IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 393

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part CLXXIV

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live” (Romans 8:1-13).

We finally found the opportunity to discuss the Evening Reflection which is also known as the Mantram of the New Group of World Servers in some detail and we should now have a better understanding of the intent and the force of this mantram and its potential effect on our daily lives. This Evening Reflection, when spoken from the perspective of the server, and ALL are servers who say or believe that they are living in any way a spiritual Life, is a concise invocation of the Power and the Love of God in a man’s Life and his personal requirements to express these in the world. The Master speaks much on this idea of service and from several different perspectives; one of these is our service to Him, our Master. Let us look at some of the Master’s words on serving.

• “If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour” (John 12:26). We should see that service to the Master requires following Him and we KNOW that this means that one should keep His words and we have used these terms synonymously along with that other idea of believing in or believing on the Master. We should remember what we learned from Vincent’s writings on this in regard to the understanding of this combination of ideas that starts with believing in; he tells us that: To believe in, or on, is more than mere acceptance of a statement. It is so to accept a statement or a person as to rest upon them, to trust them practically; to draw upon and avail one’s self of all that is offered to him in them. Hence to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ is not merely to believe the facts of His historic life or of His saving energy as facts, but to accept Him as Savior, Teacher, Sympathizer, Judge; to rest the soul upon Him for present and future salvation, and to accept and adopt His precepts and example as binding upon the life.⁴. In Vincent’s words we should see the force of the idea of following the Master and in the Master’s words we should see the way that these ideas work together; if a man desires to serve the Master then he should follow Him and this then should cut both ways; if a man follows the Master, then he should be one who serves Him .It  may seem here that we are forcing this understanding apart from the words of the Master and in some ways we are but we do so with the understanding of the Master’s intent in service. Reading between the ideas above we should see the idea of following Him and from the Master’s words we also see that “and where I am, there shall also my servant be” and this should be enough to give us that proper understanding.
• Now the Master turns this idea of service from Himself to our brethren in a parable like depiction of a time of judgement. The overall idea of this is seen to be in the end of the age and with the idea of “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory“. This is not the time for us to deal with the fanciful part of this coming except to here begin to make the case that this can be the end of an age and that if it is intended to be factual that it must be seen from the proper perspective of the True Man, the Soul, the Christ Within and it must be reconciled with all of the other differing depictions of a like time. Suffice it to say that the Master’s ideas and words as they are used here are intentionally vague and parabolic in nature and that the teaching here itself has little to do with these ideas that take up the most attention of the man in this world. The crux of the teaching is in service to the Master as it is seen through service to His brethren. The Master’s words are in part: “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:31, 34-40). Many understand through doctrine that these listed things are the service of note, that these are what the Master specifically means, but this is not entirely so as there is so much more in the intent of His words. These ideas have given rise to many a ministry designed to fulfill a part of these but let us look at this on a personal level and understand individually how many of these we actually perform with any degree of consistency; these things or their representations were not intended to be performed by the church or their outreach ministries, these are intended to be performed by each an every one of us who earnestly seeks the Kingdom. And we should not let the words simply imply that these are the things that we must do as the idea here is that we should serve and do to ALL men what it is that we would do for Him were He among us today.
• To these ideas we need to add the Master’s words that He gives to His disciples and we must realize that if we seek to be disciples and if we consider ourselves aspirants, then we must see ourselves IN His words. In each of these sayings below the Master is telling His disciples that it is in the service rendered to the others that the ‘greatness’ of each will be seen. We should not understand this to mean that they should strive to be the greater server in order to be seen as the greatest but that they should strive to be the greater server because each is intent on doing ALL that he can do. We should see here that service IS the way of Life for the disciple and for the aspirant to discipleship.One of the recent sayings that we have spent much time on also includes this idea of service from both a postive and a negative perspective. The Master says: “No man can serve two 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” (Matthew 6:24, Luke 16:13). Here the Master contrasts the ideas of serving God and serving the ways of the world and in this saying we should get the understanding that we, as men in form, are going to serve some one or some thing and this service is defined here by one’s focus and attention. Can we see here that this idea of focus and attention, which we can also understand as the treasure of one’s heart, is a factor in ALL service that a man can do for God or for God through his fellowman, as well as it is a factor in the service to the ways of the world.
  • “And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant” (Matthew 20:27)
  • “But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant” (Matthew 23:11)
  • “And he sat down, and called the twelve, and saith unto them, If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all” (Mark 9:35)
  • “And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all” (Mark 10:44)
  • “But ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him be as the younger; and he that is chief , as he that doth serve” (Luke 22:26)
• “So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do” (Luke 17:10). The realty of this saying can be seen in the idea that one can never do enough, that there is always more that can be done. This is the willing burden of the True disciple; he is ever seeking more opportunity to serve the Lord which is accomplished through service to the world of men. This service can take many forms and it is ever the responsibility of the server to define the field of his own service. There is no book of rules but rather service should be seen as any thing that promotes the Plan of God and any thing that fosters Love in the world of men and these two ideas should be seen as synonymous. What is after all the service that the Master performed in His time with us and what is the service of His disciples? Ponder on this.
• Our last entry here regarding service is another saying by the Master through which He paints Himself as the server of ALL; He says: “For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that serveth” (Luke 22:27). Can we see the intent of the Master’s words here as He tells us that although He is the Master and that He can take the position of “he that sitteth at meat“, that he does not but He rather takes the position of “he that serveth” and this as an example to us ALL.

Can we see the reality of service in the words of the Master and in the context of most ALL that He teaches us? Can we see that by our own actions as disciples and aspirants that we are serving the Plan and the fostering of Love for ALL? Can we see that True service is so much more than the detailed words that we read above and that these are intended to be as example only? And can we see that the idea of doing ALL that one can in aid to the physical needs of a brother is as much a requirement of the fulfillment of the commandment to Love thy neighbour as it is of service to the race of men? And, most importantly can we see how we most ALL fall short in these accomplishments and that these things are an integral part of keeping His words.

We repeat here the closing words from the last post  as they reflect our thoughts on service as they were inspired by the Evening Reflection:

All prayer that is not self centered is a service to the Lord, to His Plan and to our fellowman; the Power and the Qualities of God that we pray to invoke are for the benefit of His Plan and all mankind.  This  is a prayer for the Power of God to be available to all who seek to serve Him; in this Power is the Wisdom, the Understanding and the personal strength that we need to properly serve the Lord. It is a prayer also that asks that all who serve the Lord be imbued with His Love, Christ’ Love, which defines the truth of our service to Him.  And it is a prayer that, on a personal level, reminds us of our responsibilities in service which are summarized in the three words.

• Self-forgetfulness which is the absence of self interest in our prayer and our service; as the Master told us Ye cannot serve God and mammon”.
• Harmlessness which, as a positive aspect, is that meekness of Jesus and of which He also said “Blessed are the meek”.
• Right Speech which is the ability to control the tongue remembering that “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” and that in self-forgetfulness, harmlessness and Love will our hearts be right.

Can we recognize the importance of sevrice as a way of Life and can we commit ourselves to keep these ideas of service in mind throughout our day?

We placed the saying from Paul’s Epistle to the Romans at the top of our essay today but did not get to it; we will continue with our thoughts in the next post.

To the God Who is in the Fire and Who is in the waters;

To the God Who has suffused Himself through all the world;

To the God Who is in summer plants and in the lords of the forest;

To that God be adoration, adoration.

Sh’vet Upanishad, II.17.

Today’s Quote of the Day is from ancient Hindu scripture. This book, the Sh’vet Upanishad, is from a group of books on the Philosophy of God that date back to more that five hundred years before Christ. Like many religious texts, and religions for that matter, there is a great variety of interpretations; Hindu scriptures are no exception. Our selection of this as our Quote of the Day is because it fits well into our discussions in this series called ON GOD and although we take most of our information from the Judaeo-Christian tradition, we do believe that all sources of spiritual revelation should be considered. The common Christian understanding regarding God as being outside of His creation is rather opposite of this saying and is opposite much of the reality of Christian Scripture as well. In this saying God is immanent in His creation as He is immanent in man, as the Spirit within the form.