IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 1154

ON LOVE; PART DCCXLIII

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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).

We ended the last two essays with the same idea of the example which the Master shows His apostles as He finishes His discourse on the idea of the Unity of the Father and the Son, the spiritual Unity of man with Christ and God and the reality of their Presence in the Life of the man in the world who will Love Him and keep His words. As we read His words through the questions by Thomas, Philip and Judas, we should see the greater reality of grace and the relationship that Jesus shows us between the revelations and realizations of the Presence of God in one’s Life as the grace of God, with the operation of that grace in one’s Life as the Truth of Holy Spirit which IS perforce that same Presence of God. As the Master tells us of these things, of His Presence and of our ability to DO as He DOES in this world, He shows us the Way that this IS accomplished and He DOES so at every instance of His revelation of Truth of His Presence; a revelation that IS ONLY realized by the man who sees His intent and who can relate this to the reality of the Way, the Truth and the Life. While entire doctrines have been built around these few words, the simple reality IS found in the totality of Jesus’ message here in this fourteenth chapter and the entirety of His message on Love.

As the Master begins this talk we hear His words about the Presence of God, that we have a place in the Kingdom of God, in the Father’s house. We should understand here that these words ARE simply Jesus conveyance to the Eleven that they should NOT be troubled by His immanent departure from Him, that in His absence they will come to realize the greater Truths of the True Kingdom in which they abide and their place in it. We should try to see that He IS NOT preparing a place for them, an idea that is founded in a most physical understanding of His Kingdom, but that He IS preparing them for that place, preparing them to consciously KNOW their place. As we discussed in the last essay, there IS much from doctrine that can distort one’s ability to see reality and which forms those misconceptions and preconceived ideas that ARE ofttimes most difficult to break. Here, in these ideas from the Master, we have one of the more difficult doctrinal ideas to break and one that IS perhaps still necessary for some to believe: the belief in heaven and hell as the reward or the punishment at one’s death. If we can see the Truth of the Master’s words here and recognize the deeper meanings of the words rendered as place and preparing, as mansions and as His coming to receive them, we can see the deeper reality of His message and see that His apostles DO understand this in this way: that He IS leaving them, that He IS preparing them for the reality of Life in this world without Him as He shows them that they DO have His Presence in their lives. It IS their coming realization of this Presence of God that IS the subject of these words and the continuation of this chapter.

We have noted that the idea of His abiding, His Presence, IS confounded by the doctrinal ideas of mansions and of dwelling places and we have noted how that the idea of place and even of the framing of the idea of believing in God and in Christ from the first verse are NOT understood spiritually. We have noted as well how that the entire conversation that begins with the words “Let not your heart be troubled” (John 14:1) IS a progressive teaching to the apostles of a deeply spiritual enterprise and one that IS largely unknown in that day. The ideas of the Presence of God had NOT been a part of the Jewish religious experience as was doctrinally taught. Today however there IS a rudimentary understanding of this Presence in many doctrinal approaches to God but it IS one that remains mystical and dependent upon doctrinal ideas instead of the reality of His words that begin in this chapter of the Gospel of John. And it IS this Presence of God, this realization of grace, that has been our topic for many essays and we could continue in this study indefinitely as there is so much more meaning that what we have revealed. But our main points have been taken; first in the reality of the Presence which the Master shows them in the beginning verses that we discuss above, a Presence that IS the place for which His words that follow will further prepare them, and then how that one can realize His Presence. While the apostles may not understand this and ask questions for which they should already KNOW the answers, the Master shows them in His words the deeper Truths that they had already seen; we can understand this idea that they KNOW by His words that “Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake” (John 14:11).

In this, and in Jesus’ other answers which we have discussed, we should see that the Master is perhaps perplexed by the lack of understanding exhibited by Thomas and Philip and while it IS only an assumption, we can see how that it IS more than these who are uncertain. And men ARE uncertain yet today as they DO NOT understand the True meaning of His Presence and the Presence of the Father in the Life of man; it IS in this Way, in the Way of His Presence, that we should understand the Truth of His words that “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). It IS in the Unity of God and in the reality of His words that the Truth of one’s Life can be realized and this IS the Master’s continued teaching from this point to the end of the chapter were He offers us His own example of that ultimate Truth of the Way….that “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). This IS the reality of the Presence of God and the Truth of the Way and this IS the clear example that the Master leaves for us as He shows us that He too keeps His words as we read at the end of our current selection:

“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. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe. Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me. But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go hence” (John 14:26-31).

Here we should try to see that as “the world may know that I love the Father” by His actions, by the idea that “as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do” so it should be with us; that in our own DOING, in our own action in keeping His words, we are making this same statement to the world. And this IS the essence of the Great Commandments that we have again at the top of our essay, this IS how we Love God “with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength“: we keep His words. And this IS how that we have His Presence in our Life: we keep His words as we see in these ideas that we have been often repeating in our essays:

• “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”  (John 14:21).
• “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”  (John 14:23-24).

In recent essays we have called this idea that the Master presents a quid pro quo and in the reality of His words this IS so; if we want His Presence which IS His grace and the realization of that Presence, we must Love Him and, as the Master shows us above and at the end of the chapter, this Love IS shown in DOING. We should note here how that the idea IS expanded so that we can see the equation between our Love for Him as the Christ and our Love for God as the Father. While we should easily see this in the Unity that Jesus presents to us saying “I am in the Father, and the Father in me” (John 14:11), and we can see this even more so by His own example which He frames for us as “I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do“. In this we should see that there IS NO division between the Master’s words, His commandments if you will, and the words of the Father or His commandments and this IS further exemplified for us in His words that “the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works” and His telling us that the “word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me” (John 14:10, 24). These ideas should dispel any ideas of separation between His commandments and the Father’s  and this sense of Unity should be allowed to permeate ALL of the ideas offered by the Master and His apostles. And the Master, in His effort to make both points abundantly clear, that there IS no separation between the words of Christ and of the Father and that there IS the need to keep His words, tells us that “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“. 

It IS unfortunate that few see this sense of quid pro quo in the words of the Master. It IS unfortunate that so few understand that to be in His grace one MUST keep His words; that for a man to have His Presence in his Life that one must Love Him in the True sense of this idea which IS found in that most clear saying that “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). We should try to see here how that to Love Him, to Love God as we see in the Great Commandment, IS to keep His words and we should try to understand that His Love for us IS the reward, the grace and the Presence of God in one’s Life. And this IS NOT a limitation on His Love which IS Universal and undying, which IS the very Nature of God as we KNOW from the words of the Apostle John who tells us that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). This Universal Love IS found in the idea that “there is no respect of persons with God” (Romans 2:11) and in the way that the Master shows us that ALL men have equally the things that God offers albeit NOT the things that are offered by the world and by men; we see this in His words that “he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). Here, from the carnal perspective, ALL are equal in God and while there is great diversity and the appearance that this idea IS NOT True, the reality should be clear: it IS in the realization by the man in the world of the grace and the Presence of God that he can come to understand these things. It IS in the reality of True grace that men can understand that there IS naught from the physical world in this grace and that the carnal rewards that ARE attributed to the grace of God ARE NOT such and this especially when the presumption of grace IS in the absence of keeping His words. And we should remember through ALL of this that we attain His grace by degree, by measure proportionate to our focus and our striving toward the Kingdom of God.

There IS a True division between things spiritual and things carnal and this IS pointed out by the Master in several ways; as the separation of “God and mammon” and as the separation of the focus of man…that his heart should be on the “treasures in heaven” and NOT on those “treasures upon earth” (Matthew 6:24, 20, 19). It IS in this reality of focus upon the things of God and the grace that this brings that we can see the Truth behind Jesus’ words “Take no thought for your life” (Luke 12:22). While these ARE the Master’s words, many still believe that there ARE carnal rewards for the man who believes in a doctrinal sense or who gives according to his belief. And this presumed promise of carnal things, of pleasure and comfort and an abundant carnal Life as that this IS grace IS actively taught in some parts of the church even though the apostles also speak of this division between things spiritual and things of the world. And, even if it were so that this idea of grace can be of a carnal nature, even if there ARE things of this world that can be accounted as grace, the main part of the Master’s teaching on this remains; that if one wants His Presence, if one wants His grace, then “he will keep my words“. The greater reality IS however that the things of God ARE spiritual things and NOT carnal; that His grace IS the revelations and the realizations of Truth and that His Presence IS His Love and that Peace of which He tells us “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you“. When we can understand that this Peace IS the reality of His Presence, that this Peace IS the Truth of His grace, then we can see the True meaning of the Spirit of God as the Comforter, as the Holy Spirit who produces the Peace of KNOWING the Truth and the freedom that the Truth provides.

This IS a freedom that comes to us in the in the revelations that “teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you“; this IS the freedom that comes in that grace which livens the body nature with the Truths of God. In this idea of remembrance we should see the deeper understanding of bringing things to ones consciousness as this effects the mind; here we can see that the Spirit of God, the God Within, will and DOES show to the man in the world those things of the Spirit and perhaps here we can see the idea of spiritual discernment. This very idea of the work of the Holy Spirit shows us the revelations and the realizations that ARE grace and in this we should KNOW that the idea of Jesus speaking, that what would come to mind IS His words, should be seen in its spiritual import….as one’s perceptions of the Truth of His words. While this IS a difficult idea to show in words, we should try to understand the Potency of the Christ and the God Within, that these KNOW ALL things spiritual and that the flow of this KNOWING into the waking consciousness of  a man IS the reality of his revelation and the reality of the apostles words that “ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things” (1 John 2:20). This IS the flow of grace from the Soul into the Life of the man whose focus IS upon the things of God; it IS this grace that IS a man’s ability to KNOW and to DO and it IS the Spirit of God Himself, the Holy Spirit that IS the God and the Christ Within, that IS the KNOWING and the DOING in the world of men.

We will continue with 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.

We repeat here again a saying that is from the Bhagavad Gita, which goes well with our theme of the God Within, the Soul, which we see as the Christ Within and while this is good in the Christian world and is True based upon our understanding of the Christ as the manifestation of God, we should also see in these words below that it does not matter what these divine ideas are called; that it matters not what we call this Inner Man, that he is the same in ALL, he is the Soul.

Thou carriest within thee a sublime Friend whom thou knowest not. For God dwells in the inner part of every man, but few know how to find Him. The man who sacrifices his desires and his works to the Beings from whom the principles of everything stem, and by whom the Universe was formed, through this sacrifice attains perfection. For one who finds his happiness and joy within himself, and also his wisdom within himself is one with God. And, mark well, the soul which has found God is freed from rebirth and death, from old age and pain, and drinks the water of Immortality.—Bhagavad-Gita

It is difficult to tell just what verses of the Bhagavad Gita the above is from; whether it is a paraphrase or a combination. It is from the book “The Great Initiates” by Édouard Schuré which was originally published in French in 1889 and perhaps it is in the translation of the verses that they become hard to recognize. However, the sheer beauty of the presentation caught my attention and so I share it with you. The Path to the Kingdom is the same no matter what religion one professes.

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!