IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 619

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON LOVE; PART CCVIII

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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“Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: 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. Do not err, my beloved brethren” (James 1:12-16)

Power problems with our server in CA caused us to publish yesterday’s post this morning and set us a bit behind on starting today’s essay.

We ended yesterday with this next parable by the Master regarding the nature of the Kingdom of God after spending much of our time discussing the Parable of the Mustard Seed. We measured the simple message that this parable has for us who can see past the doctrines, against some of the ideas of the interpreters and the commentators that we regularly read. For us the reality is in the direct comparison of the Kingdom with the mustard seed which gives us the understanding that the Kingdom must be sown in the Life of the man in form and this by his heeding the promptings of his own Soul to the Good, the Beautiful and the True. We were brought here by our prior discussions on Repentance, Transformation, Redemption and Transfiguration and we can see in this the sowing of the seeds of divinity in the carnal Life of the man in the world. The Truth of Repentance IS that the man makes a conscious decision to attend to the promptings and to change his perceptive on Life, to change his focus from being on the self and the world to being on God. From here this seed must grow and this is the nature of the Parable of the Mustard Seed, that once it is planted in the Life of the man in form it will grow into the magnificence that the Master affords this tree and this likely as compared to the size of the seed. And, as we understand His words, as this tree, the realization of the Kingdom in the Life of the man, grows, it IS able to shelter others to help and assist others to break their chains and realize Truth. Additionally we see in the various versions of the parable in the three gospels that it does not matter how the seed is sown, it only matters that it IS sown which can be for us a testament to the reality that it does not matter by what Earthly path one finds the Truth and can realize his divinity. Much of this reality is lost in the doctrines of the churches and, as we noted in the last essay, this is largely because the church has never understood the True import of the Master’s words when He says to the Pharisees and to us today that: “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20-21).

It is our premise and our understanding that of the sayings of the Master that are left for us in rather plain language, this IS one of the more important as it tells us how it is that the reality of Life in form is inclusive of that Life of the Soul which IS within. The Master tells us in every which way that this Life in the world is unimportant, that it should not be the focus of Life but rather the Kingdom and the Soul or the Life of the Spirit must be the focus. By one pungent example we can see His message in this regard: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt , and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:19-21). Our basic understanding of the reality of the Kingdom within gives us an different approach to this saying and others like it as we KNOW that we should not be caring about the temporal things of the world but we should be focused upon the Inner Life, the Life of the Soul and His expression on the Earth. In this parabolic idea of treasure we should see that the reference is not only to the possessions and wealth of the Earth for in the Kingdom none of this exists; we should see in the Master’s example of treasure that His reference is to what is important to the man in form…..his Life therein and the self, or the Soul and the things of the Kingdom of God as described in the Master’s words and the words of His apostles.

And in this Light we relate the Parable of the Mustard Seed to our ideas on Transformation and this from our perspective that from that time of decision that time of choosing the Inner Life over the outer, we begin that process of Transforming our outward expression and our thoughts and feelings away from the world and onto the Soul and the expression of the Good, the Beautiful and the True through our lives in the world. And this is the reality of the parable, that the Kingdom must grow in our lives as our expression through our carnal self and to the world and this IS the Transformation which must grow in Life to that state where we can say that we ARE Transformed and can express this state to the world. This IS born again and this IS the reality of True righteousness, this IS our Presence in the Kingdom of God or rather the Presence of he Kingdom in the Life in form and this IS discipleship, and we must ever remember that these are ALL accomplished by our keeping of His words and our living Life in form according to them. And, as we can see in these words, this is the growing of the mustard seed, the Kingdom, in the Life of the man in the world and we can say here that when the seed is the tree, the man IS Transformed and ready for the yet higher state of Redemption.

We should remember that these are ideas of Repentance, Transformation, Redemption and Transfiguration are merely words and, although they can help us to gauge our own progress toward the ultimate goal of Transfiguration they should not become points of concern for us as aspirants. At what point in the growing of the Transformation a man can be considered a disciple is both unclear and unimportant as to strive for the title IS contrary to the essence of being a disciple and so, KNOWING not the particular places in this stream of stages, that one can be this or that, fades into the reality of our own mission which is to keep His words and to focus our Life upon the things of God; in this, ALL other things will take care of themselves. Having said this we should understand that the more that we KNOW about the process of divine expression in the world, the better suited we will be to accomplish this and hence our many words on these subjects that tie our ideas to the words of the Master. We repeat and clarify our understanding of these ideas before we move on to the next parable;

• Repentance is that decision to change, it is the beginning of the True spiritual journey of the man in form as he senses and heeds the prompting of the Soul who seeks to fulfill his own destiny of living fully through the form and the personality in the world. In this the man overcomes the effects of the illusion and the glamour of Life in from as he senses the reality emanating from his own Soul; this may be a short lived experience or it may have the required lasting  effect and we can experience this concept of Repentance many times as we can decide to follow the Path to the Kingdom and then, like the man who is the thorny ground in the Parable of the Sower, we can be pulled back by the things of the world.
• Transformation is the implementation of the decision or the choice made in Repentance. This is what we have likened to the Parable of the Mustard Seed as in Transforming there is the growth of this change in the Life of the man in form as he continually strives to keep the words of the Master. In this we should see that we do not normally wake up one day Transformed but rather we grow into this state by building upon the foundation that we have built or have come to this incarnation with. If we can see this idea of Transforming as the Kingdom of God growing in one’s Life in form then we can see the reality of the parable and can then understand that when this Transformation IS complete, when mustard tree is full grown, the Kingdom of God becomes the expression of the man and this  is the expression of the Soul.
• Redemption is our next stage and one that we as aspirants strive toward. We have said that in Transformation the man in form is thinking, feeling and doing more and more according the Master’s words; he is coming to KNOW which is for us the ultimate of believing and of faith and this KNOWING is, from our little perspective, a never ending journey in that Grand Pilgrimage to our ultimate ONENESS with God. When we are Transformed, when this stage IS complete, we have then the aspirant as the disciple, able to fully express his essential divinity through his form and we can look at this as Paul tells us saying that “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2) which tells us that being Transformed we are able to “prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God“. This of course then sets us upon this next stage of Redemption which creates in the Earth the presence of a one who is actually doing the word of God and has become His Transformed Life. This is a stage of which we KNOW little except to KNOW that from the perspective Life in form itself, this is our objective. The Apostle Paul tells us in his saying to the Romans about the reality of Life that as we are being “delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” we are as well “waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:21, 23). In this we understand that at some place along this line of Repentance, Transformation and Redemption we come into that greater realization of the Kingdom of God where we can KNOW that we have entered “in at the strait gate” (Matthew 7:13, Luke 13:24); where we can KNOW that we ARE His disciples. And, it is here at the threshold of Redemption that the Soul has that full control of the Life in form, it is here that the duality no longer exists. This word rendered as Redemption can be a confusing one as there are two words that are rendered the same in the New Testament. As we previously discussed, the word used here in Romans is cited by Vincent saying that: The distinction must be carefully maintained between this word and lutron ransom. The Vulgate, by translating both redemptio, confounds the work of Christ with its result. Christ’s death is nowhere styled lutrwsiv redemption. His death is the lutron ransom, figuratively, not literally, in the sense of a compensation; the medium of the redemption, answering to the fact that Christ gave Himself for us ⁴. From this we can separate the idea of Redemption here from its use in regard to the death of the Master. Can we see this Redemption as the buying back by the Soul of his consciousness that has heretofore been used by the body nature, lost in the illusion and the glamour, the vanity of the world, and that the price of this is one’s continued good works and right focus which lead us to discipleship and the Kingdom? In this we have the proper use of the word in our English language which means Repurchase of captured goods or prisoners; the act of procuring the deliverance of persons or things from the possession and power of captors by the payment of an equivalent; ransom; release; as the redemption of prisoners taken in war; the redemption of a ship and cargo. Deliverance from bondage, distress, or from liability to any evil or forfeiture, either by money, labor or other means ¹. Looking at this from the perspective of the words from Paul to the Romans above we find that we ARE in need of being “delivered from the bondage of corruption” and this deliverance, this repurchase at the price of keeping His words IS Redemption. The lexicon gives us a similar idea and if we treat the word ransom in this definition as Vincent tells us above we should get the same idea of repurchase and the deliverance of our consciousness from the body nature as we take it away from the ways of the world; the lexicon tells us: a releasing effected by payment of ransom; redemption, deliverance; liberation procured by the payment of a ransom ². 
• Transfiguration is the last stage that we are aware of in our human state. While there is also the Resurrection, we do not see this as a human undertaking or a thing that has to do with our form Life in the world and this we have discussed before and will discuss again as we deal with the Resurrection of our Lord for Easter. There is not much that we can say about Transfiguration except that we understand this as the final chapter of our experience in form in the world. In the Transfiguration is the perfection that the Master tells us to achieve, and, as we have previously said, perfection IS an allied word to attaining the Kingdom and discipleship as ALL are accomplished by keeping His words. In this it is difficult to see where Redemption ends and Transfiguration begins and perhaps this is an indistinguishable difference from our perspective here today. That there is a difference is found in the reality that the Master was Transfigured and we KNOW that we are the same as He is in ALL things; and, we should consider here that the Master had no need for Redemption as He is ever expressive of “all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9) which is something that we must accomplish through our lives here on this Earth. Perhaps we can view this Transfiguration as our final accomplishment in our Life in form, the final overcoming of ALL things and a state in which the body itself and its mental and emotional personality components become superfluous as we can live Life beyond their scope and find that final essence of KNOWING that we speak about as our ability to move the mountain. We do KNOW that the body is overwhelmed by the Spirit and spiritual forces as is reported by the attending apostles who tell us:
  • “his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them” (Mark 9:3)
  • “and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light” (Matthew 17:2).
  • “And as he prayed , the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering” (Luke 9:29).

We will continue with our thoughts in the next post along with this next example of the nature of the Kingdom of God from the parable that we intended to begin with today plus the Master’s other criteria for discipleship below.

“So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; And should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come” (Mark 4;26-29)

• “Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed” (John 8:31).
• “Herein is my Father glorified , that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples” (John 15:8).

Aspect of God	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

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 see them as the Potent Powers of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit albeit on a much smaller, microcosmic, scale.

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!

• ¹ Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1828 and 1913
• ⁴ Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
• ² New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com