IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 553

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON LOVE; PART CXLII

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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“And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life” (Genesis 3:22-24).

So then if it is only disciples who are privileged to KNOW by revelation the Truth of the teachings of the Master as we discussed in the last essay, what of the rest of us, the vast majority of mankind who are not so focused upon the things of God that they follow the Master’s own criteria for discipleship? The simple answer is  “that seeing they might not see , and hearing they might not understand” (Luke 8:10) and in this we see the use of the word might which lends credence to our premise from the last post saying that there is a range of values on a scale of focus that stretches from the strictly carnal focus on mammon to the perfection to be found in one’s total focus upon God. It is upon this scale that we exist as regards our spiritual lives and we can move along it at either direction at will although any whose intent is the spiritual Life, any who DO strive and seek His Kingdom, will be moving toward the God side at a rather steady pace so long as their focus can be maintained. Focus is of course the KEY to spiritual fulfillment from many perspectives and in our picture of this scale where by degree we are either moving toward mammon or toward God, it is focus that points and carries us. It is distractions from the world of things that keep us from our mark, from our objective, and it is these distractions that can change our course and, these distractions can take many forms from the desire for physical comfort to emotional and mental pursuits. It is in single minded focus upon the goal that True progress is made and the rather normal alternating emotional and mental character of man frustrates and impedes this True progress and it is here that we see the greater Truth in the Master’s words that “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).

In this concept of a scale of focus we can try to see the reality of the Master’s use of the word might, which is alternately rendered as may, here we can find a better understanding of the working out of revelation in the world of men. As we said in the last post there is no black or white nor on or off criteria at play in this; we can say here that a man’s ability to revelation can progressively come as he moves along this scale of focus toward his total focus upon the things of God so that we can see those in the multitude who can understand the parable and we can likely add here that such understanding would correspond with the man’s degree of focus. Here the greater focus would provide the greater understanding and it is necessary to understand that this premise of ours, or some other similar idea, happens in the world as the alternative to this is that one is a either disciple and understands fully or one is in the multitude and does not understand at all and we KNOW that this would not be True.

Compounding these ideas of degree along our imaginary scale of focus we must consider as well the Life intent of any particular Soul as not ALL are destined for discipleship in any given incarnation but may be positioned by past incarnations to play a different role in bringing the whole of the human family along to greater heights from the perspective of Life in this world. In these persons we would likely find a strong leaning toward the Good, the Beautiful and the True with little or no spiritual foundation and again, in this respect, the words of the Master would still hold True and His reality that “Ye shall know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16) would still have much meaning. It is not for any one in form in the world to KNOW the heart of another, to understand his consciousness nor to KNOW at what stage he may be as a Soul expressing through from. Most ALL of what we have said in our many assays is directed at and speaking of those whose intent it is to follow the more spiritual path but we have often spoken about Great Souls that come into incarnation for specific purpose and we have spoken as well about the revelation given to some of the leaders of men in government, in the arts and sciences. It is not for us to say that a one like Einstein or Emerson, names we often use, would have been an incarnating disciple of the Lord had he not had his own specific mission or if he could have become such in that particular incarnation from which we KNOW them.

We have then Souls expressing through form and it is this consciousness in form that we portray as being on this scale of focus and we should be able to see in the words above that many can find themselves on the ‘side’ of God that are not thought of from a spiritual perspective and in this we should understand the movement along this scale is not only from a purely spiritual perspective. In this we can adjust our understanding of focus upon mammon to the perspective of overly desiring the things of the world and extreme selfishness at the lower end and perfection at the upper end; and, somewhere on the God side of this equation we will find the beginning of discipleship and we will find as well that place for those who are single minded in their pursuits even when those pursuits are not visibly spiritual in nature. In this we should try to see that the Good, the Beautiful and the True can come into play in the Life of a man who IS unselfish at heart and focused upon his revealed pursuits with some understanding of the reality of Love as the Master teaches us. In this we should also try to see that there are likely many on the God side of this scale who ARE NOT religious in any way and perhaps not even spiritually minded as this is normally understood and that these have moved beyond the place of those whose religion is not steeped in the Truth of the Master’s teachings on Love, brotherhood, harmony, Unity, etc.

In essence, being religious is not the KEY to realization nor the Kingdom unless that religious nature is centered in the Love that the Master teaches and unless the religious person is an adherent to the words of the Master and not to the interpreted words of the many doctrines that serve to confound His teaching. Of course any who Truly strive and seek the Kingdom by their actions and thoughts as men in form will find their place on the God side of this scale and we should remember that the disciple is yet beyond this and is measured by the words of the Master with with we closed our essay yesterday. To yesterday’s sayings we should add another; the Master tells those that are following Him “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed” (John 8:31) and this is the crux of the issue, that a man keep His words and, of course, this means ALL His words and not a selected few. This is also the direction of the Apostle James words regarding keeping His word; while we have used these words many times and in several contexts, the first and foremost is that these words are directed at those who ‘believe’ that they are doing the Will of God but who are not and we should remember that this realization is a purely personal one; James tells us: “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22). We can extend these remarks in the same way that we extend those that talk about hearing above and in the saying by the Master that we should “Take heed what ye hear” (Mark 4:24). In this saying we take the word hear in the context of believing and extending this to the saying from James can give us added insight which is to say that one must DO the word of God and not just hear it or as we are saying here, believe it.

As similar saying is offered by the Master and in the same context as we see above, that it is in the doing and not in the believing or the hearing or in the claiming; the Master says: “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). Our point here is that a man should not believe that he is doing any thing from a perspective of discipleship or of being accounted worthy of the Kingdom of God unless he is in line with the spirit and intent of these sayings. Our further point in our essay today and yesterday that on this scale of focus that takes us from the totally carnal man in the world to the perfection of one who is keeping ALL His words, there is a place for the man who is truly striving and there is a place for the man whose track in this incarnation is not in spiritual matters and for both we should see that it is “by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matthew 7:20) and that these fruits will perforce be in the Power of Love and in will be found the Good, the Beautiful and the True.

While it may seem that we are a long way off from our discussion on the Tree of Life which we left several days ago to journey down the paths of the effects illusion and glamour and our present topic regarding that imaginary scale of focus that ranges from the grossly carnal to the perfection of Godliness, we are actually still very close to it and with this we segue back to it. In our saying at the top of our essay we have the reality of “the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:9), a central part in the drama of the story of Adam and Eve, which represents for us the temptations of Life for the human kingdom on Earth. The fruit of this tree is neither good nor evil as we understand those words but is is representative of what the world of things has to offer to the form Life and the personality in the world. In eating of this fruit Adam and Eve, and through them the entire race, are plunged into what the Apostle Paul tells us is vanity and which we see as illusion and glamour and, as we have discerned from the words of the apostle, this is by the very Plan of God. By this action of taking form the, the partaking Souls find themselves on this same scale of focus which we are now discussing and again, by the Plan of God. In the words of Paul we should see the two poles of mammon and God in his use of being “made subject to vanity, not willingly” as the part of mammon and of being “delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” as the part of God. In this we can see the journey of mankind as a corporate entity and the journey of the individual as well. Repeating the apostles words: “For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:20-21), we should see that they give us the two poles of Life in form, mammon and God, the two poles of focus on our scale.

We should note here that the part of mammon is for Adam and Eve, mankind, and each of us individually, a thing that each is subjected to, and we can use Paul’s words here as well, “not willingly“, and until a man can sense the reality of the call of his own Soul, his Christ Within, he is content to dwell at the lower end of this scale in mammon. However, from early times there has been religious and spiritual teachings that are intended to and designed to give to man the impetus to seek for and find the other reality which is God and it is when this idea creeps into man’s waking consciousness that he becomes able to move along this scale and it is here that his journey home begins. This place, home, or the Kingdom of God is represented for us by the Tree of Life and in this connotation of Life we should take the understanding that up to this point of coming home man is in a state of death and this the same death the Master and the apostles refer to which IS NOT the death of the body. Paul’s telling us that “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23) gives us this same understanding; when we see sin as the ways of the world, we can see death as our entrapment in those ways so that the effect is that the Spirit is not alive in the Life in the world. The Master is making the same sort of reference in the Parable of the Prodigal Son when he tells us of the Father’s words saying: “For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found” (Luke 15:24).

There are many other references to this idea of Life as one’s being in such a state where it is the Soul expressing through the form which is seen spiritually as Life and conversely that when a man in mired in the morass of Life in the world, this is considered death. James makes this clear for us in saying “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James 1:15) which relates this idea for us to the desires and the lusts of the flesh and the personality for those things and those sensations that come from the things of the Earth. Here we have the story of Adam and Eve and of mankind and the reality of the saying of Paul regarding vanity. We close today with these words from Paul to Timothy which give us the reality of what we are saying above regarding the purpose and the use of scripture that leads a man back from his total focus on mammon to his focus on God; Paul says: “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began, But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10-11). In this we should see that the death is the death of the divine spiritual man in the world of form and the Life and immortality is that which is found in conformance to His words.

We will continue from here with our thoughts in the next post and try to move on then to our saying below.

• “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created.  And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth: And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died” (Genesis 5:1-5) .

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:

Having touched upon the thoughts of Paul regarding Love and his relationship of this to what we can see today as illusion and then to his reality of Truth insofar as perception, we post his words again as the Quote of the Day along with our previous comments.

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. Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:1-13) (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:

Today’s Quote of the Day from the Apostle Paul is 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.