ON LOVE; PART MCXCII
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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 the idea of Unity in Diversity and we should try to see here how that such Unity IS to be the great accomplishment of ALL mankind as it IS the final reflection of Love in this world. The Apostle John tells us that “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16) and while much of Christianity uses this phrase to describe the Godhead, there ARE few who Truly understand what this defining idea Truly means. Through the reality that “God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34) we should be able to see that ALL parts of that diversity ARE in the same relationship to God and while each religion may see itself in a special place in this relationship, they ARE ALL wrong.
The forms that men use to populate this world ARE Truly diverse and, as science tells us, NONE ARE the same in every way; there may be some who look alike but since the forms that men use include the personality, the mind and the emotional response to the world, there ARE likely NONE that both look alike and act alike. Even going back in time we would be hard pressed to identify another who IS Truly identical in every way. Diversity then IS the way of Life in this world and if we can see that this diversity reaches across ALL aspects of Life in form we can perhaps begin to understand the purpose of this diversity. Differences in physical appearance and physical ability ARE most easily seen but we should remember here that there IS NO end to the real differences that make up this humanity.
Racial differences ARE however the first dividing line and while the current level of homogeneity may have been difficult to foresee in the past, it has come upon us. There ARE many however who have NOT yet overcome their views of superiority or inferiority nor the need to compare. This dividing line reaches back to biblical times and if we can look at this apart from our doctrinal viewpoint, we can likely see that as a spiritual idea this ended with the teachings of the Master and the clarifying and amplifying teachings of His apostles. Why the Old Testament ways of separation were intended to keep races and cultures from intermixing IS unclear except for the philosophical idea that such mixing would dilute and change the most strict ways of the Jews as taught by Moses.
While this sense of separation IS a part of the Jewish religious culture, we should try to see how that this was but another aspect of the barbarism and superstitions of the day. We should try to see how that the problem was NOT necessarily the people with whom the Jews may have mixed but rather the effect of this mixture upon the intended religious purity of the Jewish nation. Clearly this separation DID NOT work as the Jews were taken into captivity by the Assyrians and the Babylonians and then made subject to the rule of Rome and others as most ALL were dispersed throughout Eurasia and Egypt.
Jesus more progressive teaching seeks to change the world view of race and the effect on the Jews changes the dynamic of a people with a religion into one of religion alone as many Jews leave off of their religious culture and become Christians. Here, a Jew by birth can NO longer be Truly seen as a Jew but rather as a Christian of Jewish descent. The point here IS that the Master changes the world view as He speaks of neighbors and enemies without a view toward race or culture or any other dynamic that serves to separate men. Jesus invites ALL men to the table of Truth and this IS more according to the Plan than it IS because the Jews rejected Him.
That He came among the Jews to further their Way IS True as IS the fact that they DID reject Him; this IS the way that the story plays out but we should try to see that even if the Jews had accepted Jesus as Lord, His invitation would still be to ALL men. This we can see in the Gospel stories where we read that “he healed them all” without regard to ethnicity. And perhaps if we can see that some of the gospel narrative regarding the Jews as Jesus sole objective ARE intended to show the Jews the continuity of the teaching of Moses and the prophets in a New Dispensation, we can better understand His approach.
Much IS made of His words to the woman of Canaan saying that “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel“, but we should remember that He DOES as the woman asks….”her daughter was made whole from that very hour” (Matthew 15:24, 28). In the reality of the idea that “there is no respect of persons with God” (Romans 2:11) and the Great Truth that “God is love” we should be able to see that the very idea that the Master had come ONLY to the Jews must fail and be subordinated to the greater purpose which He also announces saying “I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32). That He comes to the Jews according to prophecy IS a biblical fact which also predicts that the Jews will reject His message.
The point here IS that although His first thoughts ARE to the Jews, He never leaves any seeker out of His offering of salvation if we can use that idea here. Jesus came among us with the Plan to deal with the Jews according to their law and their failure to see the heart of the law over their own doctrinal ideas. In this dynamic we should try to see the conversion of the whole of the teachings from Moses, a conversion from addressing the nation of the Jews and its failure, to addressing the acceptance of Jesus’ Truths individually. So ends ALSO all idea of race and ethnicity and so begins the Universal showing of Truth; the Apostle Paul shows us this saying “glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile” (Romans 2:10).
We should understand the idea of first here as first in time and NOT first in preference or in rank; while the Greek word proton can be rendered as both, ONLY the idea of time lends itself to the reality that “God is no respecter of persons“. It IS this reality that should help us interpret much of what IS written in both the Old Testament and the New and in this we should understand that the barbaric things that ARE attributed to God throughout the Old and into the New ARE DONE by men and NOT by the hand of God whose singular role IS ever limited to the spiritual progression of His people.
It IS men who, according to the times and the cultures, change and who bring their interpretations of Truth to bear on this Earth; there ARE Moses and prophets and kings whose focus IS surely upon the Godhead directing whatsoever happens in this Earth by means of the Power provided by that focus. It IS men who wield the awesome Power of God in the Old Testament and in the New and while the emphasis of both IS Love, that message remained largely unseen and misunderstood by the patriarchs, Moses, the prophets and the kings whose actions and reactions were solidly based in the barbarism and the superstitions of the times. And while Jesus changes the dynamic of how the Power of such focus IS wielded by men in this world, this has NOT caused the barbarism and the brutality to cease which IS evidenced in the history of the world over the last 2000 years.
Jesus tells us rather clearly of the Power that men can wield in this world and it IS this same Power that IS wielded by Moses and by Joshua during the period of the Exodus and by the prophets and the kings afterward. The Master tells us that “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) and in this light we should be able to glimpse the Power wielded by Moses as he parted the Red Sea to allow for the Jew’s escape. And while today’s culture would NOT allow a man of God to DO such things with any intention of harm to others, this was NOT the case in those days.
Our point here IS, again, that it IS men who ARE the voice of God and it IS men who wield the Awesome Power of the Godhead. In the idea that God secured victory for the Jews against its enemies and virtually annihilated them according to Old Testament narrative, we should see that it IS that Awesome Power that Truly IS the conqueror. And Jesus tells us the source of this Awesome Power, the Power to “say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done“….it IS ever in the Truth that these things ARE possible “If ye have faith, and doubt not“. This IS NOT that nebulous idea of faith and believing that sustain the doctrines of men, this IS the reality of KNOWING which comes to the man as the Master tells us in 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).
Jesus tells us that this degree of KNOWING comes to the man who will “continue in my word“; and so will the reality of the Kingdom of God in which one can wield such power as to “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). And, perhaps most importantly, IS the reality that the Presence of God in one’s Life IS that Awesome Power that comes to “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them“. This IS also the same Power that Jesus tells us will come to the man who KNOWS 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).
The reality that such KNOWING ONLY comes to the man who will keep His words IS missed by the doctrinal church which DOES NOT see that these ideas ARE True; they DO NOT see how that one can move the sycamine tree or the mountain and they DO NOT see how that one can DO yet “greater works” than the Master. Doctrinal thinkers DO NOT see that it IS the ideas of the trifecta and the resultant Power that should be taken literally rather than those fantastical ideas of eschatology and the created doctrines of atonement. It IS ONLY when we can see that the idea of “faith as a grain of mustard seed” (Luke 17:6, Matthew 17:20) IS that ultimate degree of KNOWING and that such KNOWING comes according to His words, to keeping His words, that one can begin to Truly understand the Awesome Power that IS God.
In this IS the Power to heal and the Power to see things as they ARE spiritually rather than only seeing the carnal implications of the ways of men in this world; and in this KNOWING IS the True understanding that brings forth the ultimate expression of Love in this world….a Love based in a True understanding of the reality that “there is no respect of persons with God” nor can there be any in the Life of the man who Truly Loves. It IS this KNOWING that IS the reality that must be seen in the Apostle Mark’s presentation of Jesus’ words saying “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).
It IS this degree of KNOWING, this measure of Truth, that gives Moses the Power to part the sea which we read as “And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided” (Exodus 14:21). This IS truly the power of the Lord working through the man Moses….NOT as God Transcendent which IS the belief of the Day and the belief of doctrines, but as God Immanent, the God Within who IS ever One with the “fulness of the Godhead“. In Moses Life some great measure of this fullness IS become his expression and this same IS True, perhaps to a lesser degree, in the lives of Joshua, the prophets and some of the Kings; and here we should remember that the Master was among us with “all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9).
Jesus brings the world a new dynamic and a new emphasis upon the foundation built in the Old Testament and the old covenant; he brings us the great reality of Love, of agape, as the expression of a man and the reality of that meekness that prevents men of Power from exercising that Power. We should also try to see here how that such Power that comes in the Truth that IS God IS NOT used as the means of self-preservation by the Master nor by His apostles as they willingly accept their fate despite the ability to change it. And we should try to see here as well that such men DO not use such Power to intervene in the carnal normality of the times throughout the history of the New Dispensation that the Christ brings.
In this New Dispensation the use of the Power that comes by measure to men who DO keep His words IS ONLY used for good and NEVER against others and this IS the ultimate Truth which the Master teaches us saying that “ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5:39). While this IS yet another of the Master’s sayings that should be seen and understood as it IS written, it IS NOT; in its rather diluted doctrinal sense this IS but a platitude and a chiche.
Perhaps the strongest idea of the expression of Love and meekness, aside from the Master Himself, can be seen in the Life of the Apostle Stephen of whom we read that he IS “a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost” and that he IS “full of faith and power” and he “did great wonders and miracles among the people” (Acts 6:5, 8). We then read that “Then there arose certain of the synagogue….disputing with Stephen. And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake. Then they suborned men, which said, We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses, and against God” (Acts 6:9-11). These Jews have come against Stephen who IS also a Jew and this event should be seen as “whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek“.
We read further that “they stirred up the people, and the elders, and the scribes, and came upon him, and caught him, and brought him to the council, And set up false witnesses, which said, This man ceaseth not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place, and the law: For we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us” (Acts 6:12-14). In this we should see the power of doctrines to move people away from the Truth based in their own selfish ideas and their customs. Here we should remember that Stephen IS “full of faith and power” and that under the Truth of that Power could have resisted and overcome.
And this IS the role of meekness….the role of agape as the Master teaches us saying that men should “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). Can we see this ALL at play in the story of the Apostle Stephen, how that these ARE become his enemies, that they curse him, that they seemingly hate him and “despitefully use” and persecute him? The Greek words that ARE rendered here as despitefully use“, while NOT included in some texts and translations, ARE better understood as rendered by Young’s Literal Translation….as “those accusing you falsely“.
These ideas represent the nature of those who come against Stephen and with the idea in mind that the apostle IS “full of faith and power” we should be able to see the depth of Love and its expression as meekness as in the end his ONLY response was to cite the Truth and then, as he IS being stoned, to say “Lord, lay not this sin to their charge” (Acts 7:60). This IS Love as agape, this IS meekness and this IS keeping the words of the Master and ALL of this IS based in that KNOWING and understanding that comes to the man whose focus IS upon the things of God….the man who strives to keep His words.
And this IS the New Dispensation that IS brought to us by the Christ and which IS the influence on the very progression of time; NO longer DO barbarism and superstition rule the day but some greater measure of Love and understanding which over 2000 years has NOT yet seen itd potential, and this largely because the doctrines of men have failed to teach the Truth. And so we return again to Paul’s words that show us the reality of Love as the ONLY Way and which should show us that whatsoever Power Stephen may have had in his expression of Truth, that ALL would be for naught without that Love that he DOES express in meekness and in forgiveness. Paul tells us:
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).
“Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).
Without Love Stephen would NOT have been heard; with Love “they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake“; and while this IS the cause for their further persecution of him, it also shows us that his words ARE NOT “as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal“. Stephen has Love and expresses Love which IS the very reason that he IS “full of faith and power” and his story should be heralded as an important biblical example of the Power of Truth, of Love and of the functioning of these in meekness. And it IS this meekness that we should see in Paul’s defining ideas on Love which IS the second part of our selection. We should see that it IS meekness, and understanding, as well as the required degree of selflessness from a carnal perspective, that can overwhelm any ideas of the greater importance of prophecies, of tongues and any sense of one’s knowledge except that which IS the product of that KNOWING which comes in keeping His words.
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.
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
Those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.
Voltaire,
Writer and Philosopher
