ON LOVE; PART DCXLV
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GoodWill IS Love in Action
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FIRST IS THE GREAT COMMANDMENTS: “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).
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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.
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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).
In the last essay we continued our discussion on the Epistle of James’ fifth chapter where he lists what we consider as constructive tools that can help us to stand in that working patience that he tells us about saying “Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts” and then goes on to show us the example of the husbandman who works his field in order to bring forth “the precious fruit of the earth“. It IS in this that we should get the idea of working patience as the waiting for the fruit IS futile without the right effort which ensures success. Similarly the idea of the aspirant and the disciple; he can wait for “the coming of the Lord” but the Lord WILL NOT come to him if he has NOT prepared his Life for that “precious fruit“. Here we must understand that this coming IS NOT as doctrines see this; this IS NOT offered in an eschatological sense as in the end times or in the second coming of the Christ; NOR is this offered in relation to one’s own demise; this IS offered in the reality of one’s ability to express the fullness of the Lord in one’s own Life. This DOES of course work out in Life by degree and here we should see the idea that as an aspirant and a disciple one IS closer to this realization than before and hence the idea that the “Lord draweth nigh” as we read in our full sayings which we repeat again:
“Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold , the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the. Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door. Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy. “But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation. Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him” (James 5:7-15).
This ability to express the Love and the Power of the Soul through Life in this world IS the objective and the goal of the Life of man; this IS the reality of True discipleship and this IS one’s being accounted worthy of the Kingdom of God; and this IS the “precious fruit” for which we must work. And, as we have discussed, this work IS our striving, our constant efforts to keep his words and to become “unspotted from the world” (James 1:27) which IS to say untainted by the temptations that creep into our consciousness. And this IS the greater reality of this patience’ effect, that it IS in our longsuffering and our understanding of the ways of the world and of our carnal selves, which ARE “wiles of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11), against which the Apostle Paul tells us that we must stand. James heretofore tells us much about the perils of the Life of duality that the aspirant and the disciple must endure and he offers us many words of encouragement and hope in his instructions, but here, in these words on patience, we are able to see the whole of the Truth. By the example of the husbandman we understand the needed effort and the work and by the example of the prophets we should see the our own role in the Plan of God. As the prophets came among men, they were simply men who could see and express the Truth or that part of the Truth that they could individually KNOW; they saw the revelations through their own Souls, they had the realization of Truth and they expressed it.
James tells us that by their example we can DO the same, we can, by our patient work, glimpse the revelations that ARE in our own ability to see and then to express these by our own actions in the world. Not as Isaiah and Elijah perhaps, they were in a different time and a different place, but by the example of our own lives we can show forth the Love and the Power of the Godhead as it flows through our being. This IS NOT an alien idea and here we should remember the Apostle John’s words to aspirants and to disciples as he tells us that “But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things” and while the context here IS of KNOWING Christ, we should try to see that our context in revelation IS the same; that we too KNOW ALL things as Souls, as the Christ Within. It IS by our communion, by our steadfast focus upon the things of God, that the Christ Within becomes one’s expression of Life in the world and brings with Him the fullness of the unction, the anointing if you will, in which we can KNOW ALL things. It IS in this reality that we can DO as the Master says; that we can: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
And this IS the same idea that we should try to find in James’ idea of prayer as the first instructive tool that the aspirant and the disciple have. He tells us that when we are afflicted, when the promptings of the lower self in the world are seeming louder than the promptings of our own Souls, that we should seek this communion….that we should pray. This is the greater reality of prayer and this idea of communion with God and one’s God Within can be seen in most ALL uses of this word which IS sorely misunderstood despite the Master’s own explanation of the Truth of what should be man’s prayer. In the sense of the Lord’s Prayer we should see that if prayer IS a request to God for intercession, it IS an request to reform our own Lives to His Will and to see the same in the world. There IS NO thing in this prayer that approaches our asking for more of the pleasures and the comforts of this world nor for His intercession in the lives of individuals, yet these are the ways that this word IS understood still today. So then in the Truer sense, in our own communion with God through prayer, we have a tool that can help us to deflect the effects of temptation and this much in the way that Paul teaches us saying: “the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5). This weapon IS our communion with God and the God Within and this communion IS our prayer.
We discussed James word on merriment and how that being merry IS a reflection of one’s joy over whatsoever carnal benefits one may have achieved. While most see this saying in a positive light, that one should sing for joy and thankfulness for what some believe to be a blessing, the reality IS that James IS saying quite the opposite. The apostle IS telling us that in the Light of one’s joy of having, the man who IS striving toward the Kingdom should sing such psalms to re-focus his thoughts and his attitudes upon the things of God; and this so that he will NOT glory in the things of the world. Here today we can look at this idea in relation to the apostle’s words regarding one’s “friendship of the world” where he tells us that this IS “is enmity with God“; while many have created ways to see these words as that they DO NOT include one’s desires for and possession of the worlds goods, there IS NO logic in this argument, especially when put into the context of the Master’s own words on this same subject. And we should try there to see the reality of James’ own words saying “But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth” (James 3:14) in this regard which can be done in the right rendering of these words which show us emulation and factional dispute in place of “bitter envying and strife” and both of these relate to the self and one’s own opinion of him self….what he thinks he IS and what he may possess. ALL things of the world are connected into one idea that IS called Life in the world and likewise ALL things of the Spirit ARE connected into the Life of the Soul in the Kingdom of God. This IS the basic separation and, concerning man, this Life IS where the world and the Spirit meet; in the crude admixture of thought, and of attitude. In this we should see the greater depth of the many sayings in the New Testament concerning the world on one’s participation in what IS offered and especially in this from John who tells us: “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” (1 John 2:16).
The next instructive tool that James offers us is in the idea of the weakness of the aspirant and the disciple, the self-observed weakness with which he faces temptation and through which he DOES NOT see his ability to remain patient. While this word IS rendered in terms of sickness in most translations, the Truer idea and the idea that meets in the context of the apostle’s other words, IS this sense of weakness and it IS in this that James shows us the way: that this man should “call for the elders of the church“. These elders are those who have more experience and perhaps have jostled themselves with weakness in the face of temptation and here, while we can understand the idea of their prayer, we DO NOT understand the apostles intent in the added idea of their “anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord“. In prayer we have the benefit of the expression of the Love and the Power of their Souls, their communion if you will, to offer us words of strength and encouragement and hope in our weakness so that we too can find this same expression. While this IS NOT a smooth presentation in which we can only see a part, there IS a reality here in this idea of prayer that led even John Gill to say that such prayer could be: a word of counsel and advice 8 .
James continues in this thought into the next verse as he tells us of the “prayer of faith shall save the sick” and while the intent here IS NOT totally clear, we should be able to discern the reality from the words themselves. First this word that IS rendered as sick IS NOT the same as the previous; this one IS used but three times in the New Testament and is rendered as fainted and as “be wearied” in the other two; these renderings lend more to the idea of weakness than to the idea of illness in the context of James’ words. In the last essay we noted that the sick DO NOT need to be saved as we understand this word in its other uses where salvation is seen and while it IS used as healed, this IS a minority of times here would lead to a misinterpretation that prayer WILL heal. But prayer DOES NOT heal universally and this NOT even by “the elders of the church” and this whole idea from a healing of the sick perspective opens a doctrinal rift where many believe that these abilities passed with the apostles. In the sense of the aspirant and the disciple calling on other disciples for help in their time of weakness, there IS a more perfect sense made of the apostle’s words. We can read here that the call for help brings the prayer of the elders and their mysterious anointing and in this prayer IS the effectiveness of their expression of Love and Power that can help the afflicted man to better see the Light; it IS in this sense that he can be saved; saved from the weakness. This weakness IS a personal issue that a man may have in the face of the temptations that come at him in his Life of duality and, while ALL men are tempted, it IS the aspirant and the disciple that realize that this IS a peril to his focus upon the things of God; the spiritual things that ARE the subject of James words. It IS in this light that the next words make the proper sense; there IS NO thing mystical in the idea that “the Lord shall raise him up“, this IS the natural result of the elimination of the weakness and the re-focusing of one’s thoughts and attitude upon the Truth of God. There is a divide in the various translations of the bible here with some seeing this raising in the sense one being healed or cured and others seeing it in a more spiritual way which IS of course as we see the intent.
For us it IS the God Within who has the control of the Life of the man in the world and it IS this control that creates the aspirant and the disciple in the world. But this control IS NOT firm nor final and as the man continues to live in the world he IS drawn away by the temptations of Life in the world and the attractions and the attachments that he has always had. This IS the duality in which being drawn away begins as a psychic phenomenon, as a thought or an emotion, to think or to DO or to have some worldly pleasure or comfort. In James ideas here there are times when these are harder to resist than others and there are types that are more difficult for any given individual to deal with. The generality of these temptations IS the affliction of the aspirant and the disciple; the perceived benefits of succumbing to any particular temptation can be seen as the cause for being merry; and the fear of succumbing to ever more temptations ARE the weakness of which we ARE now speaking. In this weakness the apostle tells us to “call for the elders” and it IS in their prayer and their anointing, in the Love and the Power of their expression of divinity, that this man’s weakened state IS improved and he can see past the temptations and re-focus upon the Truth of God. It IS in this way that he IS saved from the weakness and it IS in this way that the God Within regains control over the Life of the man in the world.
Can we see this in James’ words? Can we see here the relationship to James’ other words on temptation that show what happens in the absence of one’s using this tool of calling out for help to those who have come this way before? James tells us that: “every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James 1:14) and in this we should see the reality of the Life of the man subjected to the duality that IS awakened in Repentance and which IS a grand part of the way of Transformation. Again, ALL men are tempted but it IS the aspirant and the disciple, the man who IS striving to focus upon the things of God, who sees the reality of temptation against his goal. And we should remember here that these temptations ARE NOT only to the grosser things that lure us into the world but ALL things that can take away our focus from the Truth of God.
We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.
| Aspect |
Potency |
Aspect of Man |
In Relation to the Great Invocation |
In relation to the Christ |
|
GOD, The Father |
Will or Power |
Spirit or Life |
Center where the Will of God IS KNOWN |
Life |
|
Son, The Chris.t |
Love and Wisdom |
Soul or Christ Within |
Heart of God |
Truth |
|
Holy Spirit |
Light or Activity |
Life Within |
Mind of God |
Way |
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.
This Quote of the Day is the antithesis of glamour and illusion. In this mantram are the thoughts about ourselves and our brothers in the world that can diffuse those forces that hold a man in the world of things and prevent his spiritual progress.
Mantram of Unification
The sons of men are one and I am one with them.
I seek to love, not hate;
I seek to serve and not exact due service;
I seek to heal, not hurt.
Let pain bring due reward of light and love.
Let the Soul control the outer form, and life and all events,
And bring to light the love that underlies the happenings of the time.
Let vision come and insight.
Let the future stand revealed.
Let inner union demonstrate and outer cleavages be gone.
Let love prevail.
Let all men love.
The Mantram of Unification is a meditation and a prayer that at first affirms the unity of all men and the Brotherhood of Man based on the Fatherhood of God. The first stanza sets forth several truly Christian ideals in Unity, Love, Service and Healing. The second stanza is a invocation to the Lord and to our own Souls asking that from the pain (if there can truly be any) incurred in focusing on the Spirit and not the world will come Light and Love into our lives and that we begin to function as Souls through our conscious personalities. We ask that the spiritual control of our lives will bring to light for us the Love that underlies world events; a Love that the world oriented man will not see working out behind the scenes and also that the Love that we bring forth, individually and as a world group, can be seen by all and ultimately in all. Finally, in the last stanza we ask for those things that are needed for Love to abound. Vision and insight so that we can direct our attention properly; revelation of the future in the sense that all can see the Power of Love in the world; inner union so that we do not fall back into the world’s ways, that we faint not; and that a sense of separation, the antithesis of brotherhood, ends as we know it today. Let Love Prevail, Let All Men Love.spiritual control of our lives will bring to light for us the Love that underlies world events; a Love that the world oriented man will not see working out behind the scenes.
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!
- 2 New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
- 8 Bible commentaries on BibleStudyTools.com
