ON LOVE; PART DCCC
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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. While this IS from an older definition of Charity, which IS rendered in the King James Bible from the same Greek word agape which IS generally rendered as Love, we should amend our own definition here to include the idea that in the reality of Love a man will accord to ALL men ALL things that he would accord to himself and to say that Love IS our thoughts and attitude of the equality of ALL men regardless of their outward nature or appearance…that ALL ARE equally children of Our One God
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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 related the Truths of the Master’s words on Love from the Sermon on the Mount to the reality of His Presence in one’s Life and more specifically that it IS to DO as Jesus tells us in this Sermon that IS the reality of keeping His words. While many may believe that there ARE shortcuts that allow a man to maintain his carnal thoughts and attitudes on Life in this world while gaining His Kingdom, the stark reality IS found in Jesus words on Love, and we should understand here that most ALL of His words DO address this subject. In the selections that we cited from Matthew and Luke in the last essay, the reality should be clear to ALL who can look away from the pronouncements of doctrines and their own preconceived ideas on Life; we should see in His words that ALL IS Love as the Greek word agape should be understood. Our own attempt to Truly depict the Master’s intent and His reality of Love is again at the top of our essay under the question ‘what then IS Love’ and it IS this reality and more that we should see in Jesus own words that tell us to give and to lend and to see ALL men as the Father sees them…..without “respect to persons“. This IS the essence of the Great Commandments and the Golden Rule which ARE also at the head of our writing again today and as we look at the rest of the Master’s words and the words of His apostles, we should be able to see the deeper ideas that lead up to the “glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21) which IS the reality of True discipleship.
That we should “love thy neighbour as thyself” and that we should understand and practice Jesus’ admonition saying “just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise” (Luke 6:31) IS a most difficult endeavor for the carnal mind and emotions and it IS in this sense that men need the Presence of God in their lives as His grace, as the revelation and the realization of these Truths. It IS only when this grace IS freely flowing into one’s consciousness that he can begin to overcome the self centered thoughts and attitudes that stream into that same consciousness from his worldly centered personality. That we maintain the doctrinal idea that in some way Jesus comes into one’s Life or that we understand the idea of the Christ and the God Within as the personal reality of God in man, DOES NOT matter as the reality in either view remains, it IS the revelation of His Presence and the realization of His Truths that will move a man away from his focus upon the self and the self in the world and onto the things of God. In this we must understand the reality of His words and His commandments and see that the ideas on Love from the Sermon ARE His words and His commandments and that it IS these that MUST be heeded as a man’s part in the reciprocal reality of one’s keeping His words as the precursor to having His Presence as we read again in Jesus’ words saying:
“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” (John 14:21-24).
In the reality of Life in this world, these words from the Master should ring clear and True: that in order to attain the Presence of God in one’s Life, one must keep His words. While we can play with the ideas of His manifesting Himself and His making His abode in the heart of a man, and make doctrinal precepts of these realities, the simple Truth remains, that these ideas are the reality of His Presence in one’s Life and that this Presence IS ONLY found as the quid pro quo, the result of, keeping His words. It IS in the difficulty that this brings to the Life of a man in this world that keeps a man from progress; it IS in the ‘stepping out’ that a man must undertake and the sense of difference that this brings into his Life that IS the fear that keeping His words brings and in this we should try to see that ALL men KNOW what it takes to Truly be a saint in this world. KNOWING and DOING are however separated in the same ways as we read of Truth and error and of righteousness and sin. And we should understand as well that it IS in KNOWING the Truth of sainthood that IS the underlying reality of the prompting of the Soul to the Good, the Beautiful and the True. It IS this prompting to change one’s focus to the things of God that IS ever the impetus to our spiritual progress and it IS this prompting that generally goes unheeded because it CAN NOT be heard over the clamor of Life; or because if is ignored in that sense of fear and of uncertainty. And this IS the tribulation of the aspirant as well as the succumbing to the ways of the world of everyman and it IS in the illusion and the glamour of Life in this world that men CAN NOT see the greater Truth of his own spiritual reality.
Today’s Verse of the Day from biblegateway.com is about this sense of tribulation, a sense which many see as a persecution of Christians by the world and others see in the Truer context of the overall nature of the world as being against the Truths that Christ teaches. Here, while some may believe that there IS a devil and that he, or Satan, are against their ways as Christians in prayer and worship and while others may see that there are those who would seek to turn one away from his faith in Christ, the deeper realities in this tribulation IS the self imposed way of the carnal man. In this we should try to see that this reality IS not realized by most men as they live the Life of the carnal man and, in the illusions of worldly living, even the religious come believe that they ARE DOING right while living as men in ways that ARE contrary to the reality of keeping His words. Short of being an aspirant or a disciple, the man who has made that Life decision to change the focus of his own Life, which change IS Repentance, the True tribulation goes unseen as the promptings of the Soul ARE unheard or else they ARE ignored. If we can see the Master’s words in this sense as He says “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33), we can likely see the greater reality of the disciple of the Lord. In this idea of “These things I have spoken unto you“, we should see ALL of His words in His interaction at the Passover Supper with the apostles and understand that this IS the same Peace that He offers earlier saying “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” (John 14:27). It IS in the sense of His Presence that He shows us in the idea of abiding as the reciprocal action of keeping His words, that IS the reality of the idea that “in me ye might have peace” and it IS this same reciprocal action that He shows us in the idea of “Abide in me, and I in you” which we have in the selection below from the fifteenth chapter; it IS here that we should understand the idea that to abide in Him IS to abide in His word and in His example.
And the reality if this abiding IS clearly stated for us if we can see through the doctrinal ideas as He tells us that “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love“. Can we see the equality in these ideas? Can we see that to keep His words IS to abide in His Love and that there IS NO difference between abiding in Him and abiding in His Love which IS the very Quality of the Christ and the very Nature of Our God? In these final words of instruction the Master IS reminding the Eleven, and us through them, of the tribulations that ARE the very nature of Life in form and how that they, through the Peace that comes by abiding in His word, CAN overcome this as He has done. In His most affirmative statement saying that “I have overcome the world” we should see the reality of the Christ….not that He had finally accomplished this, or even as some who see this as His triumph over Satan believe, but as the deepest understanding that “in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). The Master had come among us in such fullness that there IS naught for Him to overcome; there IS ONLY the need for Him to show us the way and this He DOES in His many words and by His example of giving up ALL worldly attachments and attractions even to His own mortal Life. It IS here that we should see the “greater works” of which He tells them; it IS here that we should see that the final trimuph for ALL men IS that they can “overcome the world” as He did and it IS this that IS our individual deliverance “from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).
It IS in the reality of the promise of “greater works” that we can see our own ability to overcome and to be delivered into this liberty that IS encapsulated in His words saying: “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32). Here we find this freedom, this liberty, in keeping His words and in discipleship and we should understand that it IS in this sense of liberty from the wiles of worldly living that we can realize that great Truth that “the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do” (John 14:12). And the greatest of these works can likely bee seen in the context of our own ability to say clearly and with conviction that “I have overcome the world“. In the Apostle John’s words we find this idea of overcoming in relation to the Truth of discipleship and being accounted worthy of the Kingdom of God and it IS when we can understand that these ideas are tantamount to the fullness of His Presence that we can likely then see the apostles Truth as he says “whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world” (1 John 5:4). As we pointed out a few posts back, there IS a great symmetry among the various terms that show the expression of the Spiritual man in this Earth; it IS in one’s expression of His words to the world that he IS the True disciple, that he IS accounted worthy, that he IS born again; it IS in this expression of Love that one can have the Presence of God in his Life and can begin to realize and to DO such “greater works” as we see in His promise those who “believeth on me“, those who will accept and adopt His precepts and example as binding upon the life 4, which IS to keep His words.
It IS this sense of overcoming that our selection below leads us to; it IS the man who continues, the man who abides in the vine, who will accomplish the reality of his spiritual pursuits and find the wherewithal to DO those “greater works” that ARE ONLY done in the man who has Truly “overcome the world“. And this sense of overcoming IS a constant theme for John as we read in his epistle and in the Book of Revelation. We seldom address this last book of the New Testament and we stay away with purpose as we have little or no True ability to discern the apostle’s meanings. While there are endless calculated ideas on what John intends for us to see in these words, NONE come even close to Truth in our view. Today however we have seen a point of reference that we can see rather clearly and this IS in the idea of overcoming which the apostle uses in the Name of the Lord to cite the ‘promises’ given to the church that has overcome; we read these ideas from John:
- “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God” (Revelation 2:7).
- “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death” (Revelation 2:11).
- “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written , which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it” (Revelation 2:17).
- “And he that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations” (Revelation 2:26).
In this sampling of John’s ideas on overcoming we should see the Power that IS offered to the man who can DO so and in this last saying above we should see the reality of this sense of overcoming in the reality that this man will “keepeth my works unto the end“. And we should not get tied to the doctrinal ideas, translations and interpretations of the words that the apostle uses; we should understand for example that the same word that IS rendered as nations in the last entry IS rendered as gentiles elsewhere and can refer to any multitude from a company or a troop to the entirety of the human family 2. Vincent tells us that this idea that IS rendered as nations means: The whole human race; though the word is generally employed in the New Testament to denote Gentiles as distinguished from Jews 4, from its usage in another verse and in these ideas we should see both the reality of Life for the man who can overcome and the problems of translation and interpretation. We close today with our repeating of our selection from the fifteenth chapter of John’s Gospel.
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you” (John 15:1-12).
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 Christ |
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.
Repeating a Quote of the Day from the past that has some significance in relation to what we are discussing here, that the Kingdom of God and therefore God is within us ALL and that it IS His Presence which a man realizes by measure as he begins his journey to the Kingdom of God. Here Lord Tennyson poetically tells us just how close God Truly IS and how it is that we touch Him
Speak to Him, thou, for He hears,
and Spirit with Spirit can meet
Closer is He than breathing,
and nearer than hands and feet.
(Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1809–1892)
From the poem The Higher Pantheism which puts forth the authors spiritual belief. Whether we agree with him or not, the quote if spiritually perfect for all of Christianity as well as any other world religion.
The thought behind the idea above IS NOT unlike that which we have been carrying as our Quote of the Day for many essays; It IS in the closeness that Lord Tennyson shows us that we should see the idea that “God dwells in the inner part of every man” which we read in the previous Quote of the Day. For us this saying and the previous one show us the closeness of the spiritual self to the Father and then too the closeness of the spiritual self with the personality of man. Men may like to think of God as something outside and above but the reality, as we have seen in so many of the sayings of the Master, is that God is with us and in us and we need only to let ourselves be drawn and to focus upon Him. And, if we can use these words from the Gospel of Thomas here we can perhaps see much: “When you come to know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will realize that you are the children of the living Father“
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts
- 2 New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
