ON LOVE; PART MXXV
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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 Mark Twain quote which tells us something that we likely DO already know and if we can understand indoctrination, we can see the validity of his words in both religion and in politics. In religion it IS those who have taken authority that keep doctrines in the ears of those who follow and there IS much Truth in the idea that such authorities have received their own indoctrination from others and that there ARE few that DO look beyond the ideas that they have learned. That there ARE some who have looked past their own indoctrination with some disagreement can be seen in the thousands of denominations and sects the exist in the world today and we should note here that while each of these sees a different vision of Christ and salvation, ALL ARE still doctrines. Few if any reach far enough beyond their own indoctrination to find the Truth of Jesus’ words and understand the clarifying and amplifying nature of the words of His apostles.
We should try to understand here how that these denominations and sects ARE those divisions of Christ which the Apostle Paul speaks against as he asks his rhetorical question “Is Christ divided?” (1 Corinthians 1:13). If men could but see the relevance of the apostle’s words in ALL religious effort over the centuries, perhaps they could put themselves into his words saying “ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?” (1 Corinthians 3:3). And this IS the reality yet today: while Christians may have overcome the gross carnal offenses that ARE a part of Life in this world, most have NOT yet overcome the ideas that Paul presents to us as “the works of the flesh“; they DO NOT see the “envying, and strife, and divisions” in their own presentation and acceptance of their several doctrines. We should note here that it in the renderings of these ideas there can be much confusion as we discussed in our study on these ideas as they ARE used in our selection from Galatians which we repeat 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).
The word that IS rendered as envying in 1 Corinthians IS zelos which IS rendered as emulations in Galatians and the Greek word eris that IS rendered as strife IS rendered in “the works of the flesh” as variance. Add to this that the word rendered as divisions in 1 Corinthians, dichostasia, IS rendered as seditions in our list above and we can see how that these ideas ARE ALL related and ARE the result of the separating and divisive doctrines of men. It IS the entire sense of division and faction that IS the denominational sectioning of Christ’s teachings and in this we should see a resounding YES in answer to Paul’s question “Is Christ divided?“….He has been factioned and divided and even torn apart with most every part claiming to have the Truth.
In the apostle’s day the teaching was yet much closer to a singular Truth of the Life, Death and Resurrection of the Master and even in these days Paul is made to make such statements as “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (1 Corinthians 1:10). Of course the apostle’s message IS ever more important and pertinent today and, at the same time, it IS easy to see the virtual impossibility of achieving such a singular message in our hugely sectional world. There IS however a singular Truth that IS most easily found when one ceases to rely upon the authority of others who have relied upon the authority of their own teachers and so on reaching back in time.
Perhaps we can most clearly see this effect in the church by looking at the bible colleges and Christian universities that have been established to teach the ministers and the pastors of the next generations. In these we can see how that each teaches their own ‘brand’ of Christian doctrine and they support their ‘brand’ to the degree that they downplay and even demean the teachings of others. In the realization that there IS ONLY One Truth however, men can break out of the denominational rut that the world IS in and a part of DOING this IS found in the right understanding of the words that the apostles use and their intent. We have interpreted Paul’s words that he lists in his list of “the works of the flesh” according to our own sense of the Truth that Jesus presents, as clarifying and amplifying His words, and the most basic spiritual message found in the Great Commandments. It IS in the understanding of the Great Commandments that the flow of revelation begins to impact the carnal mind and view and brings us to understand that to have the Truth of the Presence of God in Life, to have the Truth that frees us from the corruption that IS our own illusion and glamour, and to have the reality of the Kingdom of God as the place where we stand, we must keep His words as we read again in 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).
That most ALL doctrinal approaches to God DO NOT see the reality of the trifecta against their own ideas of salvation that ARE their several interpretations of the words of the apostles IS of NO moment to the striving of the few who can look past the authoritarian ideas that have been presented to men by others who, according to Twain, have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners. In this unfortunate Truth many ARE yet trapped as were the Jews in Jesus’ day, trapped in their various doctrines and their wrangling about those doctrines. Much like the Saduccees and the Pharisees who were at variance concerning the resurrection, and this likely among other things, we have the Catholics and the Protestants, in ALL of their forms, wrangling about which of their divisions of Christ IS the greater Truth.
And ALL this happens under the watchful eye of the Master who DID tell us that “I am with you alway, even unto the end” (Matthew 28:20). And we should take this idea literally from the perspective of His Presence; and this in a twofold manner. He IS with us as the Christ Within who resides with everyman but IS realized by the few who strive to keep His words; this the Apostle John tells us saying that “ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things” and then that “the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you” (1 John 2:20, 27). He IS with us also as that Great Soul that came among us as Jesus; it IS He that passed on from His Earthly existance and who watches as men wrangle over His words while yet subjected that vanity, that illusion and glamour, of Life in this world. When we can realize the deep Truth of Paul’s saying that “in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9), we can then understand the Truth of man and his relationship to God; it IS this Truth that IS among the revelations and realizations that ARE promised by Jesus in His words from our trifecta which say “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“.
It IS this freedom that IS our deliverance “from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” and this “bondage of corruption” IS that vanity, that illusion and that glamour, which ALL of the Master’s words ARE intended to dispel. It IS the illusion and the glamour of Life in form that must be overcome and it IS these that ARE allowed, and even encouraged, to thrive in the lives of men by the doctrines that they invent and teach. We should understand that to overcome this sense of vanity, which Vincent shows us as that: perishable and decaying condition, separate from God, and pursuing false ends 4, and it really DOES NOT matter that Paul’s words here ARE taken by doctrine to refer to the ‘fall of man’. Regardless of the meaning taken for his words saying “the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same” (Romans 8:20) the final reality IS that this must be overcome; men must come to see through the illusion and the self deception and the glamour that causes them to hold fast them this this great stronghold.
And we should try to see how that the very progress of the evolution of mankind, has as it basic design, a singular role of dispelling the illusion through the power of the mind over the emotions and the bringing in of discoveries that point to the overwhelming complexity of Life and the vastness of the Universe which IS the outward expression of God. It IS that glamour that IS attached to the emotional response of men however that restricts the progress and although mankind has moved from the barbarous and the superstitious ways of Old Testament times, to the still barbarous and ploddingly plotting ways of the Christian Era, to the still barbarous and ways of yesterday, the idea of barbarous IS still the way of men.
There IS little difference in the motivation of Moses who tells us that “we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children, of every city. But all the cattle, and the spoil of the cities, we took for a prey to ourselves” (Deuteronomy 3:6-7), and the use of weapons of mass destruction yet today. And while the former IS seen as the ‘will of god’ in scripture, it IS their stand of glamour that causes men to NOT see that in Truth this IS NOT His Will but the will of men who interpret His Will. God DOES NOT change and if we believe that “God IS Love” as John shows us, we CAN NOT also believe that His role in human affairs would be to give men His instruction to “kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves” (Numbers 31:17-18) and other like pronouncements. And despite the idea of the greater good in the use of modern weapons and despite the self proclaimed presumption of innocence attached to ‘collateral damage’, there IS yet NO True excuse for the killing and the maiming of innocents.
Our point here IS the illusion and the glamour that cause men to DO such things and to believe that they ARE right in DOING them. Men ARE blinded by the vanity, they ARE deafened by their doctrines which afflict virtually every way of Life. Religious doctrines, political doctrines, scientific doctrines….doctrines of every kind, ARE what blinds and deafens men and, at the same time, binds them until they ARE freed by the evolutionary process or until they can free themselves through the words of the Master….through the words of Truth.
And this IS where we began this essay, in the ideas that the doctrines of men ARE NOT given the scrutiny that they deserve but ARE passed on by the authority of those who have taken it. If we could but realize how that the very foundation of much of the doctrines of any religion IS based in the past, in the barbarous and superstitions past, perhaps we could advance our ideas and our interpretations of Jesus’ words and the words of His apostles in to the more modern era of thought where KNOWING IS the KEY to understanding in most every field of endeavor except religion.
In ALL of this we should be able to see that the greater Truth of faith, as this IS given us in the Greek words pistis and pisteuo, IS that KNOWING that comes in the trifecta, that KNOWING that IS the Truth of the Master’s words. We should also be able to see how that this pistis IS a “fruit of the Spirit” as it flows into the Life of the man who IS “led of the Spirit“; and while so many profess to be so led, the reality IS that this KNOWING ONLY comes in the Truth of His words. We close today with these words from Solomon whose teaching on Wisdom should set the stage for ALL generations of men to seek and to find the Truth; we read:
“He taught me also, and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words: keep my commandments, and live. Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth. Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee. Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her. She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee” (Proverbs 4:4-9).
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.
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 a Quote of the Day that we spent much time with over the course of our essays. In this affirmation we find the Truth of discipleship as we have been ever been expressing and here we can relate our themes of the last few days; “take no thought” for the things of the world and that we approach the Kingdom and discipleship in the nature of the little child, in humbleness, meekness, unashamed in any way and unassuming. The message that this imparts for us today IS that it IS the Soul that is at work in the world of men as it expresses to some degree the purpose, power and the will through Life in this world. These words are from a meditation offered to his students by our Tibetan brother and in which we find greater understanding of the message of the Master. This IS Truly the way of the disciple.
My Soul has purpose, power and will; these three are needed on the Way of Liberation.
My Soul must foster love among the sons of men; this is its major purpose.
I, therefore, will to love and tread the Way of Love. All that hinders and obstructs the showing of the Light must disappear before the purposes of the Soul.
My will is one with the great Will of God;. that Holy Will requires that all men serve. And unto the purposes of the Plan I lend my little will.
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
