IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 137

YES, HE is Talking to YOU! (continued)

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

We ended yesterday with some words about Faith. Faith is a subject that we devoted some time to early on in overall series of posts (In the Words of Jesus (IWJ) parts 28-31) and is a subject that is a very important part of Christianity. It is the source also of much confusion insofar as what it is and how it works and, like other Christian doctrines, Faith is also used as a part of one’s approach to God, His salvation and His Grace. Faith is used by separate denominations in different ways to accomplish one’s goals in life, to obtain healing, for the imputation of righteousness, and as a source for His Grace. To many Faith is a way of believing that they shall receive a thing; be it finances or a new job or whatever there may be in one’s wish life. People are believing FOR things and there are many sermons in the churches today that encourage and even teach this as the Christians way to achieve. It is possible that through the power of faith as ardent desire, and of thought concentrated on a thing, that we may be able have an influence on our achieving or receiving it. This is the subject of another area of Faith than we are covering here today. Some ideas on this aspect of Faith can be found in some of the newer schools of Christian thought. What we believe can have a profound effect on our Earth lives. However, as we have seen in our review of Faith throughout our posts, it is not this type of believing that is the intent of the Master’s teachings and it was likely never among His concerns.

The sayings of Jesus that we left off with yesterday are two which, being from very similar occurrences, should go hand in hand; they both involve the moving of the mountain. One occurs in regard to the healing of a young man possessed and the other in regard to Jesus’ treatment of the fig tree. The common line, the moving of the mountain, in each however gives us a key to the understanding of the parabolic nature of the Master’s sayings in both of these events. We must remember here the words that we have read regarding His teaching in parables and this can be seen as another example of such. Let us take these sayings and make from them a parable called the Parable of Faith and Doubt and explore the meaning that the Master likely had in mind for those of us who would know the “mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” and the “things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world”. Our verses for this parable are:

1. “And Jesus said unto them, Because of your, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove ; and nothing shall be impossible unto you” (Matthew 17:20). 
2. “Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed , and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done” (Matthew 21:21)
3. “For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed , and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith” (Mark 11:23).

The first two are, as you can see, from the same gospel; the third is added because it is the same as the second and because of its use by some in the churches to exemplify the idea that one can get whatever it is that he may pray for. Each of these is saying the same thing regarding the moving of the mountain and one should compliment the other thereby enhancing our ability to discern the true meaning and intent of the Master in saying them. That He did intentionally use these words to try to show us a relationship, we do not know, but it is likely. None of the Master’s words should ever be considered idle, especially in His teachings, and He cautions us regarding idle chatter as well saying: “But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account there of in the day of judgment” (Matthew 12:36) and surely He would not commit the same.

We should understand at the start of this that we must look at the moving of the mountain, whether from its place to another or casting it into the sea, as a God kind of act and not one that can be accomplished by a mortal and a carnal man on this Earth and that He does tell us in these sayings that it is possible for us to do this. What does this mean? Simply that when we can follow in His word, attend solely to the things of the Kingdom in all we say and do, know our True Spirit Self, and live consciously as men in the Kingdom of God then two things will happen for us: we shall be perfect and we shall be as the Master. The list here is not necessarily complete and all things work together; all these build upon each other. Some of the sayings of the Master and the Apostles may help to understand this:

• “The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master” (Luke 6:40).
• “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).
• “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….” (John 14:12).

There should be no question here as to what Jesus is saying to us; we can, indeed it is our goal and the objective of life to, be like the Master. By His saying we achieve this by being perfect “even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” and we should not see this as far fetched nor impossible for if it were He would not have told us. And let us not believe that the word perfect has its meaning in mature as some position it for if it did it could not be used in this context (see IWJ part 41 for additional thoughts on perfect). We may see these sayings as difficult and so they are and, so the Master tells us. We must seek and we must strive. The Apostle John tells us something about being like the Master in this: “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). In this statement we should see the words “when he shall appear” in the proper light and not as though we are waiting for His return. The Greek word phaneroo is translated here as appear; in other versions we will find it otherwise. The lexicon says that phaneroo is: to make manifest or visible or known what has been hidden or unknown, to manifest, whether by words, or deeds, or in any other way; make actual and visible, realised; to make known by teaching; to become manifest, be made known; of a person, expose to view, make manifest, to show one’s self, appear; to become known, to be plainly recognised, thoroughly understood, who and what one is², which should paint the right picture of the intent of the word. We can see this as our Christ Within manifesting His power through our conscious personality; in this we can consciously see Him as He is; we can then realize our essential nature and take on that new nature in all its Christ like glory.

So we should have here established that we can move mountains because we can be as the Master and we can do the works of the Master and more. We need only to believe; first that Jesus the Christ could move them and second that we can be as He is. To be here as He is and to do as He did is a matter of Faith as Jesus tells us but we need to connect all the dots. If we can do the first and second points here, believe that Christ could and that we can be as Him, then the last criteria is just to understand the nature and the reality of Faith and believing which brings us back to the parable. Jesus tell us that we need to “have faith as a grain of mustard seed” in the one part and that we must “have faith, and doubt not” in the other; let us explore just what this means.

Looking at the bible commentaries regarding the idea of the mustard seed we find little. John Gill, as does the common opinion, relates the mustard seed in its size to the ‘size’ of one’s faith. He says, among other similar points, that: when our Lord only means, that if his apostles had ever so small a degree of faith in exercise, which might be compared for its smallness to this least of seeds, such an effect as he after mentions would follow. Oddly, the other commentators that we normally use do not mention this idea of faith at all as regards the mustard seed. Now the Master says here pretty clearly that “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed” and not faith as large or as small as a mustard seed. We apparently get the idea that His reference is to size from His other sayings regarding a mustard seed; He says in another place that “The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: Which indeed is the least of all seeds” (Matthew 13:31-32). This reference to how the Kingdom of God can grow from the seed is the subject of another post; for now we can take from this that this is the source for the understanding that the mustard seed is small and we can assume here that this idea has then transferred to the saying that we are discussing about Faith.

What should we take from this? Again, this is a parabolic saying as are most all of what the Master gives to us and in this, hidden behind the visible idea of the smallness of the seed, is an actual idea of the meaning. This meaning can be achieved by virtue of this saying alone and its wording of  as a grain of mustard seed and it can be enhanced and confirmed by the second saying regarding doubt. Within the seed is a tree; from its perspective, the seed knows this. There is no doubt on the part of the seed that it will, if planted in good soil and properly nourished, become a tree. This is what it means to be as the seed: that we KNOW, without doubt, that we can do those things that the Master said. This is beyond faith as we would understand it; it is beyond believing; IT IS KNOWING. This is Faith according to the Master. Now we have encountered the word believe before in our posts and have found that it can and does have a variety of uses; in this case however it means what it says and, when added to the idea of doubting nothing, it takes on new and immense proportions. IT IS KNOWING to such a degree that there is no thought given to it at all; we just KNOW. This is the nature of the seed; no doubt whatsoever. Now for most all of us this is a difficult thing to accomplish and thankfully so; if it were a simple thing then we would all be moving mountains around. To have this kind of KNOWING is akin to being able to move the mountain. Yet we must never lose Faith in the fact that we can have this and we can do these things when we become as our Master. And think not that we are not able for we are by His commandment destined to do so; there is no idle word in His saying of “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect“. This is our destiny.

The Apostle James picks up on this in his saying regarding asking for Wisdom saying: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and up braideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering . For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.  For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways” (James 1:5-8). We should find several things here; first that we are asking for Wisdom and not for houses or cars or finances. Second that we “ask in faith, nothing wavering” which is much the same as the Master says as “have faith, and doubt not“. And third we should see that James is confirming to us that if we have doubt that we will not likely receive what it is that we are looking for; Wisdom. Now we may say that this should work the same in all that we desire and ask for but this is just comfort talk for us. When the Master spoke the words above He was speaking to His disciples; do we think that Jesus would be speaking to those who are to carry His message to the world about the trifling things of carnal life? When James speaks, he is speaking to believing Jews and from the tone of his words it looks much like the same message as the Master. In the Wisdom of God we can find all things necessary to bring us to His Kingdom.

Bringing this down to a personal level, where it was headed from the start, we need to look at what we believe and realize our Faith in believing. What we set forth in these posts is contrary to much of the prevalent beliefs in the church today. The church, for the most part, instructs their people in the precepts of each denomination and these pastors and ministers and believers do believe what they know and what they teach. Similarly, we believe what it is that we are espousing as well. We believe that we hear from our Inner Man, our Christ Within and this is our guidance but they believe similarly, perhaps in different terms, that they are hearing from God. So how, in the context of these scriptures do we discern what is right and what is wrong if we all, presumably hearing from the same source, believe, and feel that we KNOW, different things from the same verses and overall theme? The answer is found in the words of the Master and in the doing of the things that He says to do. Without doing them in accordance with the ways of the world. We cannot judge another’s motives which is the rightful meaning of judge not; we cannot see into their hearts; we can only see the outward effects of what they say and what they think; the fruit.

The greatest test of all doctrine is in Love as seen through the eyes of the Master and confirmed by His Apostles; we will pick this up here in the next post.