IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 501

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON LOVE; PART XCIII

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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).

In the last post we discussed again the idea of hearing which we understand from the Master’s perspective as believing or accepting and understanding. We noted how in the march of time the ideas embedded in His words  “Take heed what ye hear: with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you: and unto you that hear shall more be given” (Mark 4:24) and the like saying from Luke’s Gospel “Take heed therefore how ye hear: for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have” (Luke 8:18) should be understood by the man of today in a much different way than that of the man in Jesus’ day. Two thousand years ago there was no choice but to actually hear the word as there were few indeed who had access to the writings and few who could read and hence the Greek word akouo could be seen as the English word hear in its literal meaning. At the same time hearing in this context would have to take on the meaning of listening and this is not the Master’s intention although it is carried forward in some doctrine in just this way. The lexicon helps us here to understand the diversity of meanings ascribed to akouo; it tells us to be endowed with the faculty of hearing, not deaf, to hear, to attend to, consider what is or has been said, to understand, perceive the sense of what is said; to hear something; to perceive by the ear what is announced in one’s presence; to get by hearing learn; a thing comes to one’s ears, to find out, learn; to give ear to a teaching or a teacher; to comprehend, to understand ². While this may not reach up to our understanding of to believe as noted from the perspective of the man in form, we should try to understand that no other idea makes much sense from the perspective of a teaching by the Master. John Gill in his Exposition of the Bible ⁸ takes the Master’s saying from a different perspective as seemingly regarding hearing only the words of the Master in Mark’s Gospel as He is speaking with His disciples; this is however not so clear from Luke’s Gospel where we read next about His mother and brethren coming and see this same in Matthew where he is apparently speaking to the crowd as we read it saying: “While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him. Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee. But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?  And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said , Behold my mother and my brethren!” (Matthew 12:46-49). Gills comments then, take heed what you hear: diligently attend to it, seek to understand it, and lay it up in your minds and memories, that it may be of use to you in time to come, and you may be useful in communicating it to others ⁸, are certainly questionable and our understanding of the Master’s intent in this teaching makes much greater sense against His overall teaching.

To our point then which is that we should be able to see that in this day and age there is much less of a need to hear as one can read, or watch or listen to scripture and seemingly endless interpretation and commentary and here we have an ever greater need to  “Take heed what ye hear” from the perspective of believing what is presented to us. For ALL however, the man in that day up to the man of today, the caution is real and it is most real for the aspirant and for the disciple. For these there is the Wisdom from above that gives us confirmation and there is naught of a selfish nature that can pass this test as given to us by the Apostle James who tells us that “But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy” (James 3:14-17). We cover this in much detail in In the Words of Jesus parts 322-331 including a hard look at some of these translated words to discover the Truth of James teaching.

We come now to our listing of words that we have been using in these five hundred essays and will go through our list so as to remind and inform us of the reasons for their usage.

• Master. We use the title Master to refer to Jesus and to His expression as the Love of God, the Christ. In the Gospels the Master is seldom if ever called by the name of Jesus or as Christ when being addressed but He is called Jesus in the descriptive language of the Gospel writers. He is addressed as Master and He is addressed as Lord and from this we take our cue.  He is Truly the Master to His disciples and they follow Him as such and He is as well the Lord. Jesus affirms this and the use of these words saying that: “Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am” (John 13:13) and He also questions us ALL in His words that “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say ?” (Luke 6:46). We recognize also that what is True of the Christ, the Master, is True of the Christ Within which can also be KNOWN as the Master Within although we seldom use that term. This Master Within is our immediate correspondence to the Master and our way of communicating with the Christ as an Aspect of God. In many of our ideas where we use the word Master, we can likely see a perspective where this refers to the Master Within, the Soul, as well. In this vein our Tibetan brother writes this in one of his many books: The initiate is not simply a good man. The world is full of good men who are probably a long way from being initiates. Neither is the initiate a well-meaning devotee. He is a man who has added a sound intellectual understanding to the basic qualifications of a sound moral character and devotion. Through discipline he has coordinated his lower nature, the personality, so that it is a “vessel meet for the master’s use,” that master being his own soul. He knows that he walks in a world of illusion, but is training himself whilst doing this to walk in the light of the soul, realising that in service to his fellowmen and in forgetfulness of self he prepares himself to stand before the portal of Initiation. Upon that path he meets those who, like himself, are learning to be citizens of the kingdom. We should see here the idea of the initiate as the disciple from the Master’s perspective; as one who meets the Master’s qualifications of being a disciple.
• Accounted Worthy. We come upon the Master’s use of this term in Luke’s Gospel as reference to the Kingdom of God and it is in this context that we use it in our essays. the Master, answering the question about the status of the woman who married seven brothers in the resurrection, says: “The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage: But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection” (Luke 20:34-36). As an aid to understanding this idea of being accounted worthy we should look at the simple but complex words that “Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God” and this, from our perspective, can only be associated with the idea of discipleship and our premise that it is the disciple that is found in the Kingdom of God. We take this premise from the Master’s words among which we find this: “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), and here we should see that “he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” is the one who is keeping His words and this is one of the criteria for discipleship. So then accounted worthy refers to one’s being in His Kingdom and those in His Kingdom are surely His disciples.
• Illusion and Glamour we will treat together. While we have taken the understanding that delusion and deception are inherent in the ideas of illusion and glamour, our defining terms reflect these as well as so we include them here. From earlier posts we find:
  • Illusion: Webster’s tells us that illusion means: An unreal image presented to the bodily or mental vision; a deceptive appearance; a false show; mockery; hallucination. Hence: Anything agreeably fascinating and charning; enchantment; witchery; glamour. (Physiol.) A sensation originated by some external object, but so modified as in any way to lead to an erroneous perception; as when the rolling of a wagon is mistaken for thunder. &hand; Some modern writers distinguish between an illusion and hallucination, regarding the former as originating with some external object, and the latter as having no objective occasion whatever. A plain, delicate lace, usually of silk, used for veils, scarfs, dresses, etc. Syn. — Delusion; mockery; deception; chimera; fallacy. See Delusion. Illusion, Delusion. Illusion refers particularly to errors of the sense; delusion to false hopes or deceptions of the mind. An optical deception is an illusion; a false opinion is a delusion. E. Edwards¹. For our purposes we see illusion and delusion as one and both as the perceived result of what we may see and hear physically, feel emotionally and think mentally. This word does not appear in any of the regular translations of the New Testament.
  • Glamour: This word has taken on new meanings in modern language but our 1913 version of Webster’s gives us this which is applicable to our understanding: A charm affecting the eye, making objects appear different from what they really are. Witchcraft; magic; a spell. Tennyson. A kind of haze in the air, causing things to appear different from what they really are. Any artificial interest in, or association with, an object, through which it appears delusively magnified or glorified. Glamour gift, Glamour might, the gift or power of producing a glamour. The former is used figuratively, of the gift of fascination peculiar to women¹. Can we see here the illusory nature in these definitions of glamour? While we may not separate our use of these three keywords, we should understand that glamour is more to do with emotions and desires while the idea of illusion is more on the mental side. This word also does not appear in any of the regular translations of the New Testament.
  • Deception: Webster’s tells us of deception that it is: The act of deceiving or misleading. South. The state of being deceived or misled. That which deceives or is intended to deceive; false representation; artifice; cheat; fraud ¹. Deception is a word that is found in the New Testament and may be helpful to view its meaning form some of our scriptural sources. There are a number of different Greek words that are rendered as deceive or deceived or deceiving but they all refer to basically the same thing and that is our common understanding being misled or led astray by what is around us and this is illusion and this is glamour. Thus, while the New Testament does not mention these words illusion and glamour, it does mention frequently the effect of these as deception.

We should here add this from another previous post so as to clarify our understanding of how we use these terms and how to recognize them in our lives.  Now there is no sense of illusion, glamour and deception apparent to the man until he discovers the duality that is Life and that he IS; the Soul, the Christ Within, living through a personality that has become the essence of the conscious man. Until this duality is sensed, the sense of illusion is not consciously present but it does not disappear, rather it keeps us ensnared in the net which is itself and the world. To the aspirant and the disciple the idea of illusion should reflect the things and the ways of the world; when a man is focused upon the world this illusion is that which is ever so real in his daily life but, when a man can see from the perspective of the True man, the Soul, then all this previously apparent reality becomes unclear, When we can see through this mist and fog as it effects the mind, we are free. This in between state of duality is the field upon which the aspirant can become the disciple; it is here that the aspirant struggles to overcome the ways of the world which still play heavy on his mind; he is in the world and it seems like the reality but as the focus of Life continues to be on the Christ Within, this sense of reality loses its power in his Life.

We will continue with our thoughts in the next post beginning with a word that is very related to our words above in illusion and glamour and which is vanity, We will then continue with the rest of our list which we repeat here for clarity: focus, Love, Truth and Wisdom plus others that we will come upon in our discussion. We will also address the people, aside from the writers of the gospels and the epistles, that we use and speak of in our writing and these include Vincent, the Tibetan, Emmet Fox, John Gill, and Alice Bailey; while there are others, these are those that supply for us the most of our personalized information and we do supplement these with Webster’s Dictionaries (1828 and 1913), the lexicon from BibleStudyTools.com and the more modern dictionaries from Dictionary.com.

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.:

Today we post a World Prayer that is also included in the Prayers and Meditation section with some explanation of its source and its use. We are entering a time of the year which we can consider more sacred by way of the newness of Spring which should reflect in our newness of Life. This is the Festival of Easter and a time of rejoicing; not only for the Resurrection of the Lord from the Christian perspective but also for the teaching that is incorporated in the Master’s sacrifice 2000 years ago and in His continued sacrifice. We should remember His parting words: “I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:20)

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
• ² from New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
• ⁸ Bible commentaries on BibleStudyTools.com