IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 1215

ON LOVE; PART DCCCIV

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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 took leave of our current theme of grace and its manifestations in the Life of the man who has such realization of the grace of God that he can KNOW the Presence of God which IS the reward if you will for keeping His words. While most doctrinal understanding of grace claim that grace IS NOT a reward, we must look to the Master’s own words and the way, as we see below, where there IS a rather straightforward quid pro quo shown in regard to the reality of the Presence of God in one’s Life. This reciprocal action IS most clearly seen in the idea that if one keeps His words then the result of such keeping IS the Presence of God; here, for our added understanding, the Master also includes a view for us of the else that IS found in this equation, that if a man DOES NOT keep His words, he DOES NOT Love the Lord in the sense that this Love IS intended to convey. When we play this idea against Jesus words that “he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him“, we can begin to see the depth of meaning and the reality of His Presence. And, when we can take the very idea of grace out of the nebulous meanings afforded by doctrine and see His grace as ALL things that come from God, we can then see the greater reality of grace as His Presence or, better, the revelation of His Presence to the consciousness of a man and the subsequent realizations of Truth that this affords. We read these most important words from the Master again:

“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).

While the Master speaks these words to His Eleven near the end of His time with them should NOT discount their validity, nor their application, in the Life of ALL who would be His disciples. It IS in the reality of discipleship that men look away from the carnal and toward the divine and it IS in this new focus of Life that we find the greater reality of the Kingdom of God; that it IS one’s focus upon the Good, the Beautiful and the True, the things of God, that IS the reality of attaining the Kingdom….a reality that IS NOT accomplished in affirmations and rituals but in the DOING. If one’s Life IS centered in Love and in keeping His words, then the grace of God IS flowing into that Life; it IS the measure of that man’s focus that IS the measure of his grace and it IS the fullness of grace which IS the reality of the True disciple and of the man who IS accounted worthy of His Kingdom. Here, while we paint a very different picture of the Kingdom than does doctrine, we should try to see that our view IS supported by the very words of Jesus in such sayings as “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). There IS stark reality in these words, a reality that IS diluted by doctrines that proclaim that it IS faith in Jesus by which we attain the Kingdom as we see in John Gill’s ideas on this saying:

but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven; This, as it may regard private Christians, intends not merely outward obedience to the will of God, declared in his law, nor barely subjection to the ordinances of the Gospel; but more especially faith in Christ for life and salvation; which is the source of all true evangelical obedience, and without which nothing is acceptable to God. He that seeth the Son, looks unto him, ventures on him, commits himself to him, trusts in him, relies on him, and believes on him for righteousness, salvation, and eternal life, he it is that does the will of the Father ⁸.

There IS an ambiguity in Mr. Gill’s ideas as the latter part of this saying IS the reality of keeping His words; it IS the man who commits himself to the Lord that will DO those things that He says. Mr. Gill offers more here as he takes the emphasis of this idea of “he that doeth the will of my Father” off of the ‘private Christian’ and places it upon the head of the preacher which we read as: but as these words chiefly respect preachers, the sense of them is this, that only such who are faithful dispensers of the word shall enter into the joy of their Lord. Such do the will of Christ’s Father, and so his own, which are the same, who fully and faithfully preach the Gospel of the grace of God ⁸. This IS a distinction that IS NOT made by the Master and which IS a part of the dilution of His words that causes Jesus to say to them at hand and to us ALL “why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). In this saying which IS the same idea presented by Matthew we have the reality of keeping His words as the Truth of Life, of the Kingdom, and of one’s commitment to the Lord and it IS at the end of both of these renderings by the apostles that we find the reality of the Parable of the Wise and the Foolish Builders, a parable that clearly delineates the man of God as the man who keeps His words. We read this parable from Luke’s Gospel:

“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).

While Luke DOES NOT include the ideas of the Wise and the foolish as DOES Matthew, the reality IS the same and can be seen in the very context of the parable itself which IS, from the earliest parts of the Gospels, Jesus emphasis on the DOING. It IS at the intersection of words that much of the difficulty IS found in the Master’s sayings; while His words ARE themselves parabolic, this IS added to by the rendering of them given by the apostles and then by the translators; and this IS most clearly seen in the idea of grace as it IS rendered as thanks or as credit. By rendering this Greek word charis in Luke’s Gospel as thanks or credit or any of the other ideas offered, the translators ARE inserting their own doctrinal sense and this even though Matthew’s Gospel includes the idea of reward from the Greek word misthos which can also be rendered into English as wages. In this that we find the same idea of grace that we take from Jesus words in John’s Gospel above, the idea of the quid pro quo and the reciprocal divine action for the man who keeps His words; it IS here that we have Jesus own reality of this word misthos as it IS used by Matthew for those things that come from God. 

It IS because our posts have been a bit erratic of late because of our move that we refresh our selves with these ideas of grace as ALL things that come from God and we close this part of our essay by saying again that there IS NO thing of this world that IS to be found in such grace, that ALL grace IS the revelation and the realization of the Presence of God in one’s Life which IS a man’s own realization of the reality of the Inner man that IS the True man and that it IS essentially the expression of the Inner man, the Soul, through Life in this world that IS keeping His words. It IS in ALL of these ideas presented to us by Jesus that we should see the dynamic reality of the individual sense of grace that comes to the man in the world who can keep His words, the man who can commit himself to the ways of the Lord as he shifts his focus away from the carnal things of the self in the world and onto the things of God. It IS to this man that the things of God flow and these things ARE ever found in one’s revelations of Truth and in one’s realization in the consciousness, the the heart of the man in the world, of the greater Truths of Life and the Love of God which IS to be the expression of the man, the fruit of his Life if you will, for ALL who Truly seek His Kingdom. It IS ever the greater reality of His Love that is the essence of keeping His words and while this IS painted for us in unwavering terms by the Master and His apostles, this IS a message that is rarely understood by men who choose to see His grace as that free gift that comes to ALL men as they misread and misapply the Apostle Paul’s words to suit their carnal ways. If we could but see the reality of the free gift as those things that come from God in a most universal way and that this includes our several ability to work out our own divine nature in this world, our own ability to change our focus from the carnal to the divine and to live a Life that IS in accordance with the fullness of His words.

And this IS the message that we find in Paul’s words to the Galatians that we introduced in the last post and which had become our diversion from the topic of grace; and we should see here that there IS NO diversion in reality as ALL things form God ARE His grace. It IS this sense that we should see the idea that ALL ARE children of God, a realization that IS one’s grace, by KNOWING God which IS the result of one’s immersion into the Truth of the Christ which IS the underlying reality of having “put on Christ“. It IS in this that we ARE seen as “Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” neither of which ideas should be seen ONLY in the Light of the Jewish tradition but in the deeper reality of the Kingdom of God as this comes to the man who keeps His words. We read:

• “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:26-29).
• “To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:19-21).

In the second saying from Paul above we find a complimentary idea and one that can greatly enhance our understanding of the idea of what it means to “have put on Christ“. Here we see that it IS God that IS in Christ and we should understand here that to “put on Christ” IS to put on God as well. This IS our reality and this IS the great Truth in the idea of God’s “reconciling the world unto himself” as the apostle paints this; that in putting on Christ one IS free of his trespasses. And so Paul goes on to say that it IS to himself and to the followers of Christ that falls the message of reconciliation as he implores those who KNOW to see the reality of their own actions in Christ’s stead which IS the reality of the Great Commission that tells us that as True followers of the Lord we ARE to be “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20). This IS NOT the teaching of doctrine but the teaching of the Truths that Jesus brought to us and this teaching IS NOT only in words but in our example of Life in this world. So much IS made of the apostle’s final statement here to the Corinthians, a statement that should be seen in the simplicity of its presentation….that a realized and True Son of God came into this world, a world which IS the reality of sin, to show us the way of righteousness in the face of ALL of the carnal forces that play upon the lives of men in this world. It IS in the reality that He teaches us, that we can DO as He has done, that we should try to see our greater glory.

We leave here again with our selection from the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of John which we will return to in the next post:

“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 of God	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