it back. What does the Master say here? If we are living a carnal life and the salt that we are has lost its flavor then we are good for nothing. We may live through our lives, plodding along till the end, but of what use is it to anyone.
Note on the Quote of the Day
This daily blog also has a Quote of the Day which may not be in any way related to the essay. Many of these will be from the Bible and some just prayers or meditations that may have an influence on you and are in line with the subject matter of this blog. As the quote will change daily and will not store with the post, it is repeated in this section with the book reference and comment. If you have not seen this before, this should be viewed as, like John and Jesus to the Jews, something new and different.
The Quote of the Day for today is called The Great Invocation. It is a world prayer given to us by The Christ. We will leave this up and go through it in parts over the coming days. This prayer should be to us today what the Lord’s Prayer was yesterday.
From the point of Light within the Mind of God
Let light stream forth into the minds of men.
Let Light descend on Earth.
From the point of Love within the Heart of God
Let love stream forth into the hearts of men.
May Christ return to Earth.
From the centre where the Will of God is known
Let purpose guide the little wills of men–
The purpose which the Masters know and serve.
From the centre which we call the race of men
Let the Plan of Love and Light work out
And may it seal the door where evil dwells.
Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.
- 1 Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1828 and 1913
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
- 6Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, 1996
- 8 Bible commentaries on BibleStudyTools.com
