IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 339

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part CXXII

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.

Except for the two sayings by the Master in the Gospel of John regarding the defining terms regard the Will of God, there is little that can be directly attributed to it; these however should not be seen as the total and final word. Nearly every open mined reading of the New Testament will leave one seeing His will in virtually every thing that the Master says. If we Truly believe that the bible is the word of God and then we must believe as well what the Master says regarding His relationship with the Father and the meaning of the words of the Father in His Life. We should also understand the those things that the Master teaches and commands us are His Will and therefore the Will of the Father as well. From our affirmation above we affirm that our own individual Will is ONE with God’s Will and that in that state we are, as are ALL men, required to serve and we affirm that we do so willingly. This last part is the hallmark of the aspirant, that he actively and willingly seeks to do God’s Will. Without His defining this Will however, are we left to guess what this Will of God is or can we find His will in the words of the Master as we outline in our premise above. Let us look at this in His words with perhaps some bit of help from His apostles:

• We begin with the Master’s saying that we used recently in regard to the idea of “daily bread” as it is found in the Lord’s Prayer and which we relate, for us who are aspirants to discipleship, to spiritual bread and not the bread of the Earth. We used the Master’s saying from the synoptic gospels to frame the proper idea of bread: “But he answered and said , It is written , Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4) or, as it is framed by the Apostle Luke “It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God” (Luke 4:4). We should see here the idea that the carnal man may live by bread or by the foodstuffs of the Earth but that the spiritual man has not need for this as his Life is beyond the physical body and its sustenance is the word of God which we should instantly recognize as His righteousness, His Truth and His Love. In this is a good example of how the construction of the gospels can serve the spiritual man as well as the man who does not understand His True nature; for the latter, this idea from the Lord’s Prayer is Truly a prayer for the continued physical sustenance that one requires but for the former, the spiritual man who does understand, this is a prayer for the continuance and the increasing of the word of God in one’s Life. In this same light we can better understand the rather obscure sayings of the Master in regard to His own claim that He IS the Bread of Life that everyman must eat.  This precept, spoken to men in form who did not understand their true nature, is meant for us to understand as the Christ Within which must be taken and eaten by the conscious personality. This can be seen in the idea that the True man is nourished by his conscious acceptance of the Love, Truth and righteousness of God, His WORD if you will, as it flows forth from the Christ Within, from the Soul. Ponder on this.
• In the construction above we have the word of God as the bread by which the True man lives and we have the Master as the Bread of Life through His own saying that “I am that bread of life” (John 6:48). We should remember also that the Apostle John calls the Master the Word of God in the prologue to his gospel saying that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” ((John 1:1) and in this is also John’s testimony that this Word, this Christ, is also God and this is one of the True mysteries of Life insofar as True nature of God and of Man, a mystery that we can glimpse as we come to understand the ONENESS of ALL. The Master Himself makes a similar pronouncement in explaining to His disciples His ONENESS with the Father and also with us as True men, as Souls and this after He pronounces to all that: “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30). He tells us of His relationship to the Father saying: “Believest thou not that I amin the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake” (John 14:10-11). Here we have two things; one is the essential ONENESS of the Father and the Son which is the subject of this point and the other is in the pronouncements of the Son as being from the Father and this we will get to in our next point. We bring this ONENESS down to the level of man, as the disciple, in the Master’s prayer saying: “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” (John 17:21). We should see here a bit of the mystery and the Master’s pointing for us to the essential fact that we are ONE and, in our sameness with the Master, the Father is in us and we in Him and They are one with us.
• Going back to the idea we came upon above as our next point we should readily understand that the words of the Master ARE the words of the Father and this from His saying that “the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me“. This same Truth is effective in the Life of the disciple on a smaller scale until that time of perfection of which the Master speaks saying “The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master” (Luke 6:40). In this we see our sameness with the Master when we come into that perfect place where our words will be of the Father and the abundance of our hearts will be of the Kingdom of God. We should, for the sake of our premise above, see here that every word, every commandment and every instruction from the Master can be deemed as being from the Father.

In the three points above we should be able to see the ideas we put forth regarding the Will of God being in the words of the Master. We began with the word of God as the bread by which a man does live and the relationship of this to the Master’s proclamation of His being that Bread of Life. We went on to see that the Father and the Son are ONE, the Christ and God are ONE and then we proceeded to the understanding that the words that the Master speaks, His commandments and His instruction, every word, is at the same time from the Father and in this all we can say with confidence that the Will of God is found in the words of the Christ. Now we have discussed much of what is in this essay so far in many past posts and from a variety of perspectives and we have pulled and stretched His words to show what we see as the essential ONENESS of ALL as He teaches us in His many sayings on Love and brotherhood and on how a man should treat his neighbor and how he should regard himself to his neighbor and it is in ALL of this that we can find His Will which we need not separate into the Father’s and the Son’s which we seldom do.

We should see that in this understanding there is a singleness of purpose in God and the Son and when the Master says that “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:34-35) that there is no intended separateness for us at all. This is clearly a commandment of the Master and it is therefore the Will of God and in this Jesus is speaking to His disciples. It is here that we find the beginning of much confusion in the church yet today as many believe that this is a commandment to Love only other disciples and by some extension one’s Christian brothers. There are at least two fallacies in this belief which have been obstacles to the free flow of Truth for more than 2000 years. These have their roots in the illusion and the glamour of the world in which we live and which have led to the deception of millions of men who gravitate to the selfish attitudes of separateness.

• First there is the simplistic view of the Master’s proclamation of “one another” as to see its meaning in the idea that they, as disciples, are to Love each other and then, by the combination of this with other sayings by the apostles, to extend this to include one’s Christian brothers. It has been the choice of men to decide that this saying and its purported meaning should override the other sayings of the Master where He implores us to Love our neighbor and our enemies as well. Add to this that the average Christian in the church has ever believed himself to be a disciple despite the Masters rather clear depiction of what a disciple must be. For clarity He tells us that ”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……So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26-27, 33). Can we see the severity of this idea of discipleship, that it is a thing entered into by only the few who have the wherewithal to conform to His precepts and of whom He says: “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). Can we see also that if we are among those who can Truly be seen as His disciples that we would not be among those that separate and restrict the Love of God as it is taught by the Master and which we see as the Will of God.
• Second is in the idea that one can Love another in the way that this is portrayed by those who believe that this Love is only for fellow disciples and, by extension, for one’s Christian brothers. We should see in this that those who believe this and belive that they are disciples are mostly deceived by the glamour of their own sense of self and this is True because if one could meet the Master’s requirements as noted above, that he would not have this belief of separateness at all. We should also see that if we can limit who we Love by this parameter of fellow disciple or fellow Christian that we can then limit who we Love by any parameter at all so long as we can find some inkling of justification be it race or culture or anything else. Millions are deluded in their thinking that it could be the Will of God to Love only those who believe as they do and this we should see clearly in the Master’s teaching on the blessings of God, His Love, such that it includes ALL as in His saying: “That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45).

Seeing His commandments and His teaching as the Will of God does not do anything to change the perspective of the aspirant and the disciples but for the average believer this may be an new way of viewing the Master’s words. As in everything Christian there are a variety of beliefs regarding what He says by based upon denomination and sect. However, in the core commandments of the Master, and in these as the Will of God, there are those that stand out as commandments insofar as His calling them such. One of these is noted above saying “That ye love one another” and another is about Love as well and is among our most frequently used set of passages from the gospels. He gives us commandment about nothing else but Love yet, after more than 2000 years, we have not yet gotten the message. Can we see here in our post the clear evidence that the Will of God is that we Love One Another and that we Love ALL as well? Can we see this as the commandment of the Master and as the commandment of God as well and can we see that it is here that one must begin his journey toward the spiritual Life and toward God? Can we see also that these commandments are of more value to us on the Path to God than all of our doctrines and all of the words of the apostles combined?

For clarity let us end here with the commandments, the Greatest commandments, as pronounced by the Christ, our Master, along with our understanding of the idea involved and the addition of His helpful saying for our understanding of it ALL.

 Keeping His words:

“And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:30-31).

WHAT THEN IS LOVE?

In a general sense love is benevolence, good will; that disposition of heart which inclines men to think favorably of their fellow men, and to do them good. In a theological sense, it includes supreme love to God, and universal good will to men.

PLUS THE EVER IMPORTANT AND HIGH IDEAL TAUGHT TO US BY THE CHRIST:

“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12)

Tying this to our affirmation above we should look at these ideas as the Will of God and that, as disciples and aspirants, our little wills are ever ONE with this Will. We should see this also as defining to a large degree the field of service for what is it that a man would serve by the requirement of the Will of God if not the precepts of that very Will.

We will conclude our thoughts on this 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.

Keeping the Lord’s Prayer as our Quote of the Day we come now to the idea of forgiveness. Much is said about the various ideas of trespasses or debts or sins as regards the wording and the translation of these verses in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke but this is really not the issue as it does not matter what we are forgiving or being forgiven for; what matters is this act of forgiveness. We ask God for forgiveness and this is of course through our own God Within and thereby necessarily includes that self forgiveness that allows a man to go on in Life. The idea here is that unless we forgive any who we have anything against, that it is unlikely that we can obtain our own forgiveness. This the Master expands upon at the end of the prayer so that we get the point; He says: “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14-15). Trespasses, debts, sins and whatsoever else must ALL be forgiven.

We will  continue with our thoughts in the next post.

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.*

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