IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 482

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON LOVE; PART LXXIV

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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“And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it. If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live , ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. 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. These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:13-26).

I must apologize while I am thinking about it for not keeping up with the web page side of this blog and for not keeping the index up to date as was my intention. However, time and energy do not allow at this time though it is yet my intent to catch this up and keep it all current. The same apology for my handling of the Quote of the Day; while many of these are intentionally left for several days, it is at times difficult to find the time and the energy to change it at the end of a day and an essay. Your patience is appreciated.

In yesterday’s post we explored the reality that comes from the Master’s lead saying in our section above; this idea that He presents to us of asking in His name is generally misconstrued by many of the Christian doctrines. On the more common side it is adding Power to one’s prayer which prayer is generally regarding some thing for the self or for one close to the self while on the higher side of doctrine it plays out in the mind similarly to those ideas that Vincent presented which ideas tend to acknowledge the futility of the more common approach. We did see however that behind the doctrine there is a Truth to the ideas of many of the interpreters and commentators which is that same Truth that we focus upon in our essays and that Truth is that it is ONLY when the man is seen to use His name as he focuses upon the Lord that its use can be deemed to be of value. We noted also that there are those on the common side who do pray and use the name of Christ by ending their prayer with ‘in Jesus name’, for whom a prayer may come True and here we would premise that these are in the minority but are much publicized in their circle by testimony. The reality for this common approach is that the person who prays is seeking divine intervention which many believe will come directly from God and there is likely little thought given to the working and the reasoning of it all and why one may get what is asked for and another of equivalent spirituality will not.

We must remember “that God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34) and will not give one man a thing over another and in saying this we can resolve our understanding into the activity and the actions of the Christ Within, the Soul, who can reap in this world based upon his own spiritual collateral and karmic responsibility. We should remember also that the closer that a Soul is to being able to express his divinity through form, the less likely that what he will reap or desire to have ought to do with the self and the world. When we speak of spiritual collateral and karmic responsibility we remove the possibilities of ‘favor’ from God to any individual as in these ideas is the accumulation of what a Soul, the True man, has ‘earned’. We should also try to understand our use of the word common; it is not intended to be a disparaging designation but is intended only to show that which effects the a large part of humanity who are not Truly spiritually minded but who follow in the doctines of the churches as men living in the world. Perhaps the MOST important thing to understand and to remember here is that as disciples there IS NO THING that one would ask for from the world and this IS the teaching of the Master. In a strange and convoluted way the Master tells us this but never in speech so direct that there is no interpretation required. Let us look here at a few of these ideas:

• On discipleship 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 14:27-27, 33). While this is clear, it is not seen as the reality of the way of the disciple in much of the church. So then if the reality of being a disciple is to have forsaken ALL that one may have, we should KNOW that speaking to His disciples in our verses above He would not be speaking contrary as regarding what they would ask for and what He would give to them.
• He further tells us from a different perspective in our sayings above that “If ye love me, keep my commandments“. This the Master says speaking to His disciples and here we should be able to glimpse the relationship between Loving Him and keeping His words. At the same time, we KNOW of the relationship between keeping His words and being His disciple as He tells us “Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed” (John 8:31). Then, if keeping His words can make one a disciple and if Loving Him can make one keep His words, we should be able to see the synergy in ALL of this.

Much like the ideas of ONENESS in regard to the aspects of man and of God from the chart below, we should be able to see this same ONENESS in the ideas of discipleship and Love and keeping His commandments.

We will continue 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.:

So that we do not forget that the reality of this ALL is still LOVE which is our Truth regardless of whatever other realizations may come to us in Life, we present here again the Apostle Paul’s words followed by our own understanding of this reality:

….but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law (Romans 13:8-10).

The first of all the commandments is, Hear , O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: 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 12:29-31)

We should remember always to link to this Greatest Commandment that other saying of the Master that gives to us the practical understanding of how to love one’s self plus the practical instruction on how it is that we CAN Love our neighbour; He tells us:

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them

(Matthew 7:12)

Unlike so much of the Master’s sayings that come to us in the form of parables and for which we can only surmise that we have the spiritual presence to understand, these sayings are very straightforward and they are the key to many of the promises of spiritual life; they are the very key to the Kingdom of God. To these sayings we add our adopted definition of the Greek word agape (agapao) which is translated into the English words Love and Charity and which is:

‘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’

• ⁴  Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888.