ON LOVE; PART MLI
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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 more comments regarding the Truth of faith and the whole idea of “the fruit of the Spirit” as the expression of the man who has found the Truth, the Presence of God and the Kingdom. We must remember that it this IS the expression of the man who IS adopted as Paul tells us and try to understand that this adoption has naught to DO with our carnal ideas concerning the Father God. This adoption IS the union of the man with God through his expression of the Truth which IS the Christ Within….which IS his own Soul. This Adoption IS, as Mr. Merivale explains, that: the adopted son of God becomes, in a peculiar and intimate sense, one with the heavenly Father 4.
It IS in bringing the Light that IS the Soul into the Life of the man in the world as the director of ALL things that the fullness of Truth IS KNOWN. And it IS by measure that we come ever closer to this reality as the Apostle Paul frames this for us. Paul tells us that as we gain by measure we ARE “waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body“. We must remember that the apostle IS speaking to men who ARE focused upon the Lord as he IS, men who ARE of like mind with him, and we should see this in the way that he presents his idea as he counts himself among them saying “ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23). In this we should be able to see how that to be actually “waiting for the adoption” one must be, with the apostle, focused upon the things of God.
And we should remember the words of the Apostle James who gives us the Truth of this waiting as he shows us the way of the husbandman saying: “the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain” (James 5:7). We should understand the reference here as a guide to our own sense of waiting; the husbandman works his field and his crops, he nurtures them in their growth….there IS NO idle time in his waiting. So it IS with Paul’s idea of “waiting for the adoption“.
While doctrines center their ideas on the next verses from Paul’s Epistle, most miss the intent of his ideas. Paul goes on to say that “we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it” (Romans 8:24-25). Here again we must look past the more nebulous ideas of hope and see the idea of expectation; here we should see the idea that it IS in “waiting for the adoption” that we ARE expecting salvation, or, as this IS alternately rendered according to the lexicon….we are expecting to be made whole 2.
The ideas of saved and salvation have been taken by doctrines to show their own idea of the whole purpose of religion. To be saved in doctrinal terms IS to be free from sin based in the atonement of Christ’s death and while this takes a variety of forms depending on the denomination, ALL seem to include ‘going to heaven’ at death and some idea of eternal Life. But IS this what the apostle IS waiting for? Surely he IS already saved in doctrinal terms. While there ARE many uses of the Greek word sozo where the common idea of saved works, these ARE most ALL carnal versions of this idea as we find in the Apostle Peter’s crying to Jesus “Lord, save me“(Matthew 14:30), as his attempt to walk on the water failed.
Our point here IS that the idea of being saved IS NOT the same when viewed from a spiritual perspective yet we use the same English word to render sozo most ALL of the time. In the spiritual sense the idea of to “make whole” is a better one to use for the proper understanding of the spiritual point and in this we should again see the idea of Oneness and union which IS absent in most ALL doctrinal views. In the context of Paul’s words above we should be able to see how that this idea follows upon his words on the adoption and when we can see this in Mr. Merivale’s terms, as becoming in a peculiar and intimate sense, one with the heavenly Father, we can see the deeper meaning of being made whole through our own expectation.
We expect to be made whole based upon our own KNOWING of some measure of the Truth that comes to us in keeping His words, and it IS in expectation that we wait. Again this IS NOT idle waiting but rather waiting as the husbandman who diligently works at bringing forth “the precious fruit” which IS for us “the fruit of the Spirit“. And this expectation, this sense of True hope, IS NOT any nebulous affair as it IS based in the Truth of KNOWING, of faith, which IS one’s KNOWING of the Truth that the Master tells us delivers us from the burdens and the illusion of Life in this world. We read Jesus’ words from our 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 this KNOWING, in this Presence of God, and in our realization of His Kingdom as the place of our state of being, that we express “the fruit of the Spirit“. And, by the same measure with which we can DO this, we also move away from any thoughts and attitudes that ARE of “the works of the flesh“. We should remember that these ARE NOT the common ideas of such works but the spiritual ideas that stand contrary to the Great Commandments, ideas that keep some part of men’s focus upon the self in the world. These ideas that ARE infidelity toward the Godhead through focus upon the things of the self and even one’s own ‘spiritual’ abilities ARE contrary to the fullness that the commandment requires; a commandment that clearly states “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“. In this there IS NO room for the self.
Similarly, it IS in this same measure of focus upon the self that we fail to “love thy neighbour as thyself” as except for the fullness of this Truth of agape, men see the self as the more primary character in the panoply of Life. Yes, these ideas ARE difficult to bring to completion and, perhaps for this reason, the Master shows us that we should strive and that the measure of one’s success DOES count. Doctrines on the other hand have taken this difficulty as impossibility despite Jesus’ own words saying “with God all things are possible” and we should note here that the context in which He offers these words IS the same as what we present; we read:
“again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved? But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:24-26).
While it IS easier to understand this in doctrinal terms, as that God will DO this saving in the Life of the Christian, it IS more accurate to see the Truth of the relationship here to forsaking the things of the world. The ability to DO so comes in the measure of faith, the measure of KNOWING the Truth, and in the Presence of God in one’s Life. It IS in these that the man in the world comes to see the futility of carnal living against the great goal of the adoption. The rich man will NOT enter heaven because his focus remains in the self and it IS ever the change of focus, which IS the Truth of Repentance, that sets a man upon the Path where he sees ALL more clearly.
This IS the ultimate work of faith: to see past the self and the interests of the self in this world and to focus upon the things of God. This IS NOT however that doctrinal sense of faith, this IS NOT that nebulous belief; this faith IS that KNOWING that comes to a man in the grace of God according to the ideas that Jesus gives us in the trifecta. It IS this faith which, working with Love and the other ideas listed in “the fruit of the Spirit“, that brings a man from Repentance, through Transformation, and to Redemption which the apostle shows us IS the adoption by which we ARE One with God.
And this IS our journey on the Path; this IS a journey that focuses upon the Truth of God and which brings a man from the beginning to the end of his own revelations and realizations of Truth. And it IS by measure to the man who will strive to keep His words that this journey IS taken….and this journey IS “from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). It IS this “glorious liberty” that IS the freedom that the Truth brings as we read in the Master’s words above and it IS this freedom that IS the Truth of sozo as that spiritual idea of being saved. Can we see here how that the union of the Soul, the Christ Within, and his expression in this Earth IS the deeper Truth of being made whole which again IS the alternate meaning for sozo according to the lexicon 2?
This IS the goal of everyman and while we have depicted the goal many times in different terms throughout this blog, we should try to see that these ARE ALL the same and that ALL Truth IS bound up for us in the Great Commandments which ARE commandments of Love and of focus upon the Godhead. We should ever understand that this sense of Love for God and the Truth of Love for our fellowman ARE intimately connected….they ARE one and the same. The Apostle John shows us this Truth of Love saying “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar” (1 John 4:20) and while this indictment IS ignored by most ALL of doctrine, it IS nonetheless the Truth.
And more, this idea of hate IS NOT that common understanding of hatred but IS rather the same type of hatred that we find in Jesus’ words according to the Apostle Luke where 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” (Luke 14:26). In this we should see that the Greek word miseo which IS rendered as hate CAN NOT be our common understanding and, based upon the like saying in the Apostle Matthew’s Gospel, we gain the better understanding of to Love less.
In this saying from Luke we should see that the “father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also” must be Loved less that the Lord; this IS then in accord with the Great Commandments. Similarly we should see the idea from John but in a different tone; here we should see how that one should Love “his brother” equally with God and in this see how the reality of “his brother” as a Soul….that he IS part and parcel of the Lord as ARE ALL Souls. On the one hand, in Jesus words according to Luke, we have a more carnal view and on the other, in John’s words, we have a deep spiritual reality.
These ideas ARE missed by most ALL doctrines that rely upon the more nebulous ideas of faith, doctrines that DO NOT see how that the idea of KNOWING IS the deeper reality despite the way that this IS shown to us in the various versions of the Parable of the Sower. And in missing this they miss as well the deeper ideas of measure that ARE also given to us in the context of keeping His words. We close today with this from John that links for us the ideas of KNOWING and keeping His words; the apostle tells us “He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:4). We will continue with John’s words, and our selection from Paul which we repeat here, in the next essay.
“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).
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
- 2 from New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
