Monthly Archives: September 2017

ON LOVE; PART MCLXXVII

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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).

In the last essay we looked at the way that the young and the millions of older folk who have lost interest in the various forms of Christianity find NO place in today’s church and we should realize here that a compound of this problem can be seen in some of these ‘neglected’ masses attraction to other religions that DO NOT seem to be stuck if you will in ancient doctrinal approaches to God. Of course this IS not True as ALL world religions lean heavily upon their founding ideas and doctrines but most DO NOT make the same mistakes of glamour nor insist upon the idea that they ARE the ONLY way.

We should understand here that we write from an American perspective which only sees other cultures from afar but, at the same time, we DO see the pull of religion on the masses and especially upon the downtrodden of the world. Religion IS but a sidebar for us however as our motivation IS ever the Truth and the revelation of that Truth which encompasses ALL world religions and goes to the heart of the problems of humanity. There are more than 7.5 billion people (7,5301,286,210 according to the World Population Clock at this moment) that ARE spiritually wandering the Earth, stuck in the vanity, in the illusion and the glamour, which IS their own individual “bondage of corruption” (Romans 8:20, 21).

The thinking masses, while less likely to choose religion, ARE among the more advanced Souls that are upon this Earth, and it IS these who ARE likely the greater searchers out of the Truth which they may ONLY think to find in the non-Christian established religions or some forward looking sect or cult. We should see here that within ALL religions there IS the seed for Truth that has been covered over by the doctrines of men and it IS this seed that must be allowed to grow. But where IS it planted? Most often in fields of obscurity which, when discovered by the authoritative voices of doctrine, ARE trodden under foot and called heresy.

This has ever been the problem and in the Christian world which likely started with the Gnostics who were spoken and written against by the church fathers and their teaching called heretical, and this before the ideas of the authorized Christian doctrines had been set. The church as ever been against the esoteric and the occult without ever really KNOWING what they Truly teach and the church IS at least partially responsible for the fringe movements that turned to satanism, witchcraft and other ‘supernatural’ arts.

It IS rather ironic that there ARE today parts of the Christian church that has turned their attention to the supernatural and see their own view of this as a part of the “spiritual gifts” (1 Corinthians 12:1) spoken of by the Apostle Paul. After centuries of being actively against anything that they could see as occult, many ARE now teaching the supernatural ideas gleaned from the bible but which ARE, in most cases, nothing but the same psychic ability they so strongly speak against. The forces of the personality, the mind and the emotions of men, ARE psychic forces and they have ever existed; it IS these psychic forces that can be found in the magic of Pharaoh’s priests and it IS the spiritual side of these forces that ARE the basis of the “greater works” (John 14:12) that the Master promises to those who Truly follow Him….those who: accept and adopt His precepts and example as binding upon the life ⁴ as Vincent shows us IS the deeper Truth of “believing on” the Master..

But the True spiritual side of these forces IS NOT wielded by the average man who may believe that his own psychic powers ARE those “spiritual gifts“; the True gifts ARE based in the revelations and the realizations of Truth that come to everyman by his focus upon the Good, the Beautiful and the True, the things of God. And while these parts of the church ARE enhancing the value of psychic ability and posing it as these “spiritual gifts“, they miss the other points on the subject which Paul offers as he shows us the value of Love, of agape, saying “covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way” (1 Corinthians 12:31). We should remember that this “more excellent way” IS Love and here we should try to see that Love IS NOT meant to be a gift but that it IS meant to replace ALL as the Way to Truth.

In this we can see that while these ‘gifts‘ ARE seen as spiritual power and ARE considered to be of some great spiritual value, they ALL pale in comparison to the expression of Love which IS tantamount to keeping His words. It IS in this expression that the True Power flows through the Life of a man, a Power that renders the ‘gifts‘ as minor accomplishments. And here we should understand that we ARE speaking about the spiritual reality of such ‘gifts‘ which DO ONLY come to the man who will keep His words and by measure to the man who will strive to DO so. Moreover, if we can see that the whole point of the apostles writing here IS designed to show that these ‘gifts‘ ARE inconsequential in the Life of a man whose expression IS NOT Love, we can then see that the pursuit of them IS folly.

We can also see that the ‘dividing’ of these ‘gifts‘ among the ‘parts’ of what Paul calls for us “the body of Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:27) ARE but the measure that each man achieves by the measure of his striving to keep His words and that in the fullness of DOING so, one will perforce have ALL these ‘gifts‘. That these ARE ONLY afforded to the man whose expression IS Love IS the reality shown by the next words that reveal the value of agape and how that ALL pales in comparison. We should note here that ALL of this comes in the revelations and the realizations of Truth which comes according to our trifecta which we repeat again saying:

• “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).

We should try to see that in Paul’s words that follow his words on these gifts he relegates himself to be among the less spiritual men of the world. He shows us that his maintainence of his spiritual ‘position’ IS ONLY afforded in Love; without his expression of agape, which the King James renders as charity, he IS “become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1) and here we should try to see the idea of sound and understand that his words would become meaningless. With Love his words remain as the high spiritual ideas that he both utters and writes because the force of Truth comes ONLY in agape. If we can see that the idea of tongues here IS meant as this utterance and writing and NOT in relation to the previous discussion of the gifts, perhaps we can then see deeper into the apostle’s intent.

There IS much said in parts of the church regarding this Greek word glossa; some give great relevance to it in spiritual terms and attribute it with their own ritualistic idea of being baptized in the Holy Spirit. This ritual IS conducted by fellow ‘believers’ who lay their hands upon the one receiving this baptism and praying in what they understand as tongues. Their rambling nonwords ARE seen as their ability to  “speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:4) and those who DO believe that this IS so have many scriptural references that they claim support their belief. Without debating their belief here, we should try to see that without Love their nonwords ARE but gibberish; this IS another idea that can be taken from Paul’s idea of being “as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal“.

Paul goes on to show us the deeper Truth of agape and leaves us to understand that without one’s expression of this Love there IS NO spiritual benefit, NO spiritual growth and NO spiritual fruit. Without Love, without agape, he shows himself as mere noise and as nothing and reveals to us that without one’s expression of agape that “it profiteth me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3) which should be understood as there IS NO spiritual benefit. Our point here, as well as Paul’s, IS that there IS NO benefit to these presumed “spiritual gifts” without one’s expression of agape; without Love these ARE but the psychic ideas of men which ARE subject to the limitations of men and their unpredictable nature IS inherent in the personalities of men. With Love however there IS great revelation and realization and we should ever remember that this Love IS equivalent to keeping His words which IS the gateway to the privileges of the trifecta; we read again in Paul’s words to the Romans:

“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. And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed”  (Romans 13:8-11).

The greatest reality then IS Love. Love IS the virtual reality that will bring mankind to realize its Unity and if we could but understand that it IS this sense of Unity among men that IS the basis for and the result of one’s Union with the Godhead we could then see more clearly most ALL the teaching of the Master and His apostles. This Union IS “the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” which IS the ultimate spiritual achievement for everyman who IS “delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8: 23, 21).

We should remember here that the rendering of many Greek words IS done according to the doctrinal ideas of the translators and here in the idea of being delivered we should see, as we see in the first part of our trifecta where eleutheroo IS rendered as “make you free“, that this idea IS to be “freed from the bondage“. This freedom IS the antithesis of the vanity to which ALL ARE subjected by way of being Here in this world, the antithesis of the illusion and glamour which IS the reality of carnal living; and while most ALL renderings of these words from Paul show that this IS by the Power of God, the reality IS that this IS DONE by everyman himself through his expression of agape which IS the True evidence that one DOES keep His words.

The Apostle John shows us the reality of this idea as he says “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). We should understand that it IS left to us to connect the dots which IS to connect the words of the Master with the amplifying and clarifying words of His apostles and here we should see two things. First the Great Commandments which show us the combined view of Love for everyman and Love for God; second IS the basic idea of the third part of the trifecta which shows us that to Love God IS to keep His words….that these ARE inseparable; this Jesus shows us saying “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“.

And finally these words from John show us the brotherhood of man; they show us that ALL whose pursuits ARE Truly spiritual will understand that in seeing others one IS seeing God; this Jesus shows us saying that “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (John 14:9). That doctrines DO NOT understand the Truth here IS a function of the glamour and the illusion of Life as the Christian believer IS “puffed up“, to use Paul’s words, in his view of himself without understanding that the reality of agape “is not puffed up” (1 Corinthians 13:4). To understand this idea we must first understand John’s words saying that “as he is, so are we in this world” and we should note here that the apostle offers this in the same segment of words on Love that we cite above.

In the whole of the apostle’s words we should see that while doctrines understand John’s words to be in regard to that final judgement day with the idea that we should be bold, the reality of the apostle’s words IS much different. John says that “Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world” and when we conflate this with his earlier words saying that “No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:17, 12), we can see the idea of perfection all the more clearly.

The Greek word rendered here as boldness can also be seen as confidence which IS the rendering of several translations; this word, parrēsia, IS defined in relation to speaking and we should understand that this idea IS far reaching insofar as the psyche of men. Add to this the idea of krisis which IS rendered as judgement here, and most always in negative terms, and we can see how that the workings of doctrine permeate the attitudes of the translators. Thayer’s defines this word first as: a separating, sundering, separation, a trial, contest and then as selection; their third line of definition IS: judgement with the example of opinion or decision given concerning anything ⁹. Strong’s defines krisis as: decision (subjectively or objectively, for or against); by extension, a tribunal; by implication, justice (especially, divine law):—accusation, condemnation, damnation, judgment ^9a.

These defining ideas ARE most always rendered as judgement and here, while there IS NO reason for the apostle to inject the idea of “Judgment Day” as this IS rendered by several translations, that IS become the most common assessment of his intent. If we look at the context however and try to see that he IS showing us that we must Love our fellow man if we ARE to say that we Love God and that this idea IS certainly an amplification and a clarification of the Master’s own word from our trifecta.

And here, if we can again connect the dots, we can see the same relationship that Paul shows us in his words on Love above; in John’s words on Love the idea of keeping His words IS implied by way of the Master’s words that clearly tell us “If a man love me, he will keep my words” and in ALL of this we should see that His greatest word IS Love. Here again we must see John’s point on Love saying that “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar” and we must measure this idea “That he who loveth God love his brother also” with the Master’s own words on keeping His words and then measure both against Paul’s words that make these ideas equal.

Returning to our point on Love, we should be able to see the relative importance of agape and in this importance see that the reason for this idea of universal Love for ALL IS based in the idea that lies behind John’s words saying that “as he is, so are we in this world“. While this idea IS contrary to the majority of Christian doctrines, we must tear away from John’s words ALL ideas regarding the end times and the “Judgement Day” which has been applied to his words, to see the apostle’s intent: to show us that we ARE the same as Jesus.

And while John shows us that we ARE the same “in this world“, there ARE yet greater Truths that ARE bound to the mysteries and here especially the “mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). Here again we must be aware of the doctrinal touch that IS upon the idea of gentiles, a word that simply means people and here people that DO NOT have the revelations and realizations of Truth. For the gentiles this IS a glimpse of the Truth that they may take and grow with but this has not been the case as the church of the gentiles has ever seen themselves as having such revelations and realizations without DOING the necessary work of unconditional Love for ALL.

We should see here that to be “as he is….in this world” IS to be a man who IS capable of such Love, “love made perfect” if you will, which comes according to the trifecta; this IS the reality of the apostle’s saying that “he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16). Here we should see the relationship between these words and the Master’s words where we find that God “dwelleth in” the man who “hath my commandments, and keepeth them“. And we should see the relationship between a man dwelling or abiding IN God and God dwelling or abiding in a man….the dynamic for both IS the same; again, we should see that whether this IS a function of Love or a function of keeping His words, both the cause and the result ARE equally the same.

We must NOT forget that ALL of these things, ALL of these revelations and realizations of Truth, DO come to everyman by measure and this by the same measure that one puts forth in allowing the Inner man, (the Soul, the unction, the anointing, the Christ Within; ALL these ARE the same), to subdue the carnal man and to allow for what Paul calls for us “the renewing of your mind“. the apostle says that men should “be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2). It IS in this way, by striving to keep His words and to Love as Jesus teaches us that one can come into full realization of John’s saying that “as he is, so are we in this world“. It IS then in this fullness of realization, this fullness of Truth, His Presence and His Kingdom in one’s Life, that one can stand with the Master and say “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33); and here we should remember that the Greek word nikao which IS rendered as overcome simply means to subdue. We close today repeating our thoughts on this idea from a few posts back:

The personality IS a man’s outward expression and, as we have discussed, we should see this as that unique combination of the body with its endocrine connection to the mind and the emotions plus the sumtotal of one’s nurturing and indoctrination; these ARE of course ever influenced by one’s experience. It IS this that must be overcome or, better, subdued; it IS the personality that must be changed to express the True nature of the man which IS the Soul, the Christ and God Within. This nature of Love and Truth and the expression of this nature IS dependent upon the focus of one’s Life and this IS what the Master teaches us; and this IS what His apostles clarify and amplify for us.

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.

We change our Quote of the Day today to the words from Solomon on Wisdom along with our thoughts on them from the original postings of them in In the Words of Jesus parts 46 and 556.  These words ARE a testament to those things that we should be asking of the Lord and which are representative of the Holy Ghost. Wisdom, understanding and knowledge which will lead us  to understanding the fear (reverence and respect and awe) of the Lord and the knowledge of God so that in this world we can understand righteousness and judgement and equity and be preserved by discretion and understanding. Thus are we in a position to treat everyone as we would want to be treated ourselves.

Since we are centered on the ideas of Wisdom today we offer the following from Proverbs as our Quote of the Day. Solomon, who is KNOWN for his Wisdom, which we read in the story of his Life was His gift from God, a gift that he receives because he does not want for the things of the world. But Solomon gains as well the things of the world in plenty and as his Life story proceeds we can see clearly that it is his Life in the world that is to his detriment. The wisdom however produces for us the writings of the Book of Proverbs and it is this that he is remembered for. His Life is interesting reading and is well documented in the Books of Kings and Chronicles.

….incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding; Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God. For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly. He keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveth the way of his saints. Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path. When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul; Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee (Proverbs 2:2-11).

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts

• ⁴ Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition
• ⁹ Thayer’s Greek Lexicon on blueletterbible.org
• ^9a The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible on blueletterbible.org