ON LOVE; PART MXXXI
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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 some thoughts on how the Apostle Paul was himself trapped in the idea of the ‘unpardonable sin’ as we have been able to understand the Master’s intent in saying that “whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven” (Luke 12:10). We should understand here that the apostle was firmly entrenched in his own sense of doctrine and DID many things against the Truth of the Life and the teaching of Jesus. Here, it IS NOT a stretch to see how that Paul’s actions ARE blasphemy in most every conceivable way. His thoughts and his attitudes against Christ and His teaching revealed for us that it was “out of the abundance of the heart” (Matthew 12:34) that he plotted and DID as he tells King Agrippa saying: “many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests; and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them. And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities” (Acts 26:10-11).
To understand the True dynamics of Jesus’s words on this sense of sin that “shall not be forgiven“, we must understand how that those things that Paul DID ARE contrary to the Truth of His words as well as being contrary to the Truth of the Jewish law that had been lost in the doctrinal view, a view that NOT ONLY allowed Paul’s actions against Christ but encouraged them. It IS Paul’s awakening on the road to Damascus that causes his Repentance which IS a feat that IS seldom accomplished by men in this world whose sense of Truth rests in the illusion and the glamour of their own little lives. And this IS, in our view, the Master’s point; He IS telling men that so long as they ARE trapped in their own sense of truth rather than the Truth that flows from one’s own Soul, one’s Christ and God Within, then they will be sinning and blaspheming the Truth which IS in essence the Holy Spirit through which God lives in man.
That doctrines divide the Godhead into separate parts IS a function of their misunderstanding of the essential Truths of Life which ARE lost in the illusions of Life in this world, a Life which men believe to be the Truth of their being. When we can understand that Life IS Spirit and that Soul and one’s use of a body ARE the products of this single Life, we can then perhaps begin to see deeper into the words of the Master and His apostles; and we should remember here that most ALL of this IS cloaked in what ARE the True mysteries of being and of God. Jesus tells us of the “mystery of the kingdom of God” (Mark 4:11) and explains how that it IS the disciple ONLY, the man who has some measure of the Truth that comes in keeping His words, that IS privy to the revelation and the realization of this mystery in which lies the KEY to ALL mysteries. This revelation IS a part of the grace that comes in our trifecta which we repeat again; we read:
- “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).
In these words we have the Truth and the KNOWING of this Truth which IS the reality of faith. At the same time we have entry into the mysteries of the Kingdom through the reality of our own entry into the Kingdom. And in both of these we should clearly see the Presence of God. It IS in this Presence that the mysteries ARE revealed to the consciousness of the man in the world and one’s realization of these Truths IS the privilege of the disciple as the Master shows us through what we call the trifecta. If the ideas behind the Trinity, the ideas that ARE the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, can be seen as part of these mysteries, we can then see that it IS in the way that these ARE spoken of in separate terms by Jesus that feeds the way that the “mystery of the kingdom of God” works in the minds of men.
It IS in the parabolic way that these ideas of the Trinity ARE addressed in scripture that keeps safe the reality of the mystery which CAN NOT be easily explained because we lack any spiritual terms that ARE NOT seen through a carnal understanding. It IS this reality that Jesus’ shows us as He reserves the KNOWING of the mysteries for the disciple; it IS this KNOWING, this reality of faith, that IS the realization of the man who will keep His words and, according to Jesus’ own words, this man IS the disciple. In the first part of the trifecta we see how that Jesus shows us that to be His disciple one must “continue in my word” and while the gospel writers use the Greek word mathetes much more loosely than the Master, it IS Jesus own words that define the idea of His disciple.
In ALL common sense we should be able to recognize this: that to be among those whom He addresses above saying that “ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free“, one MUST keep His words. This IS a definition of His disciple and there ARE others through which we can see how that this station in Life IS a high calling that fits smoothly with His words that tell us of its rarity. In His words saying that men should “Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able” (Luke 13:24) we should see that rarity and understand the reasons for it as He also says:
- “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:34-35). Here discipleship IS tied to one’s expression of Love and to His words as commandment and, when we can understand that it IS agape that IS at the heart of His words, we can then see how that this IS the same idea as that the disciple “continue in my word“
- “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” (John 15:8-10). Here again we have the idea of the expression of a man as evidence of his discipleship and while this is framed as fruit, we should relate this to our list of “the fruit of the Spirit” where Love, agape, IS paramount.
- “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). In this as the crux of all Jesus’ defining ideas oh discipleship as ALL of His other statements on this ARE incorporated into keeping His words. We should note here that the Greek word meno which IS rendered as continue here IS rendered as abide in the previous saying and in this we should glimpse a stronger idea that relates continuing in His word to living in it.
- In Luke’s Gospel the Master offers us additional requirements for discipleship and, save for the last one, these ARE given in more obscure terms which seem to require some measure of His Truths in order to properly discern them; we read: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple….whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14: 26-27, 33). These ideas, when taken with the like sayings from Matthew’s Gospel, should help us to mediate the ideas behind the Greek word miseo which IS rendered here as hate and should help to show us that in these ideas there IS one’s conformance to the first of the Great Commandments which we repeat again at the top of our essay.
And a great Truth of True discipleship can be found in combining two sayings from the Master which, while using different Greek words rendered as perfect, DO put together for us yet another view of the “mystery of the kingdom of God“. Jesus tells us that “The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master” (Luke 6:40); in this we should see how that the station of True discipleship IS the greater reality of being Christ like and the greater Truth of His words saying “the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do” (John 14:12) as this pertains to the man who will keep His words. It IS in the idea of being perfect that we see this as the Truth of discipleship and the result of His admonition that men should “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).
It IS in this Light that we should see the Apostle Peter who, while striving to “have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” through his time with the Master, finally DOES overcome according to his own words saying “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (2 Peter 1:4). We should understand corruption here in terms of the ways of the world, the ways of the flesh in the world, and lust as men’s desires for these ways in thought, attitude and in action. We should remember that Peter IS a disciple of the Lord who had yet carnal instincts which the Master pointed out to him on more than one occasion and in this we should see that he IS NOT “perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect“.
We should remember as well that in the course of time that Peter DOES overcome the flesh and the corruption and we KNOW this by the evidence presented to us which tells us of the people, “that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them. There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed every one” (Acts 5:15-16). This IS the result of that KNOWING that comes in keeping His words; this IS the faith that moves mountains and this IS those “greater works” which come to men who ARE “partakers of the divine nature“. And ALL of this IS found in the revelation of the “mystery of the kingdom of God” which IS the privilege of the True disciple.
And it IS this same sense of being His disciple that we find in the Life of the Apostle Paul whose great awakening on the road to Damascus begins the revelations and realizations of Truth in his Life. Again, while Peter had the Presence of the Lord both by proximity and revelation, Paul has only those Truths that he comes to realize with NO confirming testimony or evidence save for his own sense of KNOWING which IS the reality of his faith. This IS the reality of what Paul teaches in his letters to those groups of men to whom he writes and of the depth of his teaching we have little information save the reinforcing words that we can read in his epistles. Paul’s message IS than men awaken to the Truth and drop, as he did, their reliance upon the doctrines of men; the same doctrines against which the Master railed. It IS unfortunate that this intent of the apostle’s message IS lost as it IS unfortunate that the reality of discipleship IS obnubilated by men’s most casual view of it as well.
To these men who have been somewhat awakened by Paul’s teaching of Truth he continually offers cautions and warnings and one of the most revealing of these IS our current selection from his Epistle to the Galatians. Here, as we have been discussing, there IS the reality of the ongoing conflict between the flesh and the Spirit. This IS the conflict between the Soul that IS the True man and the personality who IS the actor living the Life of that man in this world according to his nurturing, his indoctrination and his experience. This too IS a part of the “mystery of the kingdom of God” which IS revealed by measure to the man who will strive to awaken which IS to strive to keep His words.
In this mystery IS the Truth of “the works of the flesh” as those thoughts and attitudes which ARE contrary to the Great Commandments, and the expression by the man in the world of “the fruit of the Spirit” which IS the privilege of the man who IS “led of the Spirit“, which IS the man who has His Presence, which IS the man who keeps His words. ALL of these ideas ARE minimized by the same doctrines of men which paint the average man who believes according to doctrine as a disciple; men who have NOT “crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” nor DO they Truly understand just what this means. We repeat the apostle’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).
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.
