IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 643

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON LOVE; PART CCXXXII

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things”  (Romans 1:18-23).

It is sometimes emotionally and mentally difficult to be at odds with so many millions of people as we progress through our understanding of the meaning and the intent of the Master’s words and those of His apostles and this difficulty is based, for the most part, in the illusion and the glamour in which we live. While we take no authority in the veracity of the words that we speak, we do at the same time speak those things which we believe that we KNOW and we try ever so hard to be sure that what we say has its basis in the Wisdom from above and is given in accordance with the fruit of the Spirit. Of course this may not always be True, there may be times when our personalities in the world get in the way of the Wisdom from above and, in saying this, we understand that in these times we are not aware of this influence and, when we become aware we do try to work in a correction to what we have said. Now we should understand here that there are many times where we expand on a theme and in this expansion we may turn out some apparent differences with what we previously said but this is not always as it appears and ofttimes these expansions are based upon what we see as additional revelation and we do generally call this out. There are surely other times that we may post apparently different ideas on a subject and some of this will fall under the scope of what we just said while other parts we have not not realized as such or we may be viewing a saying or a subject from a different perspective. It is ever our caution to be sure that we do not express the thoughts of the personality above the thoughts that we believe is that Wisdom from above and this is the purpose in saying these things today as we continue with our trend of expressing our disagreement with the way that much is presented by the doctrines of the churches or our perception of their doctrines. In our disagreement we continually try to make certain that our motivation is apparent, that we state that we are not speaking in a disparaging way but rather in a way that will explain our perception of the differences and if any should be hurt by what we do say we ask only that our words that lead to such hurt be subjected to our understanding of spiritual Truth which IS the Wisdom from above and the fruit of the Spirit as so eloquently put forth by the Apostles James and Paul which we repeat here before we continue with these words from Paul to the Romans for which we will assign a much different understanding than is found in doctrine which dynamic starts in the last essay based solely on the one word treated: wrath.

• “Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace” (James 3:13-18). We must note here some language issues, which we cover in detail and most recently in In the Words of Jesus part 634 where, among other things, we clarify the reality of “bitter envying and strife” as the inclusion of the self and the interests of the self in the Wisdom; that is that the purpose of the supposed Wisdom is for the self and this can be either individually or corporately. For us the gist of James’ argument is clearly that any supposed Wisdom from above or presumed word from God that a man will receive is not from that source if it has in its objective anything for or of the self in the world and this likely extends to any self interest at all. The apostle tells us that these ideas and thoughts that we may appoint to God are “confusion and every evil work” and we should read here in the idea of evil the reality of worldly and carnal. There IS NO self in any of the James’ words that are to be seen as Wisdom from above; there is no self in pure, peaceable, gentle and thoughts that are “easy to be intreated” (which for us means reasonable and easy to obey and understand, the converse of confusion), merciful, and expressive of good fruits. To these positive qualities of the Wisdom from above the apostle adds some negatives that this Wisdom is not and he does so here likely because some of these positive attributes can be made into selfish aims; he tells us that this Wisdom is “without partiality” and here we should understand that his is without favor to any, Vincent tells us this is without variance or doubting ⁴, while the lexicon tells us that without dubiousness, ambiguity or uncertainty ² should be inferred. Strong’s gives us a plainer vision telling us that this Greek word means impartial; free from prejudice ³ and here we can see our understanding of without favor or, as the apostle tells us earlier in his epistle, “My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons” (James 2:1); we should see in this that quality that the Apostles Peter and Paul ascribe to God with Peter telling us “God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34) and Paul saying “there is no respect of persons with God” (Romans 2:11). Finally, the Wisdom from above is “without hypocrisy” and this is a readily understandable term to which we should give more meaning; Strong’s tells us that this Greek word, anupokritos, means: sincere, genuine, without hypocrisy; of good character, lacking pretense and prideful show and that it is variously translated as unfeigned 4, without dissimulation 1, without hypocrisy 1 ³. Again here we would take Strong’s ideas as we are speaking about the Wisdom itself and not what one would do with it so that our understanding would be that this Wisdom IS lacking pretense and prideful show which ideas have within them the totality of the other ideas expressed. This IS the Wisdom from above and each and every thought that comes to our minds that is not in compliance with ALL of this is likely NOT from above but from the personality of the man in the world which is focused upon the self and the things of the self in the world.
• “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” (Galatians 5:19-23). Today we list here the negative and the positive from the apostle, what is and what is not to be seen as fruit of the spirit and we should try to view Paul’s ideas here in the same way as we view James’ Wisdom from above, that these are things that come into our consciousness in the world and which can come from either the world and the personality or from the Soul and the Kingdom of God. While it may appear that some of these negatives are pretty much self explanatory, there are still men in this world who can and do sincerely ascribe some of these to God and their impression of the mission they are called to do and this can be seen as well in the Master’s caution to His apostles and disciples saying that “the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service” (John 16:2). We should note here as well that the gross sins, murders, adultery, and hatred are interspersed with the more everyday sins of fornication, revellings and variance and this in some ways affirms our understanding of sin, that it is focus upon the self and the self in the world and while it includes those gross sins of men in the world, it is not limited to them. We should note as well that in this list is emulations which we see above in James words as “bitter envying and strife in your hearts” and variance which James gives us as “without partiality” and while these terms may not have exact similarity in meaning, the intent is the same which is to show us that these things of the self in the world cannot be construed as that fruit from above. Here we find that other Greek word, thumos, that is translated as wrath and that likely has a True implication of anger, an anger that we diligently tried to remove from the other Greek word, orge, which is spoken in relation to God who, in our understanding, IS LOVE. In our words yesterday we agreed with Augustine and the philosophers in that day that this word orge is more aligned with displeasure than wrath as it is commonly understood and we will expand upon this further on. Here wrath can be wrath as it pertains to men and the thoughts of men and in the apostle’s words these things CAN NOT be seen as fruit of the Spirit, none of them and in no circumstances, and for us this would include as well man’s Christian acts of war through the ages and yet to today as while we may say as men that it is better to kill than to be killed, the Master tells us simply “That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5:39) and this is meant to be True both individually and corporately. This does not mean however that one should surrender but rather that one should not have been in this position of wrath in the first place as the many decisions that lead to war are based in pride, selfishness and a false sense of honor. These ideas are hard to accept even as we write them but there is a Truth here that should be recognized and this is that IF the world followed in the reality of the religious teachings that every culture has received there would be no room for aggression and no need for retaliation. We should understand here as well that in considering the illusion and the glamour of Life in form, that it is likely understood by God, by the Christ, and by those who have achieved the Kingdom and stay with us as our ready help, that in the ways of men whose focus IS upon the carnal, that these wars and conflicts have been inevitable. We should also try to see that with the dawning of this New Age of Love, harmony and brotherhood that there should be a fast waning of these attitudes by most of the world’s countries and an isolation intended toward correction for those countries and cultures who have not yet seen the Light of Truth and Love. We have gone a bit long here in this discussion of Paul’s words but these are important things to consider; at the same time, we should have a good understanding of what IS the fruit of the Spirit and while these words are rather clear, they are made still clearer by the apostle’s telling us in another place that “For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth” (Ephesians 5:9) and there should be no question as to the force of these words as regards what we may believe IS from above.

So then it IS in the measuring every thought, every attitude and every action that we have or do that we can ascertain that they are “in all goodness and righteousness and truth” and this measuring should consider the more carnal words that the apostles use above as our ready guide to what IS and what IS NOT to be counted as goodness and as righteousness and as Truth. Here we are reminded of what is today’s Verse of the Day from biblegateway.com; “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). We should try to see here that ALL of these negative ideas, the gross and the everyday, are included in the idea of sin as the apostle presents it here and this saying is clear, that when we can, both individually and corporately, express the Wisdom from above and the fruit of the Spirit, we will find that “glory of God” of which Paul speaks. And we should remember and understand the infinite range of degree involved in this as we strive toward that strait gate and we should ever keep in mind that we are no better than any other…..we are just more focused today. And this IS our objective, to strive toward that strait gate and to help and assist any who desire to follow in our understanding of Life and of God and to repeat the idea from which we began this, we will fight through the difficulty that we face in publishing our words, a difficulty that comes from the personality in the world and we will continue to point out what we see in our Light as Wisdom from above and the fruit of the Spirit even when we are at odds with the doctrines and the many millions who subscribe to them. What we say and what we imply here in our posts is done in Love and in understanding that ALL men will eventually come to the reality of the Good, the Beautiful and the True as these flow into the world on the wings of His Words.

Returning to our sayings at the top of our essay, we come back to that word wrath that came up again in our discussion above. We ended in the last post with our agreement with some of the ideas put forth by Saint Augustine and by the philosophers cited by his contemporary Lactantius, and we note that these ideas are contrary to the common understanding of what exactly the Wrath of God would be. This understanding IS germane to our proper understanding of the entirety of Paul’s words. We ended yesterday saying that: We must see this wrath as an internal conflict and not one of anger but of displeasure as Augustine tells us. From our perspective there is no punishment save that which we inflict upon ourselves in the mysteries of the psyche of man who IS the Soul living through form and affecting that Life in many ways dependent upon the focus of the man. But this does not help us to understand Paul’s words which we will find have a very different meaning than that which is assigned by Saint Chrysostom; this we will proceed with in the next post having dealt with one of the more difficult ideas, the Wrath of God, which we can see in this combination of the thoughts of the philosophers and Saint Augustine. Here we can clarify this a bit insofar as the idea of displeasure which can be understood best in those things that the man in the world will think and do as well as his very thoughts, attitudes and actions in his interactions through his own Life and toward others; thoughts, attitudes and actions which ARE NOT pleasing to God and here we must recognize that we are speaking as well as our own God Within as the Soul, the True man. Now this word please is a rather complex one and to understand it we take this from Webster’s as our intent here: To be the will or pleasure of; to seem good to ¹, and we should see displeasure in the same light, that those thoughts, attitudes and actions of the man ARE NOT according to the will of the Soul…..that they do not seem good to the Soul. It IS this displeasure that will be “revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness” and we should remember here that the “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21) and hence heaven and the Soul are within as well.

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 are again at a time of year that includes the three Spiritual Festivals which are yet largely unrecognized by the Christian churches except for the one that recently past called Easter. We know about these festivals through the teaching and the efforts of the Master’s of the Wisdom who we should see as advanced disciples of the Christ, a group which may yet include those Souls that appeared with the Master as His Apostles, disciples and others who aided and assisted in His Great Mission such as the Baptist and His natural mother Mary. Each of these festivals is celebrated at a Full Moon and the cycle begins with Easter which is celebrated on the Sunday following the first Full Moon of Spring. At the Full Moon of May, which occurs on the 5th day of the month, is the Wesak Festival which is the Festival of the Buddha and at the Full Moon of June, which will occur on the 4th of June, is the Christ Festival also known today as World Invocation Day. As we progress toward the Wesak Festival we will post Quote’s of the Day that are, in our view, conducive to the view of the Buddha and the Christ as regards the spreading of Love and GoodWill throughout the world; we begin with the Affirmation of the Disciple.

I am a point of light within a greater Light. 
I am a strand of loving energy within the stream of Love divine.
I am a point of sacrificial Fire, focused within the fiery Will of God.

And thus I stand

I am a way by which men may achieve. 
I am a source of strength, enabling them to stand. 
I am a beam of light, shining upon their way.

And thus I stand.

And standing thus, revolve 
And tread this way the ways of men, 
And know the ways of God.

And thus I stand.

We repeat again what we had previously said of this Mantram:

Today’s Quote of the Day is called the Affirmation of the Disciple and is spoken from the perspective of the Soul and not from that of the man in form. It is the Soul that we are in this life on Earth, housed in this ‘temple’ of flesh and it is the Light of the Soul that must flow through this ‘temple’ in order that we may say with the Christ “I have overcome the world“ (John 16:33) which is our goal and our destiny. Speaking then as the Soul we affirm our reality and true existence in God and in His Three Aspects of Light and Love and His Will. As this Light and Love and Will flow through our conscious personalities and forms we, as disciples, take on the nature of the second stanza being able to offer to the world a better way through our service and our Love for all, encouragement to righteousness through our strength of purpose, and the Light which shines in accordance with the Master’s instructions to “Let your light so shine before men” (Matthew 5:16) and illuminates the Path. Finally we realize that we are standing in this world and walking as men but, as conscious Souls in form, we know the way and the ways of God and are able to say with the Christ that “I am not of this world” (John 8:23).

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!

• ¹ Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1828 and 1913

• ² New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com

• ³ Strongest Strongs Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible – 2001
• ⁴ Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888