IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 347

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

ON GOD; Part CXXX

We spent our time in the last post looking at the Master’s sayings regarding the Kingdom of God being here and now with us in the world and individually. Our discussion on this starts with the little understood saying that “Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21). We have reflected in the last few posts on the synonymous nature of most all of the terms that we use in our posts regarding God and the Christ and our own individual correspondences to them as well as the Will and the word of God and of the Master. We added to this the Kingdom of God and the attainment of discipleship. It is our premise that if we can accomplish  any one of these things that we have accomplished all and this then brings together the many Paths to our ultimate goal which can be seen as the ability to express the fullness of the God Within, the Christ Within, through one’s personality and form in this world. This is the accomplishment of the Christ and this is the accomplishment that He tells us that we have the opportunity and the ability to do as well. There are several sayings in the bible that we use to support our premise of the ultimate divinity of the man in form and through our posts we try to convey the idea that ALL is a matter of revelation; that the closer one can come to his own divinity, the more revelation he will be able to perceive and to reveal. Before we continue with our planned thoughts for today’s essay, let us look again at what it is that we are intended to accomplish as disciples of the Master and, of course, this starts in the humble mode of the aspirant.

• We begin with the saying by the Apostle John which we should see in the reality of what it says and not try to dress it in a cloak of doctrine. John tells us “as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17) and this must be taken as it is presented if we are to realize our unique place and our divinity. There is a broadness to this statement that should be seen to include ALL men although not all can realize this; the reality of it is only evident when one turns toward the spiritual Path, when one begins to “Strive to enter in at the strait gate” (Luke 13:24); it is here that a man can begin to see ALL possibilities as they appear to him in the Light of the Soul. There is a completeness to this statement in that there is no exclusion; as the Master is in His totality, so are we but again we must add the factor of realization and understand that we cannot KNOW of the things of the Kingdom of God until we endeavor to enter into it and ALL have this opportunity and this privilege.
• The Master tells us that “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) and in this is the Master’s version of what John succinctly tells us above as we should see it from the perspective of what it is that one can accomplish in the world. Of course we KNOW that to believe on the Master is to follow Him and to keep His words. What are His works; not only the miracles and the healings, not only the fig tree and the ability to walk on the sea, but the Love and the Wisdom that He expressed in His words and His actions in the world. We should see in the idea of works ALL things that a man may do and even think to do and from a spiritual perspective works are ALL things done in Love and Wisdom and in service to one’s fellow man. There is a disconnect in much of the Christian church regarding this idea of works and this is unfortunate; much of this is based upon the sayings of the Apostle Paul who tried to express the idea that one cannot rely upon works for his salvation. Paul however meant this to mean works in the way that the Jew accomplished their responsibilities to the law. They did and they gave but, as the Master tells us the widow gave greater: “And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast inall that she had , even all her living” (Matthew 12:42-44). Do we see the reality of the message? that to do or to give because it is the law is what Paul refers to in his discrediting of works and not to the works that come from the heart. The Apostle James sets this straight for us and for our understanding but still the church pursues the misunderstood words of Paul as they have worked it into their doctrines. James tells us: “What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depar tin peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works” (James 2:14-18). There is a reality here and especially in this last verse that is not nearly appreciated for the Truth that it provides to the man of the church who wishes to do good; it is a benefit to ALL to do, to serve, and this is the reality of the words of the Master and this is the gateway to the performance of the miracles and the healings and the fig tree and the walking on the sea.
• The Master tells us also that “The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master” (Luke 6:40). While our first point above shows us the possibilities based on the understanding that we are just like Him, this one shows the end result and what it takes to Truly be like Him. While the second point tells us when we follow Him and keep His words that we can do those same things in the world that He did, this one shows the completeness and the Oneness that is brought about by that perfection that the Master instructs us on saying “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). We should not forget here the Master’s words to the ‘rich young ruler’ who is seeking the Kingdom and eternal Life and tells the Master that he keeps the commandments; “Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me” (Matthew 19:21). Can we see here how the Master equates forsaking ALL with the Kingdom of God and how this relates to His saying on discipleship that: “So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33).

In these three sayings, one by the apostle and two by the Master, we should be able to see and to understand our essential divinity and to realize that these are for ALL men without regard to anything except their desire and their ability to express that Love that the Master teaches us. We must remember that one’s immediate Master is his own Christ Within, his own Soul, and that this Soul KNOWS the same righteousness that the Master teaches whether the man has ever heard of the Christ or not. The Will of God IS Universal and God is not a Christian or a Buddhist or a Hindu or a Muslim; God just IS and the Christ, being ONE with God, has this same Will and, while many will not like what we have to say here, Christ is not a Christian either. There is ONE God and ONE Christ who is ONE with God; there is ONE world and ONE humanity and the ONE God and the ONE Christ belongs to ALL. This is the reality of Life itself and this is the reality of the Master’s teaching on Love and this teaching is for ALL mankind and not just for the Christian; it is the shortsightedness of the church in this particular area that has greatly hindered the advance of True Christianity in the world. In this can also be see the reality of the saying from James above regarding works and Faith as the Faith of mankind should be in God and in the God Within; as the Master tells us to “Have faith in God” (Matthew 11:22), the ONE God, and never tells us to have Faith in Him Himself. James tells us that it is by our works, our service, our attitude toward our neighbor and brother that our faith can be seen and this is a profound Truth that surpasses ALL of the doctrines of religion.

Our other point for today is found in that saying from the Apostle John that we have been referring to: there is a saying in the Book of Revelation, a book which is seldom referenced in our essays because of the obscurity of its language and the guesswork required to interpret it, that says: “….the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21:4-5). In this is the reality of accomplishment of the art of being “doers of the word, and not hearers only” and of doing so “in spirit and in truth“; at this time when ALL is done and ALL of the His righteousness is the expression of a man, then shall the Christ Within sit upon the throne of his own consciousness as ONE, no longer in any duality, and KNOWING that “the former things are passed away” and that, as a Soul in form he has made “all things new“. This is when a man can “Enter ye in at the strait gate” (Matthew 7:13) toward which he had been striving, leaving behind ALL of the cares of the world….and this is the Truth of forsaking ALL.

There is a reality in this saying that is missed by many and is found in the simplicity of what is said; ALL is perception and when we look at the Book of Revelation as an untimed declaration of the fate of the world we are sorely mistaken. So much of this is directed at the men of that time and the events of that time yet men have not failed in any particular time over the last 2000 years to attribute what is said to some great calamity that will happen here and now. There are those who tell us without a doubt who is Gog and who is Magog and many there are that believe them and it is to those who say and do this that we should point to the words of the Apostle James and his words regarding Wisdom from above. Can the demonizing of entire nations and peoples fall into this category of Wisdom from God? So for the entire Book of Revelation when it is seen in the guesswork of men who bring the reality of Christianity, which is intended to be man’s expression of Love for his neighbor and his brother, into a realm of conjecture and diversion. By design or not there are several places in the bible that cause this type of diversion and take the church away from the essential understanding of the teachings of the Master and it is here that the church must begin to change its teachings and its ideas.

“Behold, I make all things new” is the clarion call of the Christ and the Christ Within and this the Apostle Paul teaches us in several of his sayings. Paul tells us that “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17) and in this we see a remarkable similarity to the words of John. This similarity comes with a disclaimer however and that is that the man be in Christ which should be interpreted as keeping His words. From the human perspective it is the Christ Within that accomplishes this newness through the Life in form for this is where one must work out all and reveal his essential divinity. There is no shortcut to this except for the concept of repentance, True repentance by which the changes in the Life of the personality and form are wrought by one’s conscious focus on the Soul, on the Christ Within. We close today with this from the Apostle Paul which should show us the direction of the disciple’s Life in the world, in his service to his fellowman. We take this from the King James Version and then from Young’s Literal Translation:

“whereof I Paul am made a minister; Who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the church: Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God; Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: Where unto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily  (Colossians 1:23-29)

“I Paul — a ministrant. I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and do fill up the things lacking of the tribulations of the Christ in my flesh for his body, which is the assembly, of which I — I did become a ministrant according to the dispensation of God, that was given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God, the secret that hath been hid from the ages and from the generations, but now was manifested to his saints, to whom God did will to make known what [is] the riches of the glory of this secret among the nations — which is Christ in you, the hope of the glory, whom we proclaim, warning every man, and teaching every man, in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus, for which also I labour, striving according to his working that is working in me in power” (Colossians 1:23-29)

Finally we add this from John as it reflects upon the ideas of discipleship and of doing the Will of God as a man’s entry into the Glory which is ever our objective: If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself (John 7:17). This should tell us of a certainty that it is when a man does the Will of God that he will KNOW that what interpretation he may see or hear is from GOD.

We will continue with these 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.

And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give. Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses, Nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves: for the workman is worthy of his meat. (Matthew 10:7-10)

Today’s Quote of the Day is from the Master’s instructions to His disciples as he sent them forth and in this we should see our own instructions which are that we do the works of God, that we teach the Truth of the Kingdom and that we serve our fellow man. What it is that we receive from the Christ Within, what is revealed to us is FREE, we must give again FREELY and it is of great importance that we must be in a attitude of forsaking, leaving ALL the things of the world behind, bringing with us only the humble nature of a True Son of God.