ON LOVE; PART CMLX

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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).

We ended the last essay with a discussion of the Great Commandments and how that these predate Jesus’ teaching and show the Jews the same principal of Love. This principal of Love IS the expression of the man whose focus IS upon God and, if we should look at the clarity of the first of the Great Commandments we will see how that this requires such focus and thereby such Love. In the idea of Love for God we should see the reality of Jesus’ words and the words of the Apostle John as both of these show us the reality of that Love; one from the simple perspective of keeping His words and the other from the perspective of the second of the Great Commandments which IS that a man “shalt love thy neighbour as thyself“.

Jesus shows us the Truth of this relationship between keeping His words and Loving God as a part of what we call our trifecta of spiritual reality where the idea IS repeated from His earlier saying that “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15). In the trifecta the Master repeats this charge two more times and He DOES so with great clarity; it IS Truly unfortunate that most doctrines DO NOT see nor understand these ideas. When we take these words “If ye love me, keep my commandments” and add them to His saying that “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me” and His next thought, which IS in answer to an apostle’s question, saying “If a man love me, he will keep my words“, the clarity IS deafening; yet there IS NO such idea in the doctrines of men who DO claim to Love God. And we should see as well how that this idea of Love for God, as evidenced by keeping His words, IS also the KEY to the Presence of God in one’s Life which IS the essence of Jesus words that we repeat again as the third part of our trifecta:

• “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).
• “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).
• “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).

John shows us this same idea of Love for God in his first epistle where we read “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also” (1 John 4:20-21). Here we have the relationship between Loving God and Loving one’s neighbor, brother and the stranger who qualifies as both; and here we also have John’s relationship of Love for God and keeping His words as this whole idea of Love IS His word. And this IS the same relationship that we should take from the Apostle Paul’s words to the Romans and to the Galatians; we read:

• “Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:8-10).
• “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Galatians 5:14).

While there IS NO question as to the intent of the apostles and the Master regarding Love, doctrines DO NOT treat this reality with the vigor that IS necessary; nor DO they acknowledge this strong relationship between Love and keeping His words. Using the out of context words of Paul to fuel their doctrines of atonement, they fail to see Jesus’ own words on Love and on the Way that it IS in keeping His words that one can achieve the Kingdom of God. And this IS the center point of the whole idea that IS presented in our trifecta where there IS the reality of discipleship as KNOWING God,  attaining the Kingdom of God, and the Truth of His Presence in one’s Life….ALL of these come to the man who will keep His words.

It IS in this same way that we should look at the Truth of being “born again“. While many believe that they ARE “born again” by way of the ‘believing‘ and the affirmations of such belief as IS interpreted from Paul’s words, the greater reality IS found in the Master’s words that tell us “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:14). The relationship between these words and the words of our trifecta ARE lost in the doctrinal teachings that rely upon the misconstrued words of the Apostle Paul, words that ARE taken out of context and allowed to stand alone as the way of salvation. The Truth IS found in the simple logic that if one must keep His words in order to “enter into the kingdom of heaven“, which idea we should clearly see in Jesus words saying”he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven“, then this must be equally True for the reality of being “born again“. If we must keep His words to “enter into the kingdom of heaven” then we must equally keep His words to be “born again“, the result of which IS the Kingdom of God. 

It IS in the illusion and the glamour of Life in this world that men DO come to believe the doctrinal ideas of salvation that have been created out of the same sense of illusion and this IS ALL a part of that deception that the Apostle James shows us, a deception that replaces the need to keep His words with ALL other approaches to God. James’ words ARE rendered as “be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” and understood in the context of hearing as men parse the apostle’s words without seeing the Truth that to NOT DO His words IS the continuation of illusion and in this IS the deception. While it may appear that the Truths ARE buried in the words of the Master and and His apostle’s, the reality IS that the Truth of keeping His words IS presented to us in clear terms but, at the same time, in terms that ARE inconvenient for the man in this world to CHOOSE to DO. Much of this IS based in the fear of losing one’s own sense of humanity and perhaps being seen by others as the one who IS deceived.

It IS keeping the sense of one’s humanity that has fostered the doctrines that have become the very essence of the spiritual Life of so many millions of men and in this we must see the work of the Church Fathers as well as the Reformers and those who follow them still to this day. When we can see however that this sense of humanity IS a function of the illusion and the glamour, a function of the vanity which Paul tells us afflicts ALL men, we can then understand that the ONLY escape, the ONLY way to True salvation, IS in keeping His words. And this IS the intent of Paul’s words that we have been studying: to allow men to see the reality and the Truth of keeping His words as he shows us those things that ARE contrary to the Great Commandments of Love for God and Love for ALL men as well as those things that move one’s focus away from the One essential Truth. It IS the illusion and the deception that causes men to interpret the apostle’s words into strictly carnal ideas and then pay them NO heed as regards their own salvation. We repeat Paul’s words again saying:

“For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” (Galatians 5:17-24).

As we have discussed, there IS a reality to the carnal understanding of these words and a sense of wrong can be found in most ALL of them. But we should understand that a man who IS free from the sexual deviations, free from idolatry and witchcraft as these are commonly understood, free from the hatreds and whatsoever IS understood in variance, emulations, seditions and heresies, and free from drunkenness and what IS seen as revelling, DOES NOT have the Kingdom of God, the Presence of God nor the freedom of KNOWING the Truth, if he IS NOT keeping His words and especially those words on Love. This reality IS shown to us rather clearly but in a seemingly different context as Paul writes to the Corinthians about those supposed “spiritual gifts“…..supposed for the man who IS NOT in accord with Jesus’ teachings on Love. Here the apostle shows us that NONE of these supposed “spiritual gifts” ARE so in the absence of Love as the reality of agape.

The apostle’s words to the Corinthians, much like his words to the Galatians above, ARE NOT taken as they ARE intended by the doctrines of the world. In Galatians there IS the failure to see how that the Greek words ARE NOT ONLY as they are presented in the common understanding of men. They ARE spiritual realities which ARE, according to our segmented view, the errors of men in regard to God as infidelity and reliance upon the carnal, the errors of men in regard to their relationship with their fellow man and the errors of men by which their focus IS taken off of the Truth as they succumb to the ways of the world and take joy in it. In Corinthians we have a similar presentation by Paul as he shows us that in the absence of Love, which IS the absence of keeping His words, NONE of those things which ARE perceived by men as spiritual ARE such and, from a spiritual perspective, such a man who IS NOT expressing Love, expressing agape, IS NOTHING. The apostle tells us:

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away” (1 Corinthians 13:1-8).

We should remember here that this rendering of Charity IS from the same agape that IS rendered as Love by other translators and we should try to see this idea of Charity as it IS presented at the top of our essay answering the question WHAT THEN IS LOVE?.

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.

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 these 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