Monthly Archives: May 2012

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part CXVI

My Soul has Purpose, Power and Will; these three are needed on the Way of Liberation.

My Soul must foster Love among the sons of men; this is its major purpose.

I, therefore, will to love and tread the Way of Love. All that hinders and obstructs the showing of the Light must disappear before the purposes of the Soul.

My will is one with the great Will of God;. that Holy Will requires that all men serve. And unto the purposes of the Plan I lend my little will.

We have moved this affirmation from the Quote of the Day section to this main section as we complete our review of it and its meaning to us as aspirants to discipleship. Our new Quote of the Day below is The Lord’s Prayer which contains a similar idea to the one which we are discussing here regarding The Will of God. Today we will contrast parts of the sayings regarding His Will from our affirmation, The Lord’s Prayer and The Great Invocation. Above we read that that Holy Will requires that all men serve which we discussed in the last post as it relates to the purposes of the Soul and continuing with that thought we should see from above that its major purpose is clearly outlined as my Soul must foster Love among the sons of men and, from our discussion on this we should realize that this is the major purpose of ALL men and that this happens through the medium of the form Life on Earth. In our current verse we have a requirement in that the Holy Will of God requires that all men Serve. Can we see the relationship here? Can we see the meaning? As man’s Spirit, Soul and expression in form are ONE, As the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are ONE so are the Purpose, Power and Will that is outlined in the first stanza. When we see Will, the Will of God or the Will of the Soul as intentional focused attention, we will also see within that Will the Power and the Purpose. In other words the Purpose is implemented by the Power according to the Will. As a man in form, the Power to foster Love among the sons of men emanates from the Soul and this is his Purpose as seen through his focused attention, his Will, on the Christ, the Christ Within and God which can also be seen as the same thing. In Jesus prayer before the Garden at Gethsemane, He, speaking to the Father God, that Highest Spiritual Center, says:

“While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled. And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray Ifor these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me” (John 17:12-23).

The purpose of us viewing this prayer at this time is to display the idea of ONENESS as taught and believed by the Master; the wholeness of this prayer gives reality to the central statement of ONENESS; that there is nothing mystical or strange about this and that the requirement is simply that we are His and in being His we are ONE with Him through our own Christ Within, our Souls, the reality of man. He is speaking specifically here of His disciples and those who become disciples through their words which we read in the gospels and the epistles and which we KNOW from communion with our own Souls. This ONENESS is our correspondence to the thoughts of ONENESS that we cite above; Father, Son and Holy Spirit; the Christ, the Christ Within and the Soul; the Spirit, the Soul and their expression in form; and the Purpose, Power and Will of God and of our Souls.

So here we have the Holy Will of God as it requires that a man serve and that Will streams forth in the Light of the Soul and carries with it the Purposes of the Soul, the major one of which is that we foster Love among the sons of men and this is accomplished by the Power of that Light as it motivates ALL that the disciple and the aspirant does. The intent of this affirmation is to bring each of us to this point of realization and accomplishment. The Lord’s Prayer, which we have below, also speaks of the Will of God in the phrase thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven which is to ask that the Will of God be the working principal in the world of men. From the Master’s perspective the Will of God is not to be seen as a single thing and only as those ideas that He puts forth which are preceded by words that declare such and such as His will. This is a complex argument in scripture as the Will of God is not clearly defined per se but its meaning is found throughout; let us look at and discuss some of this:

• “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And 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 6:38-40). We begin with this one because it is one of the very few that have a direct reference to what the Will of God is in the Master’s words and, as we say above, this should not be seen as the ALL of the Will of God as much that is said about His Will through the gospels does not fit entirely with these sayings. These are complex and  at the same time rather obscure sayings in an overall obscure chapter and we did cover much of this is a short series called Bread of Life (In the Words of Jesus parts 60 – 70). ALL that is said here is of course parabolic and can be readily understood by using our ideas regarding the Christ and the Christ Within. For our purposes here we need only look at the way these ideas relate to the Will of God and the Master tells us that it is a part of His Will, that He should lose nothing of what He has been given by the Father. He says again further down that this same thing in different words and we should see “that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him” are the same as “all which he hath given me“. We should remember here the deeper meaning of “believeth on” which is, as Vincent tells us, that to believe on the Master is to accept and adopt His precepts and example as binding upon the life⁴ and in this is the reality of our understanding of to follow Him and to keep His words.
• “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” (Matthew 7:21). Can we see that in this saying the ideas that the Master puts forth above regarding His Will do not specifically apply here? Except that as we can take the part “that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him” as having broad application which can and should be clearly seen in EVERY statement concerning the Will of God; which is that to do His will is to keep His words, to follow him. We should note that the idea of “seeth the Son” as it is framed here does not necessarily mean to see with the eye but rather should be understood as perception and discernment which are among the right ideas.
• “For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother” (Mark 3:35). The same thoughts apply here to this saying on the Will of God; these also cannot be defined by the words above from John’s Gospel but should be seen in the same light as that those from Matthew’s. His Will is found in ALL that He tells us both in His law and in our hearts as the receptor of His precepts. If we do the Will of God then we are conscious receptors of His Will; we are focused upon Him and we are disciples of the Christ. In this fashion we can also be seen as being among those that are given to Christ and therefore among those that can not be lost.
• “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself” (John 7:17). Here we should see the reality of discipleship and attainment of the Kingdom; if one does the Will of the Father then he will KNOW the doctrine of the Christ or rather the Truth of it. Can we see in this the central theme of Wisdom from above as we recently discussed it over several posts? Conversely, if a man is doing the will of the world, of the personality, the lower aspect of man, he will not KNOW the Truth of the message of the Christ.
• “He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me” (John 14:24). To tie this all together into one word of God and one expression of His Will, we need to understand that the words of the Master are, in their essence, the words of the Father and this is an important point to understand as it helps us to understand the ONENESS of the Father and the Son and thereby our ONENESS with both.

Our last part here is from The Great Invocation and the stanza from this that is in regard to the Will of God: From the centre where the Will of God is known Let purpose guide the little wills of men. Here in this part of this prayer we find the Will of God and again we find the idea of purpose for the man. Relating this to our Christian vernacular we should see the centre where the Will of God is known as the Father, the Head of the Trinity and the source of the Power and the Purpose of ALL that IS.  Going further we should see the Invocation as defining the role of the Soul of man, his purpose, which is to guide the will of the man in form. We must ever understand the ONENESS of this ALL; as we outline in the beginning of this essay saying that as man’s Spirit, Soul and expression in form are ONE, so we must see the ideas of Purpose, Power and Will as well. ALL streams forth from the same Spirit that we Truly ARE; Life is ONE and the divisions of Life are only for the clarity that they can provide. To say that the Soul is the manifestation of Spirit is a mystery of Life and the expression of that Soul in form is yet another mystery; and to say that ALL is ONE may be the greatest mystery of them ALL.

We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.

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.

As we approach the Christ’s Festival on June the 4th which is also currently known as World Invocation Day, we thought it good to post as our Quote of the Day that prayer that He Himself gave to humanity over 2000 years ago and which is commonly called The Lord’s Prayer. As we may remember from previous posts, there are two versions of this prayer; one in the Gospel of Matthew and the other in the Gospel of Luke and while they both say the same thing, they do use some different terms which when translated into English can create different meanings in the minds of men. These two versions are reconciled in the Book of Common Prayer of 1662 and which version is generally used by most all denominations. Remembering that this Book of Common Prayer of 1662 is the result of the work of men and likely through negotiation regarding the content and the tone. Little however can or could be done to change the basic precepts of this prayer; we should ever remember the difficulty in translation of words from one language to another as they do sometimes evoke thoughts that are not readily translatable. More controversy exists regarding the purpose of the prayer than does the content of it as some believe that the intent is that we utter it as a prayer while others regard it merely as a model that the Master offered to us. We should understand however that this prayer is a full and complete invocation of what the Master tells us is important; it is not vain repetition as some may say of its relation to the Roman Catholic Mass and penance. In relation to the controversy which we cover in some detail in In the Words of Jesus part 133, The Lord’s Prayer should at the same time be seen as both a prayer for our constant use and a model from which we form our own prayers. As a model, the use of this prayer should follow along with the intent of each part and in using this as such it can have great effect on one’s Life and his relationship to others.

Alexander Maclaren, a 19th century expositor says this: The pattern of prayer. We call it the Lord’s Prayer, but it is so only in the sense that He gives it. It is our prayer for our use. His own prayers remain unrecorded, except those in the upper room and at Gethsemane. This is the type to which His servants’ prayers are to be conformed. ‘After this manner pray ye,’ whether in these words or not. And the repetition of the words is often far enough away from catching their spirit. To suppose that our Lord simply met the disciples’ wish by giving them a form misconceives the genius of His work. He gave something much better; namely, a pattern, the spirit of which we are to diffuse through all our petitions**. Can we understand Mr. Maclaren’s perspective here? that it is the spirit of The Lord’s Prayer that is the important part and this is true whether we use the prayer, repeating it as it is or if we use it as a pattern, a model for our own petitions.

Every line in this prayer has a meaning and an intent insofar as our actions and thoughts are concerned and we are hard pressed to bring these same meanings into the various prayers that we may utter in times of need and of want. There is nothing selfish in this The Lord’s Prayer and nothing that enhances the self in the world nor in one’s own mind; it is rather to the contrary. We should remember in reading this prayer that the things that we ask for are spiritual things more so that things of this Earth which is a perspective that is missed by most all including ourselves in our previous interpretations of it; this understanding is of course limited to those who do look at the spiritual aspect of Life and see in it their own reality. Perhaps this is the real genius of His work in constructing this prayer, which, like so much of what He says to us, can be understood on many different levels and used with the many different perspectives of God as they exist in the world even to today.

Our Father, which art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name;

thy kingdom come;

thy will be done,

in earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive them that trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation;

but deliver us from evil.

[For thine is the kingdom,

the power, and the glory,

for ever and ever.]

Amen.*

Alexander Maclaren introduces his sermon on The Lord’s Prayer with this statement on the relationship between the prayer and man which, although it is steeped in his theology is a straightforward look at its meaning and depth:  As a theology, it smites into fragments all false, unworthy human thoughts of God. As an exposition of religion, the man who has drunk in its spirit has ceased from self-will and sin. As a foundation of social morals it lays deep the only basis for true human brotherhood, and he who lives in its atmosphere will live in charity and helpfulness with all mankind. As a guide for personal life, it gives us authoritatively the order and relative worth of all human desires, and with these the order and subordination of our pursuits and life’s aims. As a prayer it is all comprehensive and intended to be so, holding within the perfect seven of its petitions, all for which we should come to God, and resting them all on His divine name, and closing them all with a chorus of thanksgiving. As a prophecy it opens the loftiest vision, beyond which none is possible, of the final transformation of this world into the kingdom in which God’s will shall be perfectly done, and of the final deliverance from, all evil of the struggling, sinning, sorrowing souls of His children…***

We will leave this prayer for a few days and try to get a better understanding of it and then move on to The Great Invocation which is, as we are told, given to us by the Christ as well. More than 2000 years separate the receipt of these invocations by the world of men and their language and tenor reflect the changes in the nature of man and his societies over this course of time.

The Lord’s Prayer and a brief interpretation are included in the Prayers and Meditations section of the front page of this Blog.

• *     From the Gospels of Matthew and Luke; this version is from the Book of Common Prayer of 1662
• **   Alexander Maclaren; Interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer (http://www.lords-prayer-words.com/explained_commentary_alexander_maclaren_1.html)
• *** Alexander Maclaren; Structure of the Lord’s Prayer excerpt from (http://www.preceptaustin.org/matthew_69-10.htm)
• ⁴   Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888