IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 588

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON LOVE; PART CLXXVII

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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“There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.  And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:  That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:1-15).

Over the last several essays we have been discussing the Fifteen Points of Emmet Fox, points that he believes put one ‘in Truth‘ if they are followed. This is of course a doctrinal statement much like the doctrinal statements of ALL religions, denominations and sects and we must include in this ourselves as well as we do set forth a doctrine that we believe is a Truth. In this ALL we find the Truth to the Master’s cautions and His apostles methods of KNOWING Truth which we have ofttimes presented to tell ALL that it is only each man as an individual that can discern the Truth and this only when he is ready to look past the self and the attitude of self in the world. In the Master’s words, we must “Take heed what ye hear” (Mark 4:24) which is rendered by the Apostle Luke as “Take heed therefore how ye hear“ (Luke 8:18), which we understand as to be careful what we believe as based upon the reality of the Greek word akouo, a word which, in addition to the actual act of hearing, includes the defining terms to attend to, consider what is or has been said; to understand, perceive the sense of what is said; and to comprehend, to understand ². ALL of these ideas from the lexicon give us a better idea of the Master’s intent than the idea that it is what enters the ear that matters and while believe may seem a stretch, we see it as covered by understanding which is like KNOWING and this sense of KNOWING IS our defining idea for both believing and faith thereby taking these away from being just one’s emotional response in the world.

In addition to these words by the Master which are among many that tell us of the deceptions of this world of illusion and glamour, we have the words of the Apostle James on the Wisdom from above and we have the fruit of the Spirit in a list that is given us by the Apostle Paul, both of which give us guidelines for KNOWING what is Truth and what is of this world. While we do discuss these things often, they are brought to us lately by the saying that has been atop our essays now for many weeks and which is likely one of the most misunderstood and misapplied of ALL the Master’s sayings and we KNOW this by the use of the idea of being born again in the doctrines of the churches. We have covered this in much detail in In the Words of Jesus parts 562 through 572 and in these several posts we have shown that this idea of born again IS equivalent to ALL of the other sayings by the Master that tell us how to attain the Kingdom and discipleship and, in ALL of these ways given by the Master, we find the single requirement of keeping His words at the heart of ALL. As part of this study we come across, as we most always do, the Master’s words on Love which include His Golden Rule and it is this that again brought us to Emmet Fox who states for us the ultimate reality of the Master’s intent saying that: The important point about the Golden Rule is that I am to practice it whether the other fellow does so or not ‡. From the Truth we find in this saying, we proceeded to discuss the entirety of Mr. Fox’s Fifteen Points as they too relate to the doctrinal understanding of the Bible which we encounter in our saying above. It is in doing this that we are brought to a new understanding of the words of Paul to disciples regarding their, and our, focus on the things of God and this from the apostles words that heretofore had only been seen as a helpful aid for Life in this world. The apostle tells us:

“Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. Let our moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things” (Philippians 4:4-8).

Our reality here is that if one does “think on these things”, this itemization of the Good, the Beautiful and the True, then we are not thinking on the things of the world or on our self and our attitudes of self……we are focused upon God and not on mammon. We must ever remember that the words of the apostles are words of men in form who until that final act of complete and total Soul infusion through their Life on Earth, speak and act through their several personalities and it is in this we see their varied tones, their different writing styles and their emotional mind set as they write for us in a time when the use of the mind was subordinate to the use of the emotions and, while both do function in ALL men, there is an evolutionary progression to the current, more mental, state of man. For this reason it is ofttimes difficult to discern the True intent of the sayings and the writings of the apostles, this plus the reality that the apostles are most times writing to a specific audience of which we KNOW little. Underlying ALL of this, the style and mind set of the apostle and the nature of the specific audience to which he writes, there are Great Truths that stand ready to be seen and this seeing is as well a part of an evolutionary progression causing succeeding generations to see more and different Truths in the words of the Master and His apostles. ALL is a matter of realization and we can see in this word the Master’s caution on hearing above for as we realize Truths based upon our understanding of fruits and of Wisdom, we realize a greater and greater degree of that anointing that the Apostle John speaks of, that anointing that teaches us and shows us ALL:

“But 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 2:27).

And this anointing is of course our own Soul, that Inner man, the Christ Within, which we KNOW as the True man who seeks to live fully through the form in time and space thereby expressing to the world the fullness of the Godhead; this is our goal and our objective, this is FULL discipleship and this IS the Kingdom of God. And this IS NOT a fanciful dream for, as we have expressed before, it is our destiny and it is the promise of the Master who tells us of the greater things and of our ONENESS with Him saying:

• “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 14:12).
• “The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master” (Luke 6:40).
• “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one” (John 17:20-22).

There are in these ideas the criteria of keeping His words and the promise that in that perfection we are AS HE IS and we ARE ONE with HIM who IS ONE with the FATHER and this is encapsulated for us by the Apostle John who tells us AS disciples that “as he is , so are we in this world” (John 4:17) and we KNOW His nature in these words from Paul who tells us clearly that: “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9).

We need however to believe on Him which is sometimes framed as believe in Him but which we KNOW is the same as they both, ‘in’ and ‘on’, are from the same Greek word and about which we should remember the True meaning as elucidated by Vincent who tells us: 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. While Vincent’s words are filled with doctrine, they are also filled with Truths in saying that to believe is not only to accept and to trust as an emotional religious response to God but it is as well the ability to to accept and adopt His precepts and example as binding upon the life ⁴ which we KNOW is done in keeping His words. 

And we KNOW as well from our studies and from our past essays that the paramount word of the Master IS Love. Love is elevated to the Greatest Commandment by the Master and Love is His common theme in His instruction to us on how we should, how we must, treat our brother, our neighbor and the stranger who qualifies as both abd we see Jesus makes this explicitly clear in the Parable of the Good Samaritan that we discussed in the last post. There can be no pretense in this Love, it is clear and it is beyond the common understanding of that feeling of Love that we see in the Earth, that emotional attraction to other persons and things that bring us pleasure or that we foresee as bringing us pleasure. The Love that the Master tells us of IS GoodWill, the Will to Good expressed to ALL by the True devotee of the Master and this Love IS, as we defined yesterday, the Golden Rule as in this saying there is the understanding and the way to Love ALL:

• “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise” (Luke 6:31).

• “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12).

And, in the words with which we begin this series and which we have highlighted throughout these last essays, we can see the True intent of the Master. It IS the overriding reality of ALL His teachings, from “whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also” all the way up to “forgive them; for they know not what they do” that we find in the words given us by Emmet Fox that show the True intent of the Master’s teaching: The important point about the Golden Rule is that I am to practice it whether the other fellow does so or not ‡.

These ideas above on Love represent to us the reality of the teachings of the Master and so much of His other words and parables and proverbs are to tell us about how we should deal with and react to our brothers, our neighbors and the stranger who qualifies as both. Our focus on Love IS our focus upon the things of God and on the Christ, both Within us ALL, and the Cosmic Christ who IS the Love that IS God made manifest to the world through the Life of Jesus. When we take the Master’s teachings and add to them the words of the apostles, we have no choice but to conclude that ALL IS about Love and about our interaction with others in Love and, when we add to this the words from John that tell us ever so clearly that “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16), we KNOW that we have the Truth that shows us the way, par excellence, to the Kingdom of God and to His Presence in our Life on Earth through the Light of the Soul, the Love and Power of the Christ Within. We cannot be fooled by doctrine, we cannot be misled, if we see the reality of the Master’s words above regarding what we believe and the words of the apostles that tell us of the Wisdom from above and how to KNOW it, that tell us of the fruit of the Spirit and how to measure ALL things against it, then we CAN discern the Truths and the realities as they appear in our lives.

John gives us these things to help us to understand the idea of keeping His words and of Love as we should express it:

• “He that saith , I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him” (1 John 2:4)
• “If a man say , I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen , how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” (1 John 4:20).

ALL else IS deception and deception abounds as we live out our Earthly lives in this world of illusion and glamour.

We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.

Aspect of God	Potency	Expressed as Fire	Aspect of Man	In Relation to the Christ
GOD, The Father	Will or Power	Electric Fire	Spirit or Life	Life
Son, The Christ	Love and Wisdom	Solar Fire	Soul or Christ Within	Truth
Holy Spirit	Light or Activity	Fire by Friction	Life Within the Form	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:

Leaving again the Great Invocation, we encourage ALL to read and reread it and our comments as in these words can be found the keys to our spiritual reality.

From the point of Light within the Mind of God
Let light stream forth into the minds of men.
Let Light descend on Earth.

From the point of Love within the Heart of God
Let love stream forth into the hearts of men.
May Christ return to Earth.

From the centre where the Will of God is known
Let purpose guide the little wills of men–
The purpose which the Masters know and serve.

From the centre which we call the race of men
Let the Plan of Love and Light work out
And may it seal the door where evil dwells.

Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth.

This prayer is a part of our Prayers and Meditations section and there is much information about it there and in our discussion of it in the Quote of the Day section of In the Words of Jesus parts 128-132

The above Invocation or Prayer does not belong to any person or group but to all Humanity. The beauty and the strength of this Invocation lies in its simplicity, and in its expression of certain central truths which all men, innately and normally, accept—the truth of the existence of a basic Intelligence to Whom we vaguely give the name of God; the truth that behind all outer seeming, the motivating power of the universe is Love; the truth that a great Individuality came to earth, called by Christians, the Christ, and embodied that love so that we could understand; the truth that both love and intelligence are effects of what is called the Will of God; and finally the self-evident truth that only through humanity itself can the Divine Plan work out.

Like the Lord’s Prayer, this invocation is a World Prayer which is as all that a prayer is intended to be. It is a prayer for the uplifting of the Human Family out of the mire of materialism and selfishness. The Lord’s Prayer asks nothing for the individual praying it but asks that its benefits be for US and for WE which is why it was given by the Christ as a prayer and as a model over 2000 years ago. This invocation is also attributed to the Christ who, as He promised, has never left us; He, through channels that we do not readily understand, has Himself instructed His disciples to distribute this prayer and to encourage its use as a world prayer and as an aid in preparing the world for His return.

The first three stanzas of this prayer should be understood as reflecting the effective potencies of the Trinity which is God and which, when brought down to an individual level, the Trinity which is Man. His Will, His Love and His Light we should seen as the Potent Powers of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!

• ‡  From The Fifteen Points by Emmet Fox; © 1932 HarperCollins Publishers Inc
• ² from New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com