IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 1205

ON LOVE; PART DCCXCIV

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GoodWill IS Love in Action

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FIRST IS THE GREAT COMMANDMENTS: “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).

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WHAT THEN IS LOVE? 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. While this IS from an older definition of Charity, which IS rendered in the King James Bible from the same Greek word agape which IS generally rendered as Love, we should amend our own definition here to include the idea that in the reality of Love a man will accord to ALL men ALL things that he would accord to himself and to say that Love IS our thoughts and attitude of the equality of ALL men regardless of their outward nature or appearance…that ALL ARE equally children of Our One God

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PLUS THE EVER IMPORTANT AND HIGH IDEAL TAUGHT TO US BY THE CHRIST: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12)

In our last essay we discussed how that the idea of the Presence of God in one’s Life can be called in many different ways from the words of the Master and the writings of His apostles. Below, in our sayings from the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of John, we have the idea of His manifesting Himself to the man who will keep His words as well at the idea that the reciprocal action of DOING will result in the realization of the Father and the Son making their abode with such a man. ALL of this IS the grace of God from our perspective as men in the world, the individual grace that comes to each man whose focus has changed from the things of the world to the things of God. ALL of this IS the realization of His Presence as this IS the revelation that comes to the consciousness of a man from his own Soul, his own Christ and God Within, which IS ever in contact with the Godhead. While many whose religious foundation IS in the doctrines of the various denominations and sects of Christianity believe that Jesus comes into the Life of the man who believes that He IS Lord, the deeper Truths are here for us in His own words; we read again:

“He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me” (John 14:21-24).

It is by the same way of Life, the same sense of focus upon the things of God and the same reality of striving to keep His words that we find the Master’s Truth regarding the ability of a man to enter the Kingdom of God, which IS the deeper reality of being “born again“, and which IS the equivalent as well to the status of being His True disciple. In this IS our own premise that if the cause of each of these ideas IS the same as the cause of having His Presence, then ALL of these ideas ARE equal and we can see in this that the fullness of His Presence, IS one’s attainment of the Kingdom of God and IS the reality of discipleship; and it IS in these ideas that one IS “born again” as to be so IS to be accounted worthy of His Kingdom. And there ARE yet many more ideas that come from the Master that work together with these ideas of His Presence as well as many terms used by His apostles such as “born of God“, “be in Christ“, “to make in himself of twain one new man” and the deeper ideas behind the Apostle Paul’s words about that the one who has “put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:24). ALL of these ideas ARE in parallel to the reality of discipleship and of having the realization of His Presence in one’s everyday thoughts and attitudes and it IS by the measure of this realization, the measure of this grace, that one expresses the same and thereby gains yet more and progresses until he has reached the fullness of divine realization as a man in this world.

And the fullness of this realization IS the reality of the Master’s teaching on True discipleship; while one may see himself as a disciple along the way, the reality of this IS NOT reached until the totality of one’s focus IS upon the things of God. And, as this IS True, it IS also True that the fullness of His Presence, the fullness of one’s realization of the Kingdom of God and the reality of being “born again” ARE tied to this same totality of focus which IS the ultimate reality of His words saying: “Take no thought for your life” (Matthew 6:25). While this IS a difficult thing for many to see and even more difficult to understand, the entirety of His words IS colored by this same theme as He shows us what IS that should be our focus, as He shows us the division between our attending to the carnal versus attending to the spiritual, as He shows us the dichotomy of “God and mammon“. When we can see that His words saying that to “enter into the kingdom of heaven” one must “doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21) and His words telling us that “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed” (John 8:31) have the same force and effect and that both ARE one’s realization of the fullness of His Presence, we can then see the ultimate Truth in His other words regarding the fullness of one’s focus:

• In the Gospel of Matthew we read this totality of focus as: “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it” (Matthew 10:37-39). We should see in these words the essence of the Great Commandment which says that we “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“, and while many may NOT see the reality of discipleship nor the Kingdom in this idea of being “worthy of me“. In this idea of being worthy we should see the reality of His Presence, that unless one IS totally focused upon the things of God, the fullness of the Presence of God IS NOT revealed nor realized by the man in this world. We should also see the deeper Truths behind the idea of taking one’s cross, that this IS not related to the cross of Jesus’ crucifixion as many believe but rather to the apparent burden of keeping His words which IS the Truth of the man who would “followeth after” Him.
• ALL of this IS clarified for somewhat in the Apostle Luke’s version of this same idea which we read as: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple“. As we have discussed many times, we must be careful to understand the reality of the Greek word that IS here rendered as hate; there would be NO encouragement from the Master to hate, especially ones own family, as this IS generally understood but rather that we should simply Love them less which again IS in accord with the words of the Great Commandment above. Luke DOES NOT leave us to wonder this point however as he shows us the Master’s words on the cost of discipleship and how that one be willing to DO as IS required and as he ends these saying by giving us the Master’s words saying “whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26-27, 33)

In these words from the Master we should see the totality of focus that must become the thoughts and the attitudes of the man who seeks the fullness of discipleship, the reality of the Kingdom of God and the expression of His Presence in this world of men. We must remember here that this comes upon a man by measure and by degree and that this inflow of grace IS in direct proportion to one’s focus and one’s expression of the Love and the Power of his own Soul as a man grows in spiritual stature from the fledgling aspirant to the True disciple who can say as the Master shows us and tells us saying, “I have overcome the world” (John 10:30). And this the Apostle John shows us in like terms to the Master who teaches us that to be “born again” IS to be accounted worthy of the Kingdom of God as he tells us that “whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world“. While many attribute this saying to the simplicity of believing in the common sense based upon John’s follwoing words saying “Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 5:4, 5), we should understand from the totality of the words of the Master and His apostles that the reality of this believing IS that one will keep His words; that this IS the ONLY way to the reality of His Presence and ALL the parallel ideas that ARE contained in the deeper Truths that this word provides. It IS here in this place of discerning the Truth of the message of the Master and His apostles that we must come to grips with the basic Truth behind the Greek word pisteuo and the kindred word pistis which are rendered as believe and as faith but which mean, in the spiritual sense, that sense of KNOWING that comes in the revelations and the realizations of Truth which IS the grace of God and His Presence in one’s Life.

ALL of this, the Kingdom, His Presence, the KNOWING of the Truth as it IS revealed and realized in one’s Life, IS the individual reward, the wages if you will, for the man who will DO as the Master says according to those sayings above where it IS rather clear that there IS a reciprocal relationship between one’s DOING, one’s keeping His words, and the Presence and the Love of God in one’s Life. And this IS the reality offered by the Master who asks the rhetorical question “why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). It IS into this question that we can insert any number of ideas in place of calling Him Lord; we can see here the idea of why believe that I am Lord and God and then not DO, or why confess that IS am the Lord and the Son of God and then “do not the things which I say?” It IS this individual sense of grace, this individual realization of the Presence of God, that IS spoken about in that saying that we carried as our Quote of the Day as we discussed our ideas on His grace as His Presence; in these words from the Bhagavad-Gita, that most ancient Hindu text, we find both the global and the individual sense of grace that we have been speaking of. In the most basic Truth that “God dwells in the inner part of every man” we have the global sense of grace, the inner God as part and parcel of the One God and we have the reality that the individual realization of this grace IS difficult to KNOW as “but few know how to find Him“. The point here IS also that this realization comes to the man who keeps His words which IS painted for us in most practical terms saying that it IS “The man who sacrifices his desires and his works to the Beings from whom the principles of everything stem“. In the plurality of this idea of God we should see our own plurality of the Trinity and understand that until such realization of Truth IS ours we CAN NOT Truly discern the deeper meanings intended by either and, while many Christians DO NOT see past their own judgmental doctrinal approaches to God, there ARE great Truths in these words and in the words of most every World Religious teaching. The sacrifice noted here IS the same as our own view of the required change in the focus of one’s Life from the things of the self, one’s desires for the the things of the world, to a new and ever growing focus on the things of God and this IS the reality of keeping His words; we read the whole saying again:

Thou carriest within thee a sublime Friend whom thou knowest not. For God dwells in the inner part of every man, but few know how to find Him. The man who sacrifices his desires and his works to the Beings from whom the principles of everything stem, and by whom the Universe was formed, through this sacrifice attains perfection. For one who finds his happiness and joy within himself, and also his wisdom within himself is one with God. And, mark well, the soul which has found God is freed from rebirth and death, from old age and pain, and drinks the water of Immortality.—Bhagavad-Gita

In this we see the global and the individual sense of grace in much the same way as we see this in our own scriptures. We see how that the Providence of God IS His grace which effects ALL men in this world without any sense of “respect to persons” and we see how that it IS the realizations of the Truth of our own divinity and our own existence in this world that IS the individual grace that IS revealed. And there IS a deeper sense of global grace as well which we see under the words of John who says that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16) and again in his own epistle that “God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9). This IS the global reality of our grace as the movement by God to assure the reality of His Awesome Plan that ALL “shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). In the Life, the teaching and the example of the Master we have the grace of God in this world of men in the form of a global prompting to the Good, the Beautiful and the True and, as we ignore and push aside the promptings of our own Souls and Christ Within, so the world has largely ignored and pushed aside the Truth of His Presence 2000 years ago,

It IS in this Christmas season, a season that has been overwhelmed by the carnal ways of men and turned into a practice that IS much like the money-changers in the gospel story, that the reality that “God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him” should be our primary focus. Amid the stories of His Virgin Birth and the way that this had come about under the auspices of divine intent that circumvented the ways of the world that would have prevented His Advent, we have the birth of the Christ in this world of men and the reality of the “only begotten Son” in whom “dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9) which IS the reality of the Power of the Godhead expressed though a person in this world. It IS this that we should celebrate in the most spiritual sense as we realize the Truth of His Presence in the world then and in each of us today and understand that it IS His teaching that we each express this same sense of divinity by measure as we strive towards the fullness that can “overcometh the world“. It IS in recognition of ALL the ways that the world views the Master, as King, as Lord and as Savior, among other ways of acclaiming His Nature, that the reality of DOING as He says should fall upon us and replace the stale and unworkable pronouncements of doctrines. It IS in this Christmas season that we should remember His words saying “”why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46) and strive to be “doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22)/

MERRY CHRISTMAS

We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.

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.

Repeating a Quote of the Day from the past that has some significance in relation to what we are discussing here, that the Kingdom of God and therefore God is within us ALL and that it IS His Presence which a man realizes by measure as he begins his journey to the Kingdom of God. Here Lord Tennyson poetically tells us just how close God Truly IS and how it is that we touch Him

Speak to Him, thou, for He hears,
and Spirit with Spirit can meet
Closer is He than breathing,
and nearer than hands and feet.

(Alfred, Lord Tennyson 1809–1892)

From the poem The Higher Pantheism which puts forth the authors spiritual belief. Whether we agree with him or not, the quote if spiritually perfect for all of Christianity as well as any other world religion.

The thought behind the idea above IS NOT unlike that which we have been carrying as our Quote of the Day for many essays; It IS in the closeness that Lord Tennyson shows us that we should see the idea that “God dwells in the inner part of every man” which we read in the previous Quote of the Day. For us this saying and the previous one show us the closeness of the spiritual self to the Father and then too the closeness of the spiritual self with the personality of man. Men may like to think of God as something outside and above but the reality, as we have seen in so many of the sayings of the Master, is that God is with us and in us and we need only to let ourselves be drawn and to focus upon Him. And, if we can use these words from the Gospel of Thomas here we can perhaps see much: “When you come to know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will realize that you are the children of the living Father“

Let the peace of God rule in your hearts