Monthly Archives: August 2016

ON LOVE; PART MXLV

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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 the start of our review and expansion on the next word in the Apostle Paul’s list of “the fruit of the Spirit“, pistis, which IS rendered as faith. In this nebulous standard of doctrinal Christianity many people ARE lost as they wrangle with the idea of their own faith which IS portrayed for them as the stepping stone to spiritual Truth. Based upon the saying of Paul and catchphrases from the gospels such as Mark 11:23, millions believe that they can and will get whatsoever they may desire in prayer based upon their faith.

While denominations differ on their approach to faith, there ARE some that teach how that it IS the things of this world or what they call the promises of Abraham that ARE the privilege of the man who has faith; the man who believes that he will receive them. We have always shown that this IS a haphazard approach to spiritual reality and that there IS NO causative link between believing and receiving; many who DO NOT believe receive and many who DO believe DO NOT receive. The link between faith and believing IS established in the kindred Greek words pistis and pisteuo which ARE rendered as faith and believing by most translations and, while there ARE defining ideas in the New Testament for this combination, these ARE largely ignored in favor of the more nebulous concepts.

All that we need to KNOW regarding pistis and pisteuo IS found in Jesus words on the their Power in the Life of the man who Truly has developed these. And, when we can take these concepts to their end, that IS, when we can see them clearly in Jesus’ own words, we can then understand the deeper Truths. The reality of faith and of believing as these ARE rendered from pistis and pisteuo IS KNOWING and it IS this KNOWING that can be taken then into Jesus words that ARE our trifecta. It is here that we can see how that this KNOWING comes to the man who will keep His words. Repeating the trifecta again:

• 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).

It IS in the combination of many of Jesus’ sayings that the reality of pistis and pisteuo come to be seen as they ARE intended to be and it IS fortunate for us that these many saying ARE in regard to the same Truth. This IS the Truth that it IS in KNOWING, ALL things ARE possible. As we have previously discussed, it IS in Jesus’ teaching on moving the mountain and the similar idea of plucking up the “sycamine tree” and planting in the sea that the greater reality of pistis and pisteuo ARE found. Briefly these ideas include these words from Jesus according to the gospel writers:

• “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you” (Matthew 17:20).
• “If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you” (Luke 17:6).
• “If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done” (Matthew 21:21).
• “whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith” (Mark 11:23).

ALL of these ideas ARE the same in effect and in meaning. ALL of these ideas show us the reality of both pistis and pisteuo. This sense of “faith as a grain of mustard seed” IS the very same idea as it to “have faith, and doubt not” and shows us how that the idea of KNOWING works across these words as the deeper understanding of these ideas. And the Apostle Mark’s version also gives us the same idea using pisteuo, believing, as the base for KNOWING as this believing IS also without doubt. In the idea that one “shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe” we have the same dynamic as we have in the previous ideas; ALL these sayings have the singular idea of KNOWING, which presupposes without doubt, and which IS faith.

When we add to this the Master’s words from the Apostle John’s Gospel saying “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do” (John 14:12) we then have the more complete idea based in ALL four gospels. This idea of believing on the Master CAN NOT be that nebulous idea of doctrines; it IS rather this same KNOWING that opens up the Way of the disciple….that he can DO such “greater works“. Vincent puts this idea of believing on and believing in the Master into perspective for us and we repeat here again his words saying:

To believe in, or on, is more than mere acceptance of a statement. It is so to accept a statement or a person as to rest upon them, to trust them practically; to draw upon and avail one’s self of all that is offered to him in them. Hence to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ is not merely to believe the facts of His historic life or of His saving energy as facts, but to accept Him as Savior, Teacher, Sympathizer, Judge; to rest the soul upon Him for present and future salvation, and to accept and adopt His precepts and example as binding upon the life ⁴.

If we can see how that to accept and adopt His precepts and example as binding upon the life is the essence of that sense of KNOWING that comes in DOING so, we can then better understand the reality of our spiritual journey. The key to Vincent’s idea here IS in the word binding and we can relate this idea to those we explored two posts back, those ideas on serving and bondage which both come from the same Greek word douleuo which IS defined by the lexicon as: to be a slave ² among other ideas. Here we should see his idea of binding in such a way that shows that it IS imperative to DO so….which IS accept and adopt His precepts and example as binding upon the life.

There IS NO safe haven here in this idea as there IS NO safe haven in Jesus’ own words on “God and mammon” or on the treasure that one seeks; these ideas ARE the basic reality of the Life of the man who Truly seeks God. Doctrines take the Master’s words out of their intended context and they DO NOT see the underlying Truths that ARE rather clearly stated in His words on “God and mammon“, treasure and His related saying that men should “seek ye the kingdom of God” (Luke 12:31). Their failure IS in looking at His words from a carnal perspective and in this they lose sight of the Master’s admonition that men should “seek ye the kingdom of God“; and they fail to understand just what this means.

This ALL carries over to the True understanding of pistis and pisteuo. While these have a nebulous doctrinal connotation throughout the church, there IS a simple reality and it IS this simplicity that we read in Vincent’s words above. The most basic idea here IS that if one believes in or believes on Jesus and if one Truly has faith in Him then this IS both the cause and the result of keeping His words which IS the heart of the trifecta. We should try to see that it IS in keeping His words that the reality of pistis and pisteuo come to everyman through hia revelation and realization which IS the very Presence of God.

There IS a reality to pistis and pisteuo that IS missed by most ALL doctrines and this IS the reality that IS elucidated by the Master in His words that we repeat above. Jesus ideas of “faith as a grain of mustard seed” IS a picture for us of the mental state of the seed in which we should imagine that the seed DOES have a mind. In this state of being the “mustard seed” KNOWS only ONE thing….that it will be a mustard tree. We look to John Gill to give us the flavor of the common doctrinal understanding of this idea; on the “mustard seed” Mr. Gill says: which was a very small seed, the least of all seeds, and is used very often proverbially by the Jews, to signify anything of a small quantity or weight, and is sometimes used of faith ⁸. After some Jewish example Mr. Gill continues to say:

So that it has no reference to the quality of mustard seed, being hot and acrimonious; which has led some interpreters wrong, to compare faith unto it, for its liveliness and fervency: when our Lord only means, that if his apostles had ever so small a degree of faith in exercise, which might be compared for its smallness to this least of seeds, such an effect as he after mentions would follow; and which therefore is to be understood, not of an historical faith, by which men assent to all that is in the Bible as true; nor of a special, spiritual faith, by which souls believe in Christ, as their Saviour and Redeemer; for of neither of these can the following things in common be said; but of a faith of miracles, peculiar to certain persons in those early times ⁸.

If we can see that pistis, faith, IS immeasurable in physical terms, we can likely see past these ideas and see into the ideas that the Master clarifies for us in His other sayings regarding this same idea of the miraculous movement of the mountain or the planting of the “sycamine tree” in the sea. These sayings include Jesus’ clues if you will to the True meaning of what IS “faith as a grain of mustard seed“. This faith IS to “have faith, and doubt not” which IS again the essence of KNOWING. And this faith IS that the man “shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass“; this IS again the essence of KNOWING.

To KNOW the Truth IS to have NO doubts about it; this IS NOT believing as this idea IS commonly seen nor IS this that nebulous idea of faith….this IS KNOWING. This IS KNOWING that the Presence of God flows through you and it IS this Presence that IS the Power to “say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove“. This IS the Power by which “nothing shall be impossible unto you“. And this Power IS one’s expression of pistis as a “fruit of the spirit“. In its fullness the mountain can be moved and by measure this brings into the Life of everyman who will strive to keep His words the privileges of the disciple. We repeat our selection from Paul’s words:

“For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. 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 words on faith by the writer of the Book of Hebrews have become a lynchpin of the doctrinal view of faith and we should try to see how that these words DO support the reality of faith as KNOWING. We read: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). In past essays we have reworded this idea using the alternate ideas that come from the Greek words and our own reliance on the idea of KNOWING. We presented this as “KNOWING IS the assurance of what IS expected“. We should understand here that while these ideas ARE seen and used in a most carnal way in most doctrinal teaching, these ARE spiritual ideas.

In this view the very idea of ‘having faith‘ for this or that thing or such and such a happening ARE NOT in the realm of faith according to this saying. If we turn this to its spiritual intent however and look at it in regard to the ideas from our trifecta for example, we can then see how that these words on faith work out in the Life of a man. In the trifecta we have the Master’s admonition that we keep His words and He tells us as well that in DOING so we “shall know the truth“. This IS the KNOWING of True faith which Jesus shows us in the words above on the mountain and the “sycamine tree“.

In this KNOWING is our assurance that what we expect according to His words WILL come to pass; that IS, that if we keep our part of the dictates of the trifecta, we expect, and we will have, those things of which He tells us. It IS these things that ARE the reality that lies at the heart of the meaning of Life here in this Earth. It IS these things: His Presence, the Truth that frees us from our carnal thoughts and attitudes, and it IS the Kingdom of God realized in the Life everyman who will pay the price. It IS these things that ARE the Truth of our salvation; it IS these things that ARE our deliverance and it IS these things toward which we must strive.

And as the saying from Hebrews continues we should see how that it IS this KNOWING that IS the very evidence, or, as the lexicon shows us, the proof ², that ALL that the Master tells us IS Truth and this because we simply KNOW Him to be True. And this IS the message that comes through in the list of examples that the writer offers. Perhaps the most cogent of these examples IS “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear” (Hebrews 11:2)

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 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

• ² from New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
• ⁴ Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
• ⁸ Bible commentaries on BibleStudyTools.com