ON LOVE; PART MLVIII
ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•Α
GoodWill IS Love in Action
ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ•Α
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).
ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ
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
ΑΩ•ΑΩ•ΑΩ
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 Jesus’ words that ARE called the Parable of the Growing Seed. We did this after a lengthy discussion on the the deeper realities of His words saying “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), words that ARE used yet today to separate and divide men according to their religious beliefs. Despite the fundamental Truth that there IS but One God, One Creator of the Universe, Christians still DO NOT understand how that He can be called in different Names and how that other religion’s doctrines can divide the One God just as most Christians divide the One God into the Trinity. And while so much of Christianity holds to the ideas that they glean from His words “I am the way, the truth, and the life“, few understand the True purport of His saying and the context in which He offers us this Truth.
While these words ARE an essential Truth, they were NOT intended to portray the ‘person’ of Jesus but rather what Jesus represents….His words and His example of Life. It IS in the illusion and the glamour in which men live that this Truth IS obnubilated. And while we DID tie this idea of “the way, the truth, and the life” directly to our trifecta of Jesus’ words on the reality of the Way, in keeping His words, the Truth, as the reward, the grace, for so DOING and the resultant Life where one has the realization of his own divine nature, few in the doctrinal church would agree. It IS these things that come to a man in living according to the Way that the Master shows us and teaches us in words that ARE rather clearly presented. When we can see the reality that to KNOW the Truth IS the reward of the man who DOES keep His words and understand that it IS the realization of the Presence of God that IS the precursor of “the fruit of the Spirit“, we can then better understand the depth of the message that He gives us in the trifecta which we repeat here 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 one’s expression of “the fruit of the Spirit” that IS the outward sign of that Transformation that begins in Repentance and which leads men to “the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” as the Apostle Paul frames this. It IS in the adoption, in this idea of Redemption, that the fullness of one’s spiritual Life IS completed as a man in this world and it IS in this Union of the expression of the man in the world with Christ and God Within that IS the deepest reality of this Life. NOT the Life of the man in this world which IS “made subject to vanity“; NOT the Life of the man in this world that IS in “the bondage of corruption“; but the Life of the man in this world which IS freed, IS delivered “into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:23, 20, 21). This IS the great undertaking of the Souls of men; and this IS the objective of everyman: “ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free“.
Humanity has ever been left to live in this world, to live in the illusion and the glamour that IS the vanity of which Paul speaks, and to find his way out of the morass, the ever evolving morass of Life in form. It IS when we can see this vanity according to Vincent’s interpretation of the Greek word mataiotēs that we can Truly see the plight of ALL men and while some may think that they have overcome this affliction, they have NOT unless they ARE in accord with His words; with His Way, with His Truth and ARE expressing His Life. Vincent tells us that mataiotēs IS: reference is to a perishable and decaying condition, separate from God, and pursuing false ends 4. We should understand here that this word mataiotēs IS NOT in regard to the human attitude of vanity but IS as Vincent shows us and IS as the lexicon defines it saying that mataiotēs IS: what is devoid of truth and appropriateness 2.
This IS the Truth that comes in keeping His words as Jesus promises us in the first part of the trifecta and ALL who claim to have the Truth without keeping His words ARE deluded and ARE yet afflicted with that vanity, with that illusion and glamour that IS Life in this world. It IS the man who has overcome this vanity or some measure of it by striving to keep His words that can Truly understand Jesus’ saying to the religious Jews that “Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world” (John 8:23). And this IS the same message that the Master gives to us today, even to ALL religious men who have NOT seen the Truth that He presents in His words and His example.
The Jews DID NOT see the Truth that was in person before them and they DID NOT accept His words which were contrary to their doctrines. Since His departure from the Earth we have the written testimony and the clear picture of the Truth of His words but neither ARE these accepted as they ARE contrary to the doctrines invented by men. So long as men cling to their own carnal existence in ALL of its forms, so long as they cling to their several doctrinal approaches to the Lord, they will continue to be afflicted by “the bondage of corruption” which IS the illusions and the glamours in which they live….they will continue to be “of this world“. It IS against this most human tendency that Paul writes the words of our selection from his Epistle to the Galatians; in these words there IS the reality of spiritual Life which IS lost in the doctrinal ideas that DO NOT see what it Truly means to “Walk in the Spirit“….what it Truly means to “be led of the Spirit“.
Both of these ideas have the reality of the Presence of God as their Truth; both of these ideas show the way of the man of whom Jesus says “we will come unto him, and make our abode with him“. This IS the man who “hath my commandments, and keepeth them“. This IS the man who will see through the doctrinal views of Paul’s list of the “the works of the flesh” and understand that these ideas ARE NOT those base human offenses but ARE rather a list of those thoughts, attitudes and actions that ARE contrary to the Truth of the Great Commandments. This IS the man that will see and understand how that his expression of “the fruit of the Spirit” IS NOT ONLY these ideas in human terms but ARE, in spiritual terms, living according to the words and the example of the Master. Repeating the apostle’s words we read:
“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).
It IS by measure that men achieve this goal of having the reality of the Presence of God, the Truth that “shall make you free” and the realization of His Kingdom; and it IS by striving toward this goal that men achieve ever greater measure. It IS this idea of measure that should be taken from the Master’s Parable of the Sower and we should understand here that in the three different presentations of this parable we have the Truth that it IS measure for measure that IS hidden in these presentations. We have discussed these ideas in past essays and here we should try to see how that Matthew’s understanding, Mark’s receiving and Luke’s keeping the word play out in the measure of the rewards of the trifecta.
In the idea of understanding we should see the related idea of perception and in this we should try to see some aspect of KNOWING. Vincent tells us that this idea of suniemi means: to bring together. Hence that quality of mind which combines: understanding not only of facts, but of facts in their mutual relations 4. Vincent also tells us of the noun version of this Greek word; he writes that sunesis IS: a union or bringing together of the mind with an object, and so used to denote the faculty of quick comprehension, intelligence, sagacity 4. Through these ideas we should be able to understand how that the Apostle Matthew’s reference IS that one hears the word and has some realization of its import and its meaning on one’s Life and with this measure of realization there IS a corresponding measure of one’s expression of fruit….”some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty” (Matthew 13:23). We should see as well how that to have an “an hundredfold” IS to have the fullness of sunesis.
The Apostle Mark uses the Greek words paradechomai which IS rendered as receive. This Greek word IS a more complex idea than merely to receive a thing which IS generally expressed as dechomai; this compound word IS defined by the lexicon as: to receive, take up, take upon one’s self; to admit i.e. not to reject, to accept, receive 2 and we should try to see this in terms of accepting rather than receiving as this IS the context of its five New Testament uses. Vincent also tells us this on the use of this word paradechomai in the Book of Hebrews: Admits to filial privileges: acknowledges as his own. Of receiving the word of God, Mark 4:20; of receiving delegates from a body, Acts 15:4; of adopting or approving customs, Acts 16:21 4.
Taking these ideas we have a clearer picture of what Mark IS telling us of Jesus’ words; we have the idea here of accepting and of acknowledging as one’s own and we should try to see that it IS by the measure of this acceptance and acknowledgement of His words that one will express fruit….some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some an hundred (Mark 4:20). We should see that the fullness of paradechomai would be found in the man whose measure of acknowledging the word IS “an hundredfold“. We should see as well the force of the English word acknowledge and see its meaning as: to admit to be real or true; recognize the existence; to recognize the authority, validity, or claims of and to confirm as binding or of legal force, rather than the the less forceful ideas of: to indicate or make known the receipt of or to take notice of or reply to 7.
The Apostle Luke gives us the same Truth as Matthew and Mark but without the idea of measure. In Luke’s version there IS ONLY the idea of keeping His words which should be seen in the fullness that these words project. This IS the same fullness that we find in the trifecta where the rewards of His Presence, the Truth that frees and one’s realization of the Kingdom ARE fully expressed by the man who will keep His words. Our point here IS found in the idea of striving which IS NOT an idea that IS often used in the gospels nor in the epistles but one which IS of paramount importance to everyman who Truly seeks God. The Greek word agonizomai IS used only twice in the gospels; by Luke who tells us Jesus’ words as “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) which IS the idea upon which we base our message; and by the Apostle John where the idea IS rendered as fight in His words saying “then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews” (John 18:36).
In both uses the idea IS of a struggle and here we can use the modern dictionary’s definition of: to exert oneself vigorously; try hard 7 to gain a clear picture of the intent. Whether we see “the strait gate” as the Way to the Kingdom of God or see it in this in the causative role of keeping His words, the message IS in regard to the difficulty and it IS with this idea of difficulty that the very idea of striving IS important. In Matthew’s version of Jesus’ words we read this as “Enter ye in at the strait gate” and here we should try to see that the idea of striving IS assumed by the difficulty which IS explained in His words saying that “few there be that find it” (Matthew 7:13, 14).
It IS in the ideas of striving and of measure that we find our own spiritual reality. We DO understand that to go from a focus upon the things of the self to a focus upon the things of God as the Master teaches us IS NOT an automatic event. There IS NO confession and affirmation that can possibly DO this for a man; there IS ONLY the steady progress, the ever increasing measure, that IS achieved by the man who Truly strives. It IS this message that we should take from the Parable of the Growing Seed which we have been repeating. If we can understand that this IS a parable about the very nature of the Kingdom of God and understand as well that “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21), we can then see the Master’s intent. Can we try to see the Kingdom Within as the Soul, as the Christ and the God Within, and understand that the idea of sleep IS in regard to the focus of the man upon the self. In this focus there IS NO True spiritual activity in the Life of the man but, as we have always said, there IS the constant prompting by the Soul to the consciousness. It IS in this prompting that the Kingdom can awaken the spiritual Life of the man….it IS this that will “spring and grow up“. We close today repeating the parable which itself tells the rest of the story.
“So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come” (Mark 4:26-29).
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
- 2 New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
- 7 Dictionary.com Unabridged based on Random House Dictionary – 2011
