Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
ON LOVE; PART LXXVIII
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•Α
“And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it. If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live , ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. 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. These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:13-26).
Another day in the NYC area without power for millions of people some of whom have lost much more than just electricity and the comforts of Life that it brings; many have lost their homes and many others the use of them for the foreseeable future. Others yet have lost loved ones and there are some that have lost all of these things. There are yet others who in losing but little feel as though they have lost much as they struggle to find an open store or a gas station without a blocks long line and who do not understand how fortunate they are to not be in the group of people who have Truly lost much. We are fortunate to be in the latter group of those who have lost little but convenience and we are reminded of a saying from long ago that goes something like this. “I cried because I had no shoes, then I met a man who had no feet”. In this saying and others like it is encapsulated the ideas of the Master and His apostles as they try to tell us of the unimportant nature of the things of the world which is the subject of much of the Master’s teachings to the people in general from the Sermon on the Mount and of special importance to those who would be disciples as He compounds this for us in saying “So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33). In this saying we must get the understanding that we should not want for the things of the world in the first place and that we accept that we do not have them, not only gracefully but with that attitude that the Master uses to teach us all in His saying that we should “take no thought“.
There is a reality in these words that is missed by the many and by much of the doctrines of the churches who believe that these words are restricted to worry about a thing instead of the reality of what the Master means which is simply “take no thought” from the perspective that these things are unimportant to the disciple and to the aspirant. Looking at His words we should be able to see that the Master begins with speaking about the things of the world and in telling us that the seek these things is tantamount to serving them; He then tells us that we cannot serve both and goes on to tell us how, saying to us “therefore….take no thought“. While this can be understood by the people who live Life in the world of things as worry or concern, this should mean what it says to those who would Truly draw closer the Master and to the Christ Within, this should mean what it says for the aspirant to that High Calling of discipleship. The Master tells us this in a profound simplicity that we as men have made complex and verbose; He says:
“Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness! No man canservetwo masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed ? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” (Matthew 6:19-34)
While there are some words and ideas that need interpretation or treatment of some sort, gentiles, evil and single which we have discussed before, the rest of this should be clear to ALL who Truly seek and who are not trying to protect their own worldly ways and gain. Vincent helps us here with the idea of “take no thought” as we highlight in In the Words of Jesus part 358. Although his ideas are overall doctrinal in regard to the Master’s words, Vincent does tell us that: take no thought (mh< merimna~te). The cognate noun is me>rimna, care, which was formerly derived from meri>v, a part; meri>xw, to divide; and was explained accordingly as a dividing care, distracting the heart from the true object of life. This has been abandoned, however, and the word is placed in a group which carries the common notion of earnest thoughtfulness. It may include the ideas of worry and anxiety, and may emphasize these, but not necessarily 4 . Vincent goes on to relegate the Master’s words to the realm of worry and anxiety while showing us were they are used differently and while his logic may be sound, it is in our view doctrinal as the ideas that are espoused here are interpretations that for us do not correlate with the general theme of the Master’s words to us as disciples and as aspirants. We can sum up the aversion to our perspective from Vincent’s words saying: The word has entirely lost this meaning. Bishop Lightfoot (“On a Fresh Revision of the New Testament”) says: “I have heard of a political economist alleging this passage as an objection to the moral teaching of the sermon on the mount, on the ground that it encouraged, nay, commanded, a reckless neglect of the future.” It is uneasiness and worry about the future which our Lord condemns here, and therefore Rev. rightly translates be not anxious 4 . When we can compare the Life of man with the Master’s examples of the fouls of the air and the lilies of the field we should see that not only do they not worry about tomorrow, they do not think about it either….they simply KNOW.
This is much like the “grain of mustard seed“; we have said that the seed KNOWS that it will become the tree and, once it is given the opportunity to germinate it does become the tree. The seed KNOWS this; it is inherent in its nature and the Master connects this with the Highest degree of man, that point where he can “say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove“. There is much similarity in these saying regarding the mustard seed, the fouls of the air and the lilies of the field; they all reflect upon the idea of KNOWING and for this sense in man there is NO substitute. For these others this KNOWING is their innate sense and it is likely the innate sense of man as well but this sense is swallowed up by the illusion and the glamour of the world of things and of self; the man thinks and reasons while these others do not and it is in this thinking and in this reasoning as they are afflicted by the illusion and the glamour, that the man loses sight of his innate sense of reality as it streams from the Soul. And this is the teaching of the Master, that we as men reflect on the reality of Life and not upon the things of the world, that we “take no thought” for in this accomplishment is the clarity of KNOWING free from the illusion and free from the thinking and the reasoning as a man in this world.
This is the Master’s message; that we be free from the chains that bind us to this world and that we come to that place where we KNOW the reality of our True Self as Souls expressing Life through form. It is here in this KNOWING that we can lose sight of the ties that bind us and it is here that we can “be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). So that we are clear on the reality of the Master’s words on this KNOWING we repeat again His words;
- “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).
The basis for our understanding the realities of Life and our basis for relating to the things of the world in the proper terms is ever found in Love as this is the ONLY Truth by which we can live. It is in living in Love that we find the strength to do ALL else and it is here that we can see and aid in our brother’s plight. To this end we move our comments that have been our Quote of the Day up into this main part of our essay; here we can see the importance of it ALL from the perspective of the Apostle Paul who here tells us that there is naught else of meaning save LOVE.
But earnestly desire the best gifts. And yet I show you a more excellent way. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging 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, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 12:31, 13:1-13,13 (New King James Version)Regardless of our daily theme, the underlying theme of our posts and of this entire blog is Love. In these words from Paul we should be able to see the overriding importance of Love in the Life of each of us. This is a common theme throughout the gospels and the other writings of the apostles and a theme that is not nearly understood. In our theme today regarding Paul’s writings to the Romans and in the previous discussions on them we seek to impart the better understanding of the reality of Life, the Life of the True man as the Christ Within, the Soul, as it is from this perspective that we can gain that revelation of Truth and, as Paul says above, be free from the condemnation and the vanity of Life in form, free from the illusion and the glamour. We repeat here what we said about these verses in a prior post:
These words from the Apostle Paul are his testimony to the power of Love. After speaking at length about the gifts of the Spirit that one should desire in order to be of service to the Lord, he says plainly that Love is a more excellent way. Love in the context of these verses is not the sentimental or affectionate kind that we ordinarily think of but rather 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. This defining of Love is covered in some depth in a previous post; In the Words of Jesus part 47.
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Potency |
Aspect of Man |
In relation to the Christ |
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GOD, The Father |
Will or Power |
Spirit or Life |
Life |
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Son, The Christ |
Love and Wisdom |
Soul or Christ Within |
Truth |
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Holy Spirit |
Light or Activity |
Life Within |
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.:
Today we post a World Prayer that is also included in the Prayers and Meditation section with some explanation of its source and its use. We are entering a time of the year which we can consider more sacred by way of the newness of Spring which should reflect in our newness of Life. This is the Festival of Easter and a time of rejoicing; not only for the Resurrection of the Lord from the Christian perspective but also for the teaching that is incorporated in the Master’s sacrifice 2000 years ago and in His continued sacrifice. We should remember His parting words: “I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Matthew 28:20)
From the point of Light within the Mind of God
Let light stream forth into the minds of men.
Let Light descend on Earth.
From the point of Love within the Heart of God
Let love stream forth into the hearts of men.
May Christ return to Earth.
From the centre where the Will of God is known
Let purpose guide the little wills of men–
The purpose which the Masters know and serve.
From the centre which we call the race of men
Let the Plan of Love and Light work out
And may it seal the door where evil dwells.
Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888.
