IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 138

YES, HE is Talking to YOU! (continued)

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

We ended yesterday talking about Faith; the Faith that can move mountains. This is a Faith that has nothing wavering and which holds us in a place where we will doubt not. This is the  faith as a grain of mustard seed and it is with this Faith that all things are possible. This is the Faith that is KNOWING and is far beyond the ordinary idea of believing. As we closed yesterday we questioned how we can KNOW that what we believe is a greater Truth than what someone else believes as both we and they believe to the point of knowing. What is it when we believe a thing that is not true and have our lives revolve around that belief? This is a difficult question but one that we will spend a bit of time on trying to answer.

It is not uncommon to hear one say that ‘the Lord told me to do such and such’ or ‘God spoke to me and told me such and such’ or that ‘God showed me this or that’. It is in this type of atmosphere that we will find many who firmly believe what it is that they hear or see in regard to a single occurrence or in regard to their Faith life overall. The Apostle John, while telling us to beware of ‘false prophets’ or adversaries to the new found Christian belief (antichrist in John’s words), tells us that “the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming. If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him” (1 John 2:27-29). We should understand here that just as it is not uncommon to hear, as we say above, from God, that this hearing is tied to the idea of anointing and a belief that one is in touch with God; that His anointing is upon us. This then is the equation for us all; we believe that we are in touch with God in some way and that He speaks to us and that what we believe is the absolute truth and therefore WE KNOW.

Of course the problem here is that there is but ONE GOD and but one message possible from that ONE GOD and if we were all truly anointed and truly hearing from our ONE GOD then we would all be receiving the SAME MESSAGE. We know however that this is not the case; the messages vary as well as the presumed intent of His sayings and many interpretations of His sayings are molded by men to fit the precepts of any denomination or sect. From infant baptism to marriage and divorce; from the function of women in the church to the idea of the sanctity of priests and bishops; from vows of poverty to teaching on prosperity, opinions and doctrines abound. All believe that they are right and that they KNOW and can show us the scriptures and the writings of the church fathers to uphold their beliefs.

We ended yesterday’s post with this thought: The greatest test of all doctrine is in Love as seen through the eyes of the Master and confirmed by His Apostles and it is here we will go today. First the importance of the thought and idea of Love in this Great Creation of God which we can glean from so many of the words that are in the scriptures both New and Old. We should remember that our view of Love, which we believe is in line with the Master’s thoughts, is a universal and all encompassing Love for all. It is here we will begin with some of the most used words on Love from the Gospel of John and then some allied sayings so to build upon our understanding of the Love of God:

• The Master tells us that: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16). From this we should see not only the uniqueness of Jesus but more importantly that the Christ is a perfected aspect of the Godhead, the fullness of the potency of God, which was sent to dwell among us and to suffer as a mortal man. Sent to bring the full potency of that Love to us in the form of Jesus the Christ and to teach us of the reality and the need for Love to flow from the heart of man and not from the books of the Law.
• “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love……And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him” (1 John 4:8, 16). The Apostle John speaks much about Love in his epistles and records much of what the Master said about Love. We could say that in this context John is the Apostle of Love. What we have in this epistle is a proclamation of an aspect of God…Love. God is love and add to this from the first point that He so loved the world and we can see His extension of that Love that He is coming through the Christ to us.
• “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us” (Ephesians 2:4). This is a bit out of context as Paul is talking to us here as we are, sinners and former sinners, that are not forsaken because of the Love of God that we receive through His mercy. For us this says that we can rely on the Love and that it will be there for us when we arrive at the gates to the Kingdom.

The verses listed above show the Love of God, the Love that God is and that He sent that Love to us, his children, through the person of Jesus the Christ and our through own Christ Within which carries that same Love to this Earthly form just as Jesus brought the Love of Christ to the whole of the world. Next we will look at the intent of God insofar as our using this Love in our lives here on this Earth.

• “And Jesus answered him, 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). Were we to follow no other scripture, this one would be enough to change the course of human history to one of peace and of harmony and to put all in right standing with God; we would all then be accounted worthy of His Presence and His Kingdom. This is not a new thing from the time of Christ as it was given in the time of Moses, more than 1400 years earlier; the first part as the first of the original Ten Commandments and then the second part as a supplemental commandment later on. The Master however knew the importance of this second part as it appears the Jews did as well and He elevated it above all others commandments except the very first one above. When we add to these Greatest Commandments the Golden Rule we have a completed idea of the thoughts of Christ on Love, the Love that is of God and the Love that is God and the Love that we are intended to express here thorough our conscious personality lives.
• The expression of Love from a man to God and from man to man are covered in the above statement. To this the Master also adds what we commonly call the Golden Rule and which is the tool par excellence by which we can effectively accomplish the Love that the Master commands. There is no greater measure of our Love for others than to measure it against our Love for ourselves and this is accomplished in His saying “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12) or, as it is phrased in the Gospel of Luke “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise” (Luke 6:31). We generally see this as a nice sentiment and a way of dealing with others we like but this is not the intent. Look at the two together and see the flow of Love that is required to accomplish this. First we must “love thy neighbour as thyself” but how do we define one’s Love of oneself? Simply by the way that we want to be treated. Can we not see in these sayings all righteousness towards our fellow man.
• The Sermon on the Mount is replete with references about our behavior, one toward another in Love. It discusses anger, forgiveness, agreement and harmony, honesty, meekness, giving and the most difficult of all for some, that we “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” (Matthew 5:44). Should we think about it, all of these can be seen as acts of kindness and of Love and that these are commandments of the Master and, as such, should be seen as ways to achieve the Kingdom of God.

• “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another: (John 13:34-35). We need to see this as it is intended by the Master and not just a commandment to Love as we see above. We already have the commandment above from early in Jesus ministry; this “new commandment” is given near the end of His ministry at the final Passover supper. What is new is that this is a commandment to His disciples (presumably just the twelve) that they should Love one another with the same level and intensity of Love with which Jesus has Loved them.
• Still in His private dialogue with His disciples, the Master repeats the above commandment but takes the idea even further by explaining to them the nature of His love for them saying: “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:12-13). We should see that in both of these sayings that this Love and commitment from the Master is extended to all of His disciples and we should remember that He has a straightforward criteria for becoming a disciple and being a disciple; the chief of which is this Love that He speaks of here saying “ as I have loved you” and  “Greater love hath no man than this“. Can we love our fellow disciples and aspiring disciples in all walks of life in this way?
• “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“(John 14:23). Jesus also tells us here that Love for the Christ is shown by the keeping of His words;  that this is what will make the Love of God manifest in one’s life and put one into the Presence of God, into His Kingdom. Now we need to understand here, as regards Love, that if we are keeping His words we are Loving all and that this is an outward sign of our Love for Him. Similarly we need to see in this the reality of how it can work our in life; the conscious personality, through which we as Souls express ourselves. must Love the Lord and the Master and this is done through our focus on our spiritual life and our Christ Within, keeping His word as we see and hear it from our Souls.
• “And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love where with thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:26). This is a special statement asking that the fullness of the Love of God, the Love with which God Loved the Christ, be made manifest in His disciples. This is a difficult thing to understand; God is Love and the fullness of that Love is on the Christ and in the Christ and the Master is here asking that we can have this same Love as well. In this statement we should understand the idea of the Name of God as that the Master has declared to His disciples the character and the nature of God; these are declared to us as well through the Christ Within.

“Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us“. (1 John 4:11-12)

This is our last verse in this essay, it is from the First Epistle of John and it is again a testimony of the Love of God and how this Love should play in our lives. In addition, John tells us that if we keep His word and love one another that “God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us“. It is here that we should see the idea of the Christ Within working through our carnal selves, our physical consciousness, by which we will express this perfected Love.

The objective at the start of this essay was to show that the Love that we express and the way that we express it can be seen as a measure of the rightness of our doctrine. In stating the above, we should see the importance placed on the Godly aspect of Love from the beginning and how the Master took this and made it the main characteristic of the whole of His teaching. We are likely no closer to understanding the problem of so many different and often competing philosophies and doctrines regarding the One God and the One Christ. Perhaps, however, we are bit closer to finding a way to tell, from the outside, what it is that is that beats at the heart of those philosophies and doctrines that we meet and hear. Each is still saying that they have the truth; each still believes and KNOWS that what message they are hearing is THE REAL ONE; each claims to have the KEY to salvation. That each may have a piece of a great puzzle is a possibility but this is of little use to those who wish to follow in the Path of the Master. What we have said today is that it is in the Light of the Love that the Master taught to us that we can ascertain the reality of any teaching and, it is in this same way, that by looking inside we can see the reality of what it is that we believe. Paul tells us in his prayer for all that believe and follow the Lord: “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ….” (Ephesians 3:17-19).

Note on the Quote of the Day