ON LOVE; PART MCCLI
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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).
That we call most ALL men trapped yet in the vanity of Life in this world, trapped in the illusion and the glamour of Life which IS everyman’s “bondage of corruption” (Romans 8:20) likely DOES NOT sit well with many who believe that they ARE saved through their own doctrinal efforts and through their measure of faith and believing. There IS a reality here however which IS clearly visible when one Truly can look away from his doctrines and into what the Apostle James call for us “the perfect law of liberty” (James 1:25). The Christian world has for 2000 years sought ways to deflect their need to DO such looking based upon their myopic view of the Master’s death and resurrection and the atoning quality which they have assigned to it.
The Christian world has also built for themselves a most nebulous idea of heaven, one that IS NOT founded in scripture save for a few obscure passages that they interpret into their several doctrinal beliefs. It IS toward this idea of heaven, this promise of Life Eternal, that doctrines have plotted a way of ‘salvation‘ that satisfies the basic fear of death that IS ever so much a part of Life….some even appear to welcome death based in the Apostle Paul’s misunderstood words saying “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” (1 Corinthians 5:8). If we were to look at these words and the the context in which they ARE presented by the apostle, perhaps we can see that he IS NOT speaking of death but rather of Life; that he IS speaking of looking past this Earthly existence with a full focus upon the Lord and the things of God.
It IS perhaps this doctrinal promise of heaven that keeps men attached to their doctrines and this along with a fear in some of that eternal damnation which IS also ill defined in scripture and greatly embellished by the doctrines of men. These doctrinal ideas ARE based in the nurturing and the indoctrination that everyman must endure; these must be overcome by the seeker of Truth who finally comes to realize that the Truth, the One Truth, IS NOT found in the doctrines of his particular denomination or sect but rather IS found in one’s seeking after it….seeking after that Wisdom which James shows us saying: “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 3:17-18).
Again we must try to see that this Wisdom IS that same reality of KNOWING the Truth that the Master promises to those who will “continue in my word” and this IS of course the KEY….that one keep His words. The objective here should NOT be attaining the Kingdom of God as portrayed in the annals of doctrinal history, a Kingdom that has lately been the subject of books and movies based on the dream experience of some individual which, while important to that person, IS NOT anything but a dream. Jesus tells us rather clearly that “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21) and while this IS downplayed by the doctrines of men and turned into words that DO NOT show the deeper reality of just what that Kingdom IS, this saying should be understood as a matter of fact. Vincent, in his own doctrinal sense, tells us that this Greek word entos should be understood as: Better, in the midst of. Meyer acutely remarks that “you refers to the Pharisees, in whose hearts nothing certainly found a place less than did the ethical kingdom of God.” Moreover, Jesus is not speaking of the inwardness of the kingdom, but of its presence. “The whole language of the kingdom of heaven being within men, rather than men being within the kingdom, is modern” (Trench, after Meyer) 4.
Meyers’ ideas here ARE based in tenets that ARE purely doctrinal and which ARE the product of the vanity which IS reflected in the illusion and the glamour of the Christian world that believes that ONLY the Christian can have any part in the Godhead; and this by his affirmations and confessions or his acceptance of the sacraments depending upon what ‘branch’ of religion he has been nurtured and indoctrinated into. If we can understand that the Kingdom of God IS that ‘place’ where God IS as God Immanent, we can then begin to understand the universality of God as the individual spiritual force that motivates the Life of everyman….that IS the Life of everyman. In the last essay we briefly discussed the idea of the human animal and the Genesis account that tell us that “the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7) and if we can see this beyond the doctrinal position of glamour that believes that ONLY the Christian has this “breath of life“, we can then better understand a small but essential part of the Truth.
This Truth tells us that ALL men ARE the same; that ALL men ARE equally Souls on the very same journey with the same endpoint that the Master shows us saying “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). We should see this idea reflected in the Peter’s words saying that “God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34) as well as Paul’s words that tell us the same; words that he repeats for us three times saying: “there is no respect of persons with God” (Romans 2:11); “your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him” (Ephesians 6:9); and, in regard to God’s view of the Life of a man that: “there is no respect of persons” (Colossians 3:25). ALL of these ARE a reflection on the words of the Master who tells us about this most basic ‘attitude’ of the Godhead saying such things as that He: “he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45).
While the Christian world may have a doctrinal answer to these things, these ARE NOT based in the words of the Master nor in the idea that men should emulate God as James shows us saying “if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin” (James 2:9). Their answer IS found ONLY in their doctrinal approach and in those select sayings that for them point to this idea that it IS ONLY the Christian that can Truly “enter into the kingdom” rather than what the Master says as He tells us that it IS ONLY “he that doeth the will of my Father” (Matthew 7:21) that can enter. We should try to see here that there IS a Truth to this ‘entering’ into His Kingdom for the Christian but this IS NOT the doctrinal Christian; it IS rather everyman who will keep His words and, by measure, everyman who will Truly strive toward this endpoint of the journey.
While doctrines have hijacked this idea of ‘entering’ into the Kingdom, they DO so only in words and NO matter how hard they work to tell the world that this IS True, this IS ONLY the product of their nebulous idea of faith channeled into thoughts of the self. And for those who come to believe and even be converted from one religion, or NO religion, to the Christian doctrinal promise, or from one denomination to another with a better promise, it IS mostly the seemingly magic wand that draws them to a magical experience which requires little change….little of what the Master Jesus preaches saying “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). Think about ‘what IS the draw of the modern prosperity gospel teachings’? IS it NOT the promise, the doctrinal promise, of prosperity that draws away Baptists and Catholics, Methodists and Lutherans….ALL manner of denominations and sects to a carnal doctrinal promise based in cleverly selected scriptrue?
While the Master’s words ARE specifically against riches, these new prosperity preachers have found scriptures to augment their teaching as well as interpretations of scripture that show that the Master and His apostles were in some way rich themselves. This IS that “another gospel” (Galatians 1:6) that the Apostle Paul warns about in its starkest form but we should remember here that ALL that DO NOT teach the ideas found in Jesus words, ALL that DO NOT teach such ideas as we find in our trifecta….ALL that DO NOT teach the Truth of Love, ARE ALL equally “another gospel“; separate and distinct from the teaching of the Master. Repeating our trifecta we read:
- “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).
If we could see that the real Wisdom comes in the form of the revelations to and realizations of the man in world and that these ARE the product of His Presence as we read in the third part of our trifecta, we could then perhaps break the doctrinal illusion that such Presence happens in accordance with any doctrinal approach to the Lord. The Apostle James shows us this illusion in the form of deception saying that “be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22) and here we should try to see how difficult it IS for men to admit that they ARE deceived or deluded by their own nurturing and indoctrination. In a very real way the Presence of God in one’s Life, the True Presence according to Jesus’ words above, IS the unlocking of the Wisdom that everyman already possesses as a Soul….as that unction of which the Apostle John tells us saying that “ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things” (1 John 2:20).
As we have often discussed this idea of unction, from the Greek word chrisma that has the meaning of anointing which IS the way that this IS rendered as John continues to tell us that “the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him” (1 John 2:21). Many doctrinal thinkers claim to have such anointing, claim the presence of such an anointing in a church service and claim to ‘feel’ the anointing of the Holy Spirit ‘on’ them at certain times; here however we should understand that these ideas ARE doctrinal and ARE NOT based in any realty save for the ‘feeling’ that a man may have as he absorbs himself in some religious endeavor.
We should try to see that the anointing IS NOT a matter of feeling but rather a matter of KNOWING as the Presence of God IS revealed in the heart of a man and that this IS “the wisdom that is from above“. If we can see that this anointing IS ever present but unrevealed in the Life of most ALL men we can perhaps understand the unfurling of Wisdom in the Life of the man who will strive to “know the truth” by striving to keep His words and to express agape as his most basic relationship to others. We should remember here that the gospel ideas ARE written so that the man of 2000 years ago could have a basic understanding of the Way to Truth without the technical ideas of just how this works under the overview of keeping His words. This has always been the KEY which begins the unfurling and once one begins to sense and then glimpse the Truth, ever greater revelation will follow.
We should try to see as well that much of the technical spiritual ideas ARE intentionally withheld from those who will NOT understand and that such ARE a part of those mysteries of which the Master tells His disciples saying “Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand” (Luke 8:10). While the doctrinal thinker may believe that he has access to these mysteries, he has NO real idea of the Truth and this because he IS NOT a disciple nor striving to be so which IS to commit to conforming his Life to, as James tells us, “be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves“; it IS in their deception that the believe that they have the Truth.
The anointing IS the Truth and the anointing IS Wisdom and, as John tells us that “ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things“, the ONLY thing missing IS one’s realization of such KNOWING. What man who claims this anointing Truly DOES “know all things“? At what church service DOES this sense of KNOWING enable the participant to “know all things” or even some things beyond his carnal ‘feelings’? Can we see the Point here? Can we see the relationship between this KNOWING and Jesus’ words regarding the Way to this anointing; and can we see how that such realizations of Truth bring everyman closer to Truly accomplishing John’s words saying “as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17)?
John here IS speaking about God and Love and the preceding verse should give us the needed insight to relate this being “as he is” to His realized Presence which comes according to us in the third part of our trifecta. The apostle tells us that “God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:16) which idea Jesus gives us saying “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“. Can we connect the dots here? While millions claim to have an anointing and to experience a place where the anointing IS, ALL ARE “deceiving your own selves” except one lives in accord with His words. We should be able to see here how that to have this anointing IS to Truly understand the meaning of “as he is, so are we in this world” and if we can relate this to Him as the expression of Truth and Love in this world we can then see the endpoint for everyman.
We should remember here that the Greek word chrisma IS the noun form of the verb chiro and that christos IS the adjective form of this same verb. Although christos IS rendered as Christ throughout the New Testament, the meaning of this word is anointed and if we can see that christos IS to Jesus as chrisma IS to everyman, we can perhaps glimpse the True meaning of ALL ideas that relate man with Jesus. We could say here that ALL ARE related through the chrisma which, when realized, becomes christos; that is we have this anointing as the Christ Within and when this becomes our expression we ARE christos. The doctrinal church will deem this idea blasphemy much the same way as the Jews saw Jesus as a blasphemer for the things that He said regarding His relationship with God.
But the idea of blasphemy has naught to DO with Jesus claim to such a relationship just as our claim of this intimate relationship with Jesus has naught to DO with blasphemy. The connection of this word to Jesus’ claims or to any claims IS NOT the True meaning of this Greek word whose root IS blasphēmos and where ALL English ideas ARE but transcriptions of this Greek idea for which there was NOT an adequate matching word idea. The religious connotations applied to this by the Jews and by the Christians up to today ARE NOT what the Greek word means; Jesus DOES NOT blaspheme when He says that He IS the Son of God but He IS so accused just as men today ARE accused for the same claim. The Master however tells us that we can be as He IS, that we can DO as He DID and that we can “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).
It IS this idea of perfection that IS a KEY to the fullness of discipleship but we should understand here that this DOES NOT mean that one IS perfect as a man in this Earth. Man IS perfected when his expression IS the full spiritual expression of the Christ Within through his heretofore imperfect flesh. Here again we should see the Master’s words that tell us that “I have overcome the world” and, if we can understand this according to His words saying that “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), we can then begin to glimpse our own perfection. We must however see this idea of believing on Him according to the Truth of His teaching which Vincent encapsulates for us saying that to DO so IS: to accept and adopt His precepts and example as binding upon the life 4….which IS to keep His words.
John tells us that “as he is, so are we in this world” and the Master tells us that “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do” and if we could see past the doctrinal assertions that obnubilate these ideas and understand pisteuo in terms of that KNOWING that comes in keeping His words, we could then better understand the hidden potential of everyman….and his goal. In the lives of the apostles, primarily Peter and Paul, the idea of “greater works” and being “as he is” were as foreign to them as they ARE to us but, as we read in their accounts and in the Book of Acts, they DO accomplish this sense of perfection….they ARE able to express the Power of Truth and Love, to radiate it to ALL.
We can see this by comparing the post resurrection Life of Peter to the Life of the Master. While much of Peter’s ‘works’ ARE attributed to angels in Luke’s writings, we should be able to understand that the very idea of an angel IS misunderstood and used to support Truly paranormal actions by the apostle who DOES NOT tell us about these first hand. This NOT telling IS the greater reality of Paul’s words saying “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). The point here IS that it IS NOT the man who DOES these works or these “greater works” but it IS rather the Christ and the God Within, the Soul whose Power of Truth and Love IS flowing through his heretofore imperfect flesh. It IS through this Power that Peter and Paul ARE breaking chains (Acts 12:6-7), (Acts 21:33-40) and healing by their very proximity to those in need.
And other apostles as well ARE come into a fuller KNOWING of their measure of Truth and Love; we see this in the Life of Stephen who, standing in the strength of His Power, IS killed as IS the Master and in the Life of Philip, the evangelist, who KNOWS his direction and IS able to translate himself as DOES the Master. While in those days there IS NO understanding of God Immanent, it IS He who accomplishes such things; it IS He that KNOWS God and it IS He that can express Himself through His heretofore imperfect flesh. It IS He, God Immanent, who IS the unction, the anointing as this IS generally translated, and if we can see that this IS the True man, the spiritual man and the Soul, we can then begin to understand the deeper meaning of being ‘made’ “in the image of God” (Genesis 1:27).
We should remember here that these words from Genesis ARE written to the understanding of men in the earliest of Judaeo-Christian times which IS at least 3500 years ago, likely longer in verbal tradition, and that to take these ideas literally as so many still choose to DO fails to account for the barbarism and the superstitions of times past and the writers’ embrace of such principals of Life. Being Part and Parcel of the One God IS our unique position as Souls and while there ARE many esoteric ideas regarding the Way that the ‘human’ Soul becomes one, the more simple idea IS found in the idea that man IS such: a spiritual being manifest as Soul and living a Life through a form in this world. This IS of course NO harder to believe than the common understanding that man IS man, created as a man with a Soul that will survive his Earthly existence….the ONLY True point of divergence IS found in the idea of a Transcendent and Immanent God of which everyman IS Part and Parcel and from which NONE ARE ever lost.
If we should study the New Testament apart from the doctrinal assertions made by men who DO NOT wish to understand beyond their Judaeo-Christian nurturing and indoctrination, we can see the steady unfurling of the idea of God Immanent through Jesus’ words and the clarifying and amplifying words of His apostles. Few however DO look as the New Testament in this way; most ALL choose instead to attach this idea of “Christ in you” (Colossians 1:27) to their most glamorous ideas of having such ONLY through the affirmations and confessions of their particular doctrine….ideas that set them apart and which ARE contrary to the Master’s own words; words which they make subservient to their own interpretations of the words of Paul the Apostle.
Why IS this important? Simply because to KNOW God one must KNOW himself and understand somewhat his own place in the scheme of things, a place that affords NO “respect to persons” (James 2:9)….a place in which ALL men, as spiritual beings, ARE equally the same save for their own ability to express this sameness while yet trapped in the vanity, the illusion and the glamour of Life in form. It IS in the view of being Part and Parcel that the reality of Life begins to emerge in a way that can be grasped by the yet carnal mind and it IS through this that one can begin to sense his place as a Part of God and, at the same time, an indispensable part….a part necessary to the whole. In this the very idea of “Christ in you” can take us to a different perspective which IS that the God that IS within IS ever part of the Whole that IS God….there IS NO means of separation as the sum total of ALL existence IS God.
This IS NOT intended to be a scientific approach to this reality of Life, of God, where NO thing IS wasted but only changed in its manifest form. And this manifest form itself comes in a rather infinite range from the inert to the active and from the visible to the invisible. From the smallest of subatomic particles to planets that ARE made up of uncountable subatomic particles, there IS some form of Life and here we should try to see that some ARE self motivated while others ARE motivated by yet higher forms energy that hold a form in place as a cohesive unit. In the atom and its component parts we can see the energy potential and the fine line between matter and energy which Einstein revealed to us with his revelation of E = mc2.
This ALL pertains to matter however and there ARE realms of energy far beyond the physical and the visible which ARE NOT yet understood nor seen and much of this IS because the preponderance of men’s vision IS on the physical and NOT the psychical. It IS on the psychical levels that the greater reality of God can be seen, especially as this is related to sentient Life as characterized in the animal kingdoms of the Earth. Behind each and every form IS some manner of Spirit and Soul which gives Life and consciousness to that form and while we can ONLY guess as to how this may work in the lower animal forms, we can be rather certain of its working out in the higher animals and in mankind. These ideas ARE NOT far from the more common human understanding that everyman IS created at birth and has a Spirit that will survive his Earthly existence and the ONLY point of separation IS found in the idea that God IS God and that NO thing IS added nor subtracted from His being….God simply IS.
From this perspective the Spirit that IS the True man IS eternal; each has existed as Part and Parcel of the “One Boundless Immutable Principle; one Absolute Reality which, antecedes all manifested conditioned Being. It is beyond the range and reach of any human thought or expression“*** which IS God. There IS NO beginning and there IS NO end, the definition of both eternal and infinite, and what IS True of the Godhead IS True of every imaginable and unimaginable part. While we CAN NOT even begin to see the purpose as men in this world, the idea that the apostle gives us shows us that we CAN and that we DO KNOW as spiritual beings and it IS some modicum of this realization by which the man in the world comes to KNOW but this ONLY to the finite capability of the human mind.
While the mind and the brain ARE yet confused in the scientific and social world, there IS a relationship. This IS that the brain IS the vehicle for the mind and it IS based upon the development of this organ that the realizations of the mind can be expressed in human terms through the activity of the brain. While there IS some variance in this between groups of people in this Earth the greater variance IS one of time and of evolution and it IS in this light that we should try to understand our point above regarding the way that scripture IS written. Here we can expand upon our statement above and say that such IS written to the understanding of men in the earliest of Judaeo-Christian times, at least 3500 years ago (likely longer in verbal tradition), and that to take these ideas literally as so many still choose to DO fails to account for the more emotional nature of the mind then versus the more mental state of today. The emotional state IS the basis for the barbarism and the superstition while the more mental state transcends this with critical thought.
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 |
Quote of the Day:
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition
- *** A Treatise on Cosmic Fire by Alice A Bailey © 1951 by Lucis Trust
Those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.
Voltaire, Writer and Philosopher
