IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 573

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON LOVE; PART CLXII

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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“There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.  And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:  That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:1-15).

Over the last several days we have explored the sayings of the Master as regards one’s attainment of His Kingdom, a Kingdom that He tells us IS within each man; there is no criteria in His words about this. He says clearly to ALL that ” Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you” and although there are some that dispute the reality of this, it is one of the single most important things for us to understand in our journey to and upon the Path to “The kingdom of God“, a Kingdom that “cometh not with observation” (Luke 17:20-21). As we have discussed before, there is much confusion and no clear teaching of these words in the church nor its doctrines and there are those who make effort to contradict our understanding of the Master’s intent as this reality, like so much of a spiritual nature, is one that they cannot understand. Much the same can be said for so much of what the Master says, men and their doctrines interpret His words and His intent according to those things that they can understand. We see this very dynamic at work in our sayings at the top of our essay regarding the idea of being born again; an idea that is tied to the other sayings that we discussed regarding the Way to the Kingdom, and this same dynamic can be seen in many of the Masters sayings that we have been discussing. Born again becomes an affirmation and confession; born of the Spirit becomes baptism in various forms, perfect takes on the more human idea of mature and righteousness stands as a symbol of those who can claim some small degree of True righteousness. We could go on with this but the message should be clear: for more than two thousand years men and their doctrines have been interpreting the Master’s words with a purely secular vision making them appear to mean only what is easy in their eyes.

It is against this attitude that lightens the reality of True discipleship and Truly attaining His Kingdom which IS within that we have been writing these last several days and we began this with our view on the ways that the idea of born again are treated by the church and the various doctrines which cannot even agree with themselves. We have shown how this idea of born again is equal in force and in intent with ALL of the other sayings by the Master regarding being accounted worthy of the Kingdom or worthy of Him which we would realize as the presence of the Christ Within in Life. To this end we have equated the several sayings that directly speak of the Kingdom of God showing that these are ALL equal and that accomplishing one in Truth is to accomplish them ALL. We have also equated these ideas with the reality of True discipleship and in the last post discussed the Master’s words on being His disciple and the everyday view of discipleship from various dictionaries, religious and secular. While this is ALL so clear to us, there is little clarity in the world regarding these things as doctrine holds men in the grips of tradition and the age old teachings on heaven and hell; tradition and teachings that are founded in the illusion and the glamour of this world.

The reality of this ALL is missed by many who are sincere in their approach to God but who are at the same time tied to the doctrines of their particular denomination and the views of those of like mind that surround them. The hard facts are visible to ALL who will Truly look and some of the more profound words of the Master are in short and clear sayings that have little or no parabolic intent; some of these we cover often:

• “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). This is of course a difficult saying when we look at the reality of the word perfect. This difficulty however is only when we look at this through the eyes of the carnal man in the Earth who, KNOWING himself as that man, likely cannot even imagine perfection. When we look at this as the True man, the Soul expressing through the form however, this is our natural expression….perfection. To the True disciple the Master says “The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master” (Luke 6:40) and in this we should see again how ALL of these things are tied together. Seeing the Master’s words we should be able to see as well the reality of perfection as being the hallmark of the disciple and the expression of a one who IS accounted worthy of the Kingdom. In this understanding we need only take the position that these ideas are covered under the equal saying that we MUST “doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21) In parts of the church this idea of perfect is understood as mature or full grown as a man and this we get from the lexicon. We should KNOW of course that this understanding IS NOT the intent of the Master as such words DO NOT work in relation to the Father. For us, keeping His words and doing the will of the Father are perfection from the perspective of the Soul expressed Life in the world.  We should understand that the Master’s words are His words and to change their meaning to suit the needs of the carnal man is contrary to the intent of the Master and IS the same type of thing that the Master rails about against the Pharisee in those days. The same force of words that the Master speaks about in this idea of perfection, he speaks about in the reality of keeping His words but these are also sayings that man disregards or DOES NOT understand or even seeks to alter insofar as their intent. Some examples:“And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say ?” (Luke 6:46). In this rhetorical question by the Master we should see the reality that He is trying to get us to see which is that there IS NO profit in our calling on the Lord nor in our approaches to the Lord if we are not keeping His words.
  • “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” (John 14:23). A simple saying to those who claim their Love and their worship of the Master yet DO NOT what He says.
  • “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). The converse approach to what we have above combined with the  reality that the words and the sayings of the Master are the words and the saying of the Father.
  • “Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it” (Luke 11:28). Here the Master is responding to the thought that of blessedness of others by telling us that the Truly blessed are “they that hear the word of God, and keep it“. A simple statement by one that should tell us the importance of being a DOER of 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). Similar to the saying above and a central point in our recent study of the Master’s sayings regarding the Kingdom; here we have the stark reality of His words….there is no Way to the Kingdom execpt one keep His words and do the Will of the Father which are of course the same thing. Reading this we should ALL understand that there ARE NO shortcuts, no purely devotional approaches and nothing gained by anything that a man should do short of keeping His words.
• “But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses” (Mark 11:26). Forgiveness is another largely misunderstood concept and one that it IS necessary that we try to understand. Like many words there is a common understanding to forgiveness that falls short of the reality that the Master intends. This lack of understanding His intent of this word is similar to our lack of understanding of other words like Love and repentance where we do not give them the same weight as does the Master. Contrary to the common idea of repentance as an emotional response to something done that is wrong, to Truly repent is to change and His intent is that the change be from focus upon the things of the world to focus upon the things of God; this is the True meaning of His words that we “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). In the same Light what we see in Love as that emotional response to others or to things that give us pleasure or to family and close friends with whom one has a relationship is seen by the Lord in quite a different way; His idea of Love is universal and it covers the brother, the neighbor and the stranger who qualifies as both. The Master sees Love in the Golden Rule, a universal Love for ALL shown through our interaction with them. So we have also the idea of forgiveness which in common use becomes another emotional response to wrongs or perceived wrongs committed on us by others. Here we see forgiveness more as accepting the wrong or perceived wrong than we do as not thinking about it in any negative way; in this we find that accepting causes a remembrance that IS NOT shared and is the tactical forgiveness of one toward another. The reality of this concept should be seen in one’s ability to look past whatever one perceives as a wrong and to understand that it is not the True man that wrongs another but it is the carnal self only that is involved. This is the reality of the Master’s words to the Apostle Peter on forgiveness; “Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven” (Matthew 18:21-22). We should note that the Master’s words here do not contain the idea of repentance as they do in the similar saying in Luke’s Gospel; this idea IS however what is seized upon by many as an exculpatory means for not forgiving. To forgive is to forget and while this seems difficult and even impossible we should KNOW the reality of this is not what crosses ones carnal mind, it is what we give credence to as Souls expressing through form.
• “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:31). This is by the Master’s own admission one of the most important sayings of the entire New Testament and yet we do not see the reality of this Love, this universal Love and brotherhood, and we often seek out other ways of understanding this scripture so that we do not have to express this reality. Seeking to limit our Love is of course the most dysfunctional of Christian attitudes as it ignores the Master’s greatest saying and the other affiliated sayings from the Master and His apostles throughout the New Testament. It is the clear intent of the Master’s teaching that we Love ALL including neighbors near and far and including enemies; the intent is that universal Love for ALL that the Master Himself exhibits. Again, this has naught to do with that emotional response that we feel as men in form but it is rather that sense of KNOWING the reality of His teaching, a reality this is easily missed by the man beset with the illusion and glamour of Life in the world, the man who does not see the True man or who chooses to ignore him in favor of the seemingly comfortable Life in the world. The missing point for ALL is that it is HERE that we MUST begin our journey to the Path….it ALL begins with that expression of Love which is perhaps the first struggle that a man must overcome. This is for us as aspirants our driving force however as we recognize that it this expression of Love is of primary importance and that it is the essence of our striving. For those that are not at that place of aspiration there is a steady dilemma that helps to keep them from a realization of the importance of this Love and that dilemma is that there is not a uniform approach to this by the church nor by the doctrines of the church and while the Master’s words above are offered they are treated lightly instead of with the strength that the Master intended. This is of course the result of human nature which is the effect in the world of the illusion and the glamour that prevent a man from seeing clearly the Truth and the reality.

We have come through a number of the Master’s sayings above that are in our minds clear as to the Master’s intent yet which are treated lightly or even ignored by many who seem to be seeking and who are sincere in their approach. Tying this to our previous posts regarding the Master’s sayings that point us to the Kingdom and the steady equality of them ALL we should add here that it is Love that is the KEY ingredient in each and every one of the precepts that we discussed; it is the Key to being born again, the KEY to being born of the Spirit, the KEY to righteousness, to perfection and the KEY to taking on the attitude of being ‘poor’.

We have one more point below that is tied to Love and to most all of the sayings that we covered above and we will take this up in the next post as it requires our sound attention.

• “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise” (Luke 6:31). 

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:

We leave again this Quote of the Day as the reality of this prayer IS Love which is our ending subject today and should ever be in our minds and hearts.

This is the Prayer of Saint Francis which we repeat again from a previous post as our Quote of the Day. If we were all to accept these ideas as guiding Lights in our lives, we would be expressing the Love and the Faith that the Master teaches. The last time that we presented this we called it the Prayer of Saint Anthony in error; It is attributed to the 13th-century saint Francis of Assisi, although the prayer in its present form cannot be traced back further than 1912*. Regardless of the True authorship, the sentiments revealed in this prayer are genuine and are in keeping the intent of th/e teachings of the Master and His apostles. We should note here that the dying is not necessarily the death of the body but the death of the carnal man in the world  when one is born again. In this context we read this about Saint Francis: Francis was the son of a wealthy foreign cloth merchant in Assisi, and he lived the high-spirited life typical of a wealthy young man, even fighting as a soldier for Assisi. While going off to war in 1204, Francis had a vision that directed him back to Assisi, where he lost his taste for his worldly life**. Here is the antithesis of the rich young man of the gospels.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

This is a prayer that is Truly in line with the teachings of the Master and the ideals encapsulated in this should be those that govern our lives and our prayer should be that ALL can see Life in this same way. We should try to see the reality of these words in the verses above regarding feeding and visiting the least of His and our brethren; in these words is a deeper meaning, as clearer expression of Love and, we should look at the Master’s words above as an expression of Love and not merely in the terms that He presents as this is the intent of the entirety of His teachings.

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!

• * Wikipedia contributors. “Prayer of Saint Francis.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.  24 Jan. 2013.
• **Wikipedia contributors. “Francis of Assisi.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 24 Jan. 2013.
• ² New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com