IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 470

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON LOVE; PART LXII

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way , the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do ; because I go unto my Father” (John 14:3-12).

We ended our dialogue yesterday with the words above from the Apostle John. The meaning of these words is at best parabolic and while the Christian Churches generally believe some of these words as a ‘special’ indicator that Christ Jesus is the only way to God, they miss the Truth of the Christ Within by taking such a literal approach as they do and, at the same time they alienate billions upon billions of God’s people who may never hear the words that Christ gives to us and may never KNOW His name. These billions are however constructed in the same way as we are, as Christians are an this way is depicted for us in our chart below. EVERY MAN is the same Trinity of Aspects and EVERY MAN is created as we read in the Book of Genesis where we read: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27). This does not say Christian men or men who believe in the Christ or who someday will believe in the Christ; it says EVERY MAN and the deep meaning of “the way, the truth, and the life” is not the simplistic construction of the churches but is the reality of the Truth of Life for ALL, a Truth that we can but glimpse.

Aspect of God	Potency	Aspect of Man
Father	Will  or Power	Spirit or Life
Son, The Christ	Love and Wisdom	Soul or Christ Within
Holy Spirit	Light or Activity	Life Within

The depiction of Life in our chart is intended to show the UNITY of Life and the reality of being created “in the image of God” It is in this realization of UNITY with OUR God that we can find also UNITY and brotherhood with His entire creation; God IS and God IS a Trinity of Aspects as reported by the churches. In reading the gospels, one has to construct the idea of the Trinity of God from the many verses that allude to the relationship of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and this is done in much the same way that we try here to construct the Truth of man’s relationship with God and with his fellowman. Scattered through the gospels are the many clues that are needed for this construction and scattered through the rest of the New Testament are many verses of confirmation and amplification of the Master’s words. The one, the construction of the Trinity from many verses is an easier thing to achieve because it does not depend upon the actions or the thoughts of mankind; the other, the construction of man’s True relationship with God and his fellowman is more difficult because it does depend on the actions and the thoughts of mankind who is generally prone to acting in the world apart from the reality of his True self, the Soul. We should understand however that even in the construction of the Trinity from the words of the Master and His apostles, there is not a True understanding of the interaction of these Aspects of God and little vision of what they Truly ARE.

It is in this Trinity and in its understanding that we can find the Truth of these words “I am the way , the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” and we can posit this as follows in this amended chart:

Aspect of God	Potency	Aspect of Man	In relation to the Christ
Father	Will  or Power	Spirit or Life	Life
Son, The Christ	Love and Wisdom	Soul or Christ Within	Truth
Holy Spirit	Light or Activity	Life Within	Way

When we speak of the Christ Within we are at the same time speaking of the God Within as these are inseparable; they are but different Aspects of the ONE God. Similarly when we speak of God, we should see the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as inseparable; we should see these as Aspects of the ONE God as well. This is a thing that is barely understood in concept and while there is this same UNITY in the doctrines of the church, there is not True realization of what it means. This meaning is captured in our verses above with the Master telling His disciples that “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” which is but another way of the Master’s saying that “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30), and we should see this as in other bible translations with the word translated as my here in the King James Version being properly rendered as the. The Master continues, telling His disciples “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works“. Here we should try to understand that from the perspective of Jesus, as a man in form, that He is telling His disciples that the God Within is speaking, NOT the form Life of the man, and that the Father Within, “the Father that dwelleth” within, “he doeth the works“. This God Within, this Father Within, is who we call today, because of our greater understanding and because of the words of the Apostle Paul, the Christ Within and, as we see above, both the Christ and God are ONE. This is the mystery that is couched in the words of the Master and it is this God Within, this Christ Within, this Father Within, that is “the Way, the Truth and the Life” for everyman. We have not here forgotten the Holy Spirit as it might seem as the Holy Spirit IS the activity of the God Within; His activity in form and thus ever ONE with the Father and the Son.

Can we see here that “the Way, the Truth and the Life” is the Truth of the Christ and therefore the Truth of the Christ Within and that this experience is founded in discipleship and in the Kingdom for it is to the disciple that the Love and the Power of the Christ Within are manifest. We can look at the Christ Within as our Way, Truth and Life and through this focus upon the Christ Within we can bring this Love and Power to bear on the Life of the man in form.

We have often pointed to the Master’s sayings on the Kingdom and where this Kingdom is found; the Master tells us clearly that “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). Now, if this is a Truth and if it is also a Truth that, speaking of the Master, John tells us : “as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17), then we should be able to see that the Kingdom IS WITHIN the Master as well. From here we can then see that if the Kingdom is Within, and if God is Within then God and His Kingdom also exhibit  a ONENESS and this same ONENESS applies to us as well. Can we then extend this to an understanding that the Kingdom of God is a state of being where one is at ONE with the God Within who is expressing the Love and the Power of the Godhead through one’s Life in form. There is no better way to express this UNITY that is achieved in discipleship than to say from the perspective of the man in form “Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me“; this is a great reality for the Christ and for everyone of His brothers that has achieved and this is the Promise to those that are aspirants to this High Calling.

We will continue with these thoughts in the next post and we continue here with a bit more on the UNITED NATIONS as we approach United Nations Day on the 24th of October. Below is information on the Millennium Goals that we began to discuss several days ago. These goals, as you can see in the origination and in the contents of the list are founded in Love and in GoodWill as we define it. As we read further in the sections after the list we find some of the difficulties of achieving the original intent and while the money is being spent by the developed countries, there is is debate over the way that it is being spent. We will discuss these idea in more detail in the next post.

Millennium Declaration

In 2000, 189 nations made a promise to free people from extreme poverty and multiple deprivations. This pledge turned into the eight Millennium Development Goals.**

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight international development goals that were officially established following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000, following the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration. All 193 United Nations member states and at least 23 international organizations have agreed to achieve these goals by the year 2015. The goals are:

1. eradicating extreme poverty and hunger,
2. achieving universal primary education,
3. promoting gender equality and empowering women
4. reducing child mortality rates,
5. improving maternal health,
6. combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases,
7. ensuring environmental sustainability, and
8. developing a global partnership for development.

Each of the goals has specific stated targets and dates for achieving those targets. To accelerate progress, the G8 Finance Ministers agreed in June 2005 to provide enough funds to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the African Development Bank (ADB) to cancel an additional $40–55 billion debt owed by members of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) to allow impoverished countries to re-channel the resources saved from the forgiven debt to social programs for improving health and education and for alleviating poverty.

Debate has surrounded adoption of the MDGs, focusing on lack of analysis and justification behind the chosen objectives, the difficulty or lack of measurements for some of the goals, and uneven progress towards reaching the goals, among other criticisms. Although developed countries’ aid for achieving the MDGs has been rising over recent years, more than half the aid is towards debt relief owed by poor countries, with remaining aid money going towards natural disaster relief and military aid which does not further development.***

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.:

So that we do not forget that the reality of this ALL is still LOVE which is our Truth regardless of whatever other realizations may come to us in Life, we present here again the Apostle Paul’s words followed by our own understanding of this reality:

….but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law (Romans 13:8-10).

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)

We should remember always to link to this Greatest Commandment that other saying of the Master that gives to us the practical understanding of how to love one’s self plus the practical instruction on how it is that we CAN Love our neighbour; He tells us:

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them

(Matthew 7:12)

Unlike so much of the Master’s sayings that come to us in the form of parables and for which we can only surmise that we have the spiritual presence to understand, these sayings are very straightforward and they are the key to many of the promises of spiritual life; they are the very key to the Kingdom of God. To these sayings we add our adopted definition of the Greek word agape (agapao) which is translated into the English words Love and Charity and which is:

‘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’

• **     United Nations Website: http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/mdgoverview.html
• ***   Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 7 Oct. 2012.