IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 729

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON LOVE; PART CCCXVIII

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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humble in thought, lowly of heart in attitude and meek in action

We take our words above from two sayings by the Master; one that reveals His character as meek and “lowly in heart” and the other that uses a word that IS very similar to this lowly, humble, which tells us of one of the criteria in our own lives for attaining the Kingdom of God. These ARE:

•  “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls” (Matthew 11:29).
  
• “Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven”  (Matthew 18:3;4).

While we did discuss these verses in the last essay, they deserve an additional look here today as we only addressed the ideas of humble and meek in the last essay while these verses tell us of the results of being such. When the Master tells us that we should “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me” we should understand that He is instructing us to do a certain thing and this thing IS hidden in this word yoke. To understand this better, we should look at the entire saying which comes after He did “upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not” and then later thanked the Father in prayer saying: “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes” (Matthew 11:20, 25). Here we should understand that “the wise and the prudent” are such who live after the ways of the world as IS clarified by the Apostle Paul who tells us that “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness” (1 Corinthians 3:19). We should see this word rendered as craftiness has as a part of its meaning: prudence, skill, in undertaking and carrying on affairs ² according to the lexicon which tells us also that the word rendered as prudent can mean intelligent ² as well and so the link here can be easily established. In the tenor of the whole of this chapter we should understand that it IS the mysteries that ARE “these things” which ARE hidden. And what are we to understand from the idea of babes? This Greek word nepios is alternately translated as child and the lexicon calls part of the the meaning here as little child ² which idea we see as a part of the criteria for the Kingdom in the next verses; that we must become as “little children“. Seeing how these sayings are so related we continue with the Master’s words as He says that: “All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him” (Matthew 11:27) and here we should try to see that this revelation from the Son is that same from the Soul of each man who is so focused and who can approach this as a child….one who will “humble himself as this little child“.

Finally we have the Master’s word that we are discussing as He says: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30). First the idea of “come unto” is not in a physical way as they are already there within hearing of His words and, in the overall context of His words, we should try to see the idea from above where He is upbraiding the whole of the cities that would not Repent. In this context we can see that the Master is speaking against the rulers of the people who are “the wise and the prudent” and calling to “Come unto me” those who can still be seen as babes, who have not yet been corrupted by the ways of the rulers and of the cities that they controlled. Now while commentary may believe that those addressed are those who laboring and burdened under sin, and there are likely some such in the crowd, the context would suggest to us that it IS those who are struggling to stay away from sin, the babes of the previous verses who may have been the more Truly righteous in that day and who would attend to His words. We do KNOW that there are people such as these among those regular people, those who ARE NOT “the wise and the prudent“, as there ARE many who are drawn to Him who are not harlots and publicans. The rest IS of course what we would envision in a relationship with the Master, a relationship which can bring naught but Peace. Again we should understand that language and translation do inhibit our ability to see these ideas in the way they are intended in the original Greek. It IS a part of this call to Peace that the Master tells the people, all people within hearing, not only a select few, as a generality and an invitation to ALL, which IS NOT directly addressed to any, that they CAN “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me” and in these words we should NOT see a burden or even the idea of a yoke of submission ⁴ as Vincent suggests may apply here. We should rather see the idea of being joined with the Master which would follow upon the idea of “Come unto me” which we left above as to what it IS NOT; here we should try to see that the call is to those who CAN leave behind the ways of the world and join unto the Master, be yoked with Him, and this in Repentance which IS what the “the wise and the prudent” of the upbraided cites would NOT DO. Can we see the True sense here when we view the entire section of teaching. Following then is the idea of “learn of me” which IS of course that they should learn of His teachings and His precepts which He follows with those words about His very Nature which we discussed in the last post, that He IS “meek and lowly in heart“. Here we find the Truth that to learn of Him and His precepts and His way of Love in meekness and humility, that one would “find rest unto your souls“. As we have oftimes discussed, this Greek word psuche which IS translated here as Soul IS a very confusing word to rightly understand from the Greek usage of it; It is alternately translated in our King James Version as Life, mind and heart with Soul used fifty eight percent of the time and Life forty percent. Of course, with this we should note here that the idea of Soul to the translators, commentators and writers of doctrine ARE NOT the same as we view this idea of the Soul as the True man that gives Life to the form in the world and with this we should likely see psuche as Life most ALL of the time and that IS Life here in this world. We should then understand that He IS offering rest in this Life in form, Peace as we say above, to those that can accept His invitation and come to Him and be yoked to Him by their own actions in Love, in meekness and in  humility 

In the end here we see the reality and the Truth of the Way, that it IS Truly easy once that decision of Repentance has been made; being yoked, joined, to the Master IS expressing the Power and the Love of the Christ Within in this world and there IS no longer that burden of living Life in the illusion and the glamour of this world; there is only the burden of being the server as IS the Master, a burden which IS light. For us the central point here is the Nature of the Christ which He tells us IS “I am meek and lowly in heart” and it IS these words that we discussed yesterday where we saw rather clearly His examples of this meekness in His teaching to us on how to behave in Love and we saw His instruction on this idea of “lowly in heart” in that idea of humble that He teaches us in the second saying at the top of our essay. We also see His own actions in meekness as He never does anything against anyone even when provoked and when He KNOWS that by His own Power that He could effect great change. Regarding then this second verse at the top where we see clearly the teaching on our own ability to “humble himself as this little child“, we should note that the idea of little child which we see in our words above as well is not meant to convey that we should be as children but that we should receive Him and His instruction AS as child who has NOT yet allowed the ways of the world to corrupt his mind and his emotions and create in him that sense of self where, in the vanity, the illusion and the glamour, one loses sight of the Good, the Beautiful and the True. There is no way to KNOW at what point a child loses this innocence and gains that sense of self as this varies person by person and this IS likely why the Master calls out “little child” and babe so that we can understand that this humble “little child” is found before that loss of innocence and IS what we should be AS. Beyond this there is likely no significance to the idea of children in these sayings and we should note that the next verse after those we are discussing from above IS “And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me” (Matthew 18:5). We should try to see here the play on words that comes with our understanding of the use of the “little child” in His teaching; here, the Master is NOT speaking about children but those that do “humble himself as this little child“, and while some doctrinal commentary suggests that He is speaking about the meek and humble disciples, He IS speaking about much more. He is speaking about the Repentant and those striving and about ALL who attend to His call from the previous verses that we discussed. We should see this in the idea of being converted which should be seen in the same light as Repentance in this context and we should recognize that this ability to “humble himself as this little child” IS but a part of attaining the Kingdom and a step along the way.

We should see this same idea of little children representing the disciple and the aspirant in the Apostle’s words as well in one verse from the Master in John’s Gospel where we read His words to His disciples “Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I say to you” (John 13:33) but this language may be the apostle’s invention as these words are use elsewhere and frequently in John’s writings.

Our point here today is to take the ideas from yesterday and put them into their proper backdrop, their right context, so that we can understand the vital nature of these teachings on being meek, and humble and “lowly in heart” as these are essential characteristics of the disciple and that they are the very Nature of the Christ. These then ARE the Nature of the Soul as well, the Nature of the Christ Within, and it IS these ideals that are a part of that expression of the Love and the Power of the Soul in the world of men by the disciple and the aspirant. And, again, it is these ideals that grow within the man in the world as He Transforms his Life in form from being “conformed to this world” to being “transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). It is this Transformation that begins with Repentance and grows as the Kingdom in the heart of the man in the world.

humble in thought, lowly of heart in attitude and meek in action

We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.

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.

May the Power of the One True God flow through His group of all true servers;

May the Love of the Christ characterize the lives of all who seek to aid in His work;

May I fulfill my part in the one work through self-forgetfulness, harmlessness and right speech

(Evening Reflection)

Today’s Quote of the Day is a repeat of a previous quote and is also featured in our Prayers and Meditations section with some additional comments regarding it. It appears today again because is sets in order our understanding that it is the Power of God that flows through those that serve Him and in this Power is the Love that can heal. When the Love of the Christ can become the character of one’s Life then this Power can be made available in a predictable way and the precepts of the last line will become our mode of conduct.

This is a prayer for the Power of God to be made 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, harmlessness and right speech.

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!

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