ON LOVE; PART MLXXXVIII
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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).
We began the last essay with the idea of Unity in Diversity and we used the words of Krishna from the Bhagavad Gîtâ to show how that the separation between the Soul, the Christ Within, and the Life in form exists in words that complement our own ideas of the unction and the anointing. In the words from the Bhagavad Gîtâ we find reference to “material conditioning” which IS but another way of showing that it IS one’s nurturing and indoctrination that define one’s Life in this world while the Soul steadily prompts the consciousness to that change of focus which IS Repentance. At the end of our essay we tried to show how that the words from Paul that we have been studying from Galatians, from Ephesians and from Romans point to both the urgency and the work at hand that must be DONE in order to have “the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).
The Apostle Paul sets out choices for men as he shows us that the desired result of spiritual Truth IS ONLY achieved by the sacrifice of those things that seem important to the man in this world. It IS when one will “make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof” that he will realize that he has “put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ” as we read in Romans and this IS the same reality that we must take from his saying from Galatians that “they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts” (Galatians 5:24). These ideas point the Way to “the glorious liberty of the children of God” and it IS in those things that one must deny that we find clarification and amplification of Jesus’ own words that ARE our trifecta which we repeat here again:
- “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free“ (John 8:31-32).
- “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).
- “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).
Jesus tells us that we should keep His words and it IS this idea that Paul IS building upon as he tells us to focus upon the Good, the Beautiful and the True, the things of God, and to let go of the desires that ARE so powerful in the Life of the man who IS NOT yet awake. Paul shows us as well how that there IS an urgency to awakening, he tells us that “now it is high time to awake out of sleep” and here, in relation to our discussion on the afterlife and reincarnation, we should remember and understand that it IS here in this Earth that this awakening IS possible. Men DO NOT KNOW the time of their demise and it IS in this reality that we should understand that time IS of the essence for the man who Truly seeks the Lord. Repeating the apostle’s words again, we read:
“Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof” (Romans 13:10-14).
We noted in the last several essays that there IS a foundational scriptural idea that has its roots in the reality that the man in this world whose focus IS upon himself and the things of the self, IS NOT the True man; that this form Life exists independently from the Life of the Soul until such time as the Soul IS able to express the Truth and the Presence of God through that form. This foundational idea is that “there is no respect of persons with God” and that He DOES naught to lift one person above another; this IS a Truth that begins as birth and ends at death. With this we must try to see and understand that it IS the Soul that IS the True man and that ALL Souls ARE equal in the eyes of the Lord….ALL ARE part and parcel of God.
With this we should try to see how that the physical and carnal man in the world IS the product of the garnered abilities of the Soul to give himself a form and a place of birth that will enable him to build upon whatsoever spiritual collateral has been accumulated in previous excursions into this world of flesh. This IS a broad brush approach to what IS likely a very complex part of the lives of men and we should try to see that in every appearance of a Soul in this Earth that one IS “made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same” (Romans 8:20)and that he must again overcome whatever “material conditioning” has afflicted him. There IS undoubtedly a purpose here that IS beyond the ken of men who have NOT attained the fullness of His Presence and here we give what glimpse we have of the eternal Life of God and ALL that IS God of whom we are but an infinitesimal part.
The closest that we come to seeing His purpose IS found in Paul’s words about waiting for Union with God which he frames as “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:22-23). The idea of groaning here IS rendered from the Greek word stenazo and to understand the apostle’s intent we need look at the way that it IS used in regard to the inner man which we see as the Soul. Paul uses a form of it here to say that “the whole creation groaneth” and then individually to say that “we ourselves groan within ourselves“.
The difference here IS that in regard to the creation we see those who ARE yet asleep, their Souls groaning for expression in this Earth while individually he speaks of those who “have the firstfruits of the Spirit“. While this DOES NOT explain the idea behind stenazo, it DOES show us that it IS the Soul that DOES groan so and in these ideas from Paul’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians we see again that there IS a spiritual component; we read:
“For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (For we walk by faith, not by sight:) We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labour,a that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him” (2 Corinthians 5:1-9).
In this rather lengthy idea we should be able to glean some additional meaning for stenazo. Paul tells us that he groans for “our house which is from heaven” and then shows us that it IS the Soul, the inner man, that does so saying “we that are in this tabernacle do groan“. Perhaps the better idea for stenazo IS found in Paul’s words here which ARE that the stenazo IS “earnestly desiring“. If we can see this sense of desire apart from the normal carnal ways of desire in this world, we can perhaps see the whole intent of the Soul whose sole objective IS that Union between the True self and his expression in this Earth. In this we can alse see the reality of “our house which is from heaven” as the Presence of God in one’s Earthly Life.
From our limited perspective into such spiritual things we can perhaps see that the adoption, the Union of the man in the world with God, makes the expression of the man the reality of being “the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). And following Paul’s words from Romans above this adoption IS the same as “the redemption of our body” which, if we can see this in terms of Light, IS likely the same as the Master shows us saying “if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light” (Matthew 6:22). Can we see the idea of singular focus upon the things of God in this idea of the single eye? And can we see Jesus showing of the Transfiguration as our example just what it means that “thy whole body shall be full of light“?
And can we see a sense of purpose here to the way that Souls come into this Earth and increasingly add to Light, spiritual Light, as they express the Presence of God through their mortal form. There IS no doubt an effect of this Light pulsating through the whole created world; perhaps even advancing the spiritual nature of those that ARE of the other kingdoms of nature. This IS of course speculation but we should understand here that these ideas ARE infinitely better than some of the doctrinal ideas such as God created man to have fellowship with him or for man to serve Him or to Love Him or, as some claim, for His pleasure. None of these ARE answers.
We look at Life and at reincarnation and at our final Redemption as a part of the Great and Awesome Plan of God through which ALL Life IS steadily evolving the ability to express divinity through whatsoever form that has been chosen. Here perhaps we should try to see that the divine expression of the human race will radiate through and affect ALL of the lesser lives on this planet, lives which ALL share with us the same building blocks of matter….and this can be seen as True individually and corporately. We should try to see also that it IS the Divine Spirit of Life itself in ALL of its many, many aspects and parts that DOES, as Souls, choose their own place in the Grand Scheme of Things which IS the Plan of God.
We should try to see that there IS Life of some form in everything and while the reality of these Lives and how they work IS beyond the ken of the human mind we should be able to at least grasp the idea that since God IS Life, that ALL parts of God ARE Life and therefore alive, albeit NOT in the way we see Life today. In this same context we should see as well that as “God IS love” (1 John 4:8) so ARE ALL parts that compose our God also Love. Here we should see deeper into the idea that Love IS NOT that mental and emotional attraction and attachment that men have deemed it to be; Love IS, on a cosmic level, that Force that IS God and which holds ALL things together in their place. Except for the carnal ways of man and his ability to manipulate Life to his own benefit, this IS True in ALL kingdoms and likely on ALL levels of existence.
It IS in the minds of men, in “in the vanity of their mind” as Paul tells us, that division and faction and separation begin and end and it IS to reject this most human tendency that most ALL scripture speaks. We DO KNOW the intent of Jesus words on Love, and we DO KNOW how that the Apostle John’s writings DO amplify and clarify the Master’s Truths, yet we continue to work around his words through our doctrines and our ‘refusal’ to accept their Truths. While it IS most difficult to “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you“, this IS the ONLY way to be “children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45-46), this IS a most important part of our journey.
We should see here how that Jesus’ saying that by this Love men may be “children of your Father which is in heaven” IS NO different than Paul’s words that tell us about “the glorious liberty of the children of God” nor the Apostle Peter’s words about the “exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). ALL of these ARE the same thing and ALL ARE possible to the man who will Love as agape IS intended to be understood. It IS easy to claim to be the “children of your Father which is in heaven” but it IS ONLY in Love, in keeping His words, that the Truth of this IS revealed which then becomes the realization of the man, a realization that destroys the “the vanity of their mind“.
In the vast complexities of the aspects of Life that men can see and feel there IS little True understanding of just how any of this really works; there ARE theories and men have tried to explain this or that but the actual working out of ALL the parts of Life ARE essentially unknown. Yet in the doctrinal realities that men have adopted, ever changing realities we should add, men not ONLY believe that they understand so much more than they actually DO, they also deny the unseen. In the evolution of knowledge men continually find out that what was once thought of as the final Truth IS superseded by a newer Truth and today scientific advances occur at an almost alarming rate, sometimes building upon existing knowledge and sometimes opening up entirely new avenues of thought.
The reality of an afterlife, and understanding of emotional and mental energy, the discovery of the vast energy network that holds and supports our planet and ALL that live therein ARE but some of these avenues upon which men have yet to tread; but this DOES NOT mean that these things DO NOT exist. These ARE part of the vast mysteries of Life and, as we KNOW from history, men’s understanding of the more physical mysteries has steadily grown…..so will his understanding of the reality of man and his True place in the scheme of things.
Man has a mind but none can Truly explain how this works and how it interfaces with the physical body as they place ALL capacity for thoughts and ideas on the human brain which IS but the transmitter of True thought to the consciousness that IS in the body, a consciousness that continues as the personality of a man after death….after the function of the brain is removed. Nor can any Truly explain that aspect of mind that results in human emotion nor the role of that emotion in the reality of men’s realizations of Truth. And finally men CAN NOT explain the Soul which IS the True man in this world who goes unseen and IS thought by many doctrinal Christians to be the mind, emotions and will of a man, and this because of the inadequacy of understanding the Greek words that ARE rendered as Soul.
We will continue with our thoughts in the next post.
| Aspect |
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.
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.
We repeat here a Quote of the Day that we spent much time with over the course of our essays. In this affirmation we find the Truth of discipleship as we have been ever been expressing and here we can relate our themes of the last few days; “take no thought” for the things of the world and that we approach the Kingdom and discipleship in the nature of the little child, in humbleness, meekness, unashamed in any way and unassuming. The message that this imparts for us today IS that it IS the Soul that is at work in the world of men as it expresses to some degree the purpose, power and the will through Life in this world. These words are from a meditation offered to his students by our Tibetan brother and in which we find greater understanding of the message of the Master. This IS Truly the way of the disciple.
My Soul has purpose, power and will; these three are needed on the Way of Liberation.
My Soul must foster love among the sons of men; this is its major purpose.
I, therefore, will to love and tread the Way of Love. All that hinders and obstructs the showing of the Light must disappear before the purposes of the Soul.
My will is one with the great Will of God;. that Holy Will requires that all men serve. And unto the purposes of the Plan I lend my little will.
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts
- 4 Word Studies in the New Testament; Marvin R Vincent D.D. 2nd edition, 1888
- 2 New Testament Greek Lexicon on BibleStudyTools.com
