Monthly Archives: December 2012

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON LOVE; PART CXXVI

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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We have said in previous posts that the Master never asked for worship from His followers nor the type of devotion that we may see and even envision for ourselves as right today; He simply asked that we do the things that He said we should do as these are the WAY, these are the PATH. That we see Him as King is of no concern to Him or to our own Christ Within; this is a perception of the searching personality that is caught in the doctrines of the churches of the world. This comment is not meant to disparage any but to point to that place we ended in the last post, that saying by the Apostle John which tells us as aspirants and disciples that: “the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him” (1 John 2:27). This anointing IS the Christ Within that “abideth in you“, one’s own Soul which is ever prompting through his consciousness in form; trying to get the attention of the man that is lost in the vanity, the illusion and the glamour of the world of things and of men. The Soul, the Christ Within, is, from the perspective of the enlightened man in form, the God within as we KNOW that the Christ and the Father are ONE. When we can realize and Truly understand that the Christ of God is the SAME whether He is expressing through Jesus over two thousand years ago or expressing through His disciple today, we will see Truth. In this we must understand that behind the phenomenal appearance of every may there is a Soul, a Christ Within, who, although he may not be expressed, is standing in wait for the conscious man in form to heed the prompting to the Good, the Beautiful and the True; waiting for every man to step onto the PATH from which he can “Strive to enter in at the strait gate” (Luke 13:24).

The Master never asked to be King or called King, He never asked for worship and the only devotion that He sought is our devotion to the things that He teaches and instructs us to do. And not that we should do them for Him but for our own ‘salvation’ which is True discipleship. In this respect Jesus did tell us several things that point to our role and our responsibility and He does so in both a positive and negative way; negative from the perspective of the direct question of why. Let us look at a few of the Master’s sayings of guidance before we continue with our original theme from the Book of Genesis.

• Beginning with a negative, the Master asks: “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). We should understand that these ARE NOT idle words spoken during the Luke version of the Sermon on the Mount. We KNOW that the Master is speaking generally to many people here but we should note that His primary audience is disciples and in this we should see that it is not just the twelve. In an earlier verse we read: “And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples: and of them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles“, affirming our contention regarding number and then Luke tells us that “And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all. And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said…..” (Luke 6:13, 19-20). Our point here is that there is a large audience and that Jesus is directing His words to His disciples and in this is His question which shows that there are those among His audience that are affirming the Master as Lord, Lord, but that they ARE NOT keeping His words; This should tell us also that there has been instruction to these men that they do not follow. This causes the Master to launch one of the first recorded parables, the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Builders (In the Words of Jesus part 145), a parable that we will repeat here according to Luke.
  • “Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like: He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock. But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great” (Luke 6:47-49).
• Saying the same thing but not in so negative a tone we have this from Matthew’s Gospel: “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). Here again the Master is saying this near the end of His Sermon on the Mount and here again we should get the idea that there are those who are with Him and calling Him Lord, Lord, but who are not doing those things that He is teaching them to do. Here in Matthew’s Gospel we also get to understand what those things are as based upon the combination of the sayings which most ALL will agree are in regard to the SAME  time and place and to this we add the same meaning as well. These things that He says to do, the thing lacking for those included in the “Not every one” and in the negative version above, are the Master’s teachings of those things that ARE the “will of my Father which is in heaven“. Matthew’s Gospel expands upon the ideas that we find in Luke by giving to those hearing the Master’s words a idea of the result of listening to the Lord, calling Him Lord and then NOT doing what He says, not doing the Will of the Father. The Master here says:
  • “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” (Matthew 7:22-23).
• The Master tells His disciples that: “Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am” (John 13:13). While this is said to them after the supper and after the Master has washed their feet, we should see that the message here is more than just related to that instance. He is saying that He IS their Lord and Master as a Truth and one that can be seen from many perspectives. Here, these disciples are His closest followers and He is affirming their relationship and we should try to see that this relationship is more than one between the man Jesus and the disciples as men, it is between the Christ expressing through the man Jesus and the disciples’ own Christ Within expressing through their individual consciousness which is still in many ways tied to the world. In this we should also try to see our own reality; our consciousness as personalities that hear the call of the Soul and the Soul, the Christ Within, which is, from the perspective of the man in form, his Lord and Master.

The reality in all this is simply that the Master does not ask for Kingship, He does not ask for worship nor for the religious devotion to Him as the man Jesus and the Christ. He does not ask for the cathedrals and the gold chalice, nor does He ask for the mega church adorned with the finest appointments, nor the jet plane that can speed a pastor from engagement to engagement and He does not ask for the multiplicity of approaches that the denominations and sects provide. Yet we give Him all this and more of the things and the thoughts of the world. In our discussion above we should see that He does ask us to do those things that He says, to do the Will of God, and KNOWING that this IS a difficult road, he tells us that we should “Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able” (Luke  13:24). Strive is a homonym that is used in various ways in the bible but we are here concerned with only the positive aspect of it; the lexicon tells us that this Greek word agonizomai means to endeavour with strenuous zeal, strive: to obtain something ² while Webster’s 1828 version defines strive as To make efforts; to use exertions; to endeavor with earnestness; to labor hard; applicable to exertions of body or mind ¹. Vincent tells us of this word strive that we should see a different dynamic but one which, when combined with the defining terms above, can give us a more complete picture of what the Master says that we must do. Vincent says:  Strive. Used only by Luke and Paul, except John xviii. 36. Originally to contend for a prize in the public games; and thus conveying a sense of struggle. The kindred noun, ajgwnia, agony, is used of Christ’s struggle in Gethsemane (ch. xxii. 44)⁴. 

So then to strive is to struggle as the Master tells us and the ferocity of the struggle is in subduing the carnal nature of the man that is entombed in the vanity, the illusion and the glamour of the world of things. Speaking to aspirants the Apostle Paul tells us: “But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof” (Romans 13:14) and in this we should see the struggle in the word strive. At the same time we should see the ideas from the lexicon for the struggle is only striving if it is an endeavor with earnestness, an endeavour with strenuous zeal, to obtain something which is discipleship and the Kingdom of God. It is unfortunate that this word lust, which in Truth refers to any and all strong desires for any of the things of the world, is taken to mean only those gross things that one’s mind can conjure.

We often go the the Apostle James for clarity on these ideas as he presents them in such a way that they are straightforward and are offered without cover; that is there is no easy way to turn his words to the benefit of one’s actions in the world. The Apostle John also gives us some very straightforward points with much clarity and he says this regarding our topic above: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever” (1 John 2:15-17). This is not unlike the words of James who tells us “know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God” (James 4:4) and both of these teachings from James and from John affirm and amplify the words of the Master.

We will not get to our points from Genesis again today and leave with this from the Epistle of James, a saying we often use and one of the most meaningful to those who would strive:

“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22)

We will continue with our thoughts and our remaining points in the next post.

• Last we have the trees; “the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil“.

• “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; 2 Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created . 3 And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth: 4 And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: 5 And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died” (Genesis 5:1-5) .

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:

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.

 2 Timothy 3:16-17

Our Quote of the Day for today is rather short but it is at the same time a poignant statement. It is taken by many to mean that the bible is given by God and is inerrant and to some infallible. Understanding that the saying is True, we must understand also that he is not speaking of anything that we read in the New Testament as this does not yet exist. However, this being considered and the works of the compilers of the New Testament having been accepted, we can say that they are scripture and then are inspired but this is where these ideas should end an the reality of the message begin. This message is the same with which we end above:

“But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22)

• ¹ Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1828 and 1913
• ² New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
• ⁴ Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888