ON LOVE; PART DLX
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GoodWill IS Love in Action
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“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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“Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:36-40).
In the last essay we took up the end part of the Sermon on the Mount as it IS offered to us by the Apostle Matthew and while it IS unclear and uncertain that Jesus offered ALL of this in a single Sermon, for us it does not matter. Luke offers much of the same but this IS spread across many chapters of his gospel and while many may claim that Luke has the better timeline, we Truly DO NOT KNOW. What IS important is that both of these men give us much the same insofar as the Master’s words and again, while many claim that there IS another source from which Matthew and Luke draw, another written document called the Q Source, this IS but a theoretical document which is supposedly based upon the oral traditions of the early church. Is there a Q? We DO NOT KNOW. In our view there IS NO need to question the source or the validity of these writings nor how they are formed, nor who relied on what in their writing, so that the many theories of the reliance of Matthew and Luke upon Mark and Q are for us but a meaningless distraction. The Truth here IS in whether we can believe that the words of the Master according to the documents that we have IS a True picture of what He said. From a purely spiritual perspective these ARE the words that He would have given us; they point, as do most ALL world scriptures, to the focus of a man upon the things of God and his living apart from the illusion and the glamour that keeps him trapped in this world; and this IS as well the perspective taken in the epistles which clarify and amplify the Master’s words. As to the idea that the synoptic gospels are the product of the oral traditions of the early church, we should have issues which should be in the definition of the early church. What we see in the writings of the Church Fathers of the early church ARE NOT generally in tune with the Truth of the Master’s words but are rather the beginning of the church doctrines that still plague the essence of His words.
What we see is what we have always seen; that these gospels are the individual recollections of the writers who are writing on either what they have seen and heard firsthand or what they had been taught by others who did have this first hand experience. And we see in their writing style and their emphasis the role of their individual approach to the Master’s Truths; how they understood His words and what was most important to them. Too much has been made of the idea of the Holy Ghost in church doctrines which DO NOT properly recognize the reality of the Christ Within, the Soul, which is the expression by degree of ALL men whose focus IS upon the things of God. It IS in this focus upon the Truth, the spiritual Truth, that the activity of the Holy Spirit can be Truly appreciated and it IS this activity that IS the expression of the Christ Within in the world. This IS that same anointing of which the Apostle John tells us as he says that “ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things” (1 John 2:20). This anointing, this Christ Within, IS the source of ALL things divine that can touch the man in the world; there IS NO other; it IS the Soul that IS part and parcel of the Kingdom of God, part and parcel of God and the Christ, and it IS the Soul, the True man that must become the expression of the Life of the man in form and it IS this expression which should be seen as the reality of the Holy Spirit. And it IS the Soul, the Christ Within each of these gospel writers, that are the ‘original’ source of the Truths of the Master’s Life and words which are expressed through the personality and the Life of these men of God. Truth resonates from within; Truth comes to us as that Wisdom from above and it ONLY come to the man who IS focused upon the Good, the Beautiful and the True; the man who IS focused upon the things of God.
In our view this IS the working out of the Plan of God in the world and the further that time takes mankind away from the Truths expressed by the apostles, the more those Truths are diluted by men whose focus is still in this world. And this IS NOT a derogatory idea regarding the church fathers, it IS a matter of the struggle of men who believe that they see clearly but who at the same time see the world; this IS the plight of most ALL men. While our words at times seem harsh as regards the organized church and its many different denominations and doctrines, they ARE NOT intended to be derogatory; they are intended to awaken any whom we can reach to the greater Truths of the Master’s words and the better understanding, the spiritual understanding, of His mission and the writings of His apostles. There IS ONLY ONE Truth and while we may not have it either, we see our view as closer to the reality of His teaching and His message which ARE in a word LOVE.
And this IS the Master’s message of the Sermon on the Mount; Love. Love as the Way to the Kingdom of God; Love as the expression of the Christ Within in the Life of the man in the world. In the end it IS Love that IS at the center of keeping His words, Love for ALL men and Love as IS expressed by the Golden Rule; Love about which we repeat our words from the last post:
And this IS the reality of just what this Love that the Master teaches us IS; it IS NOT that emotional and perhaps mental attachment or attraction to others, it IS the detailed respect and GoodWill that a man expresses to ALL men in accordance with the Golden Rule; it IS the seeing of ALL men as brothers and neighbors and understanding that there IS NO True foundation for difference as ALL are a part of the ONE Humanity, living in this ONE World, and ALL ARE a part of the Life of the ONE God who created ALL.
In our previous Quote of the Day we saw again the reality of this Love from the perspective of the Apostle Paul, a man who was NOT with the Master and DID NOT experience Jesus’ teachings firsthand. Paul simply KNOWS the Truth as it flows through his Life in the world, as it flows from his own Soul, his own Christ Within. There IS NO magical formula that brought Paul to this place of spiritual reality, he was always a man of God, a man who was focused upon God through his Jewish roots and religion. He believed the doctrines of the Jews and followed in their traditions and he believed as did most religious rulers in that day that the Master was NOT who He appeared to be. Paul had an experience on the road to Damascus that awakened him to the Truth and whatever this experience was, Paul sees this as the direct intervention of the Master; what IS important to us IS that this experience comes from within, from Paul’s own Christ Within, from His own Soul, and it IS in this that He sees the Truth and changes the direction of his Life to encompass the Love that the Master teaches. And so the apostles words to the Corinthians where the Paul tells us of the most important thing; Love. He tells us that without this Love he IS nothing; he tells us that this Love is more important than ALL things that the church in that day deemed as important; he tells us that without Love his words are by chatter or, as he tells us, “as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1).
In the Sermon on the Mount the Master cautions us to be careful of what we may believe to be True; He tells us to KNOW men by their fruits, by the treasure of their hearts if you will. If this treasure IS True fruit, it WILL BE the expression of Love and in this expression there IS NO selfish motive, no self whatsoever, there IS ONLY Peace and harmony, unity and GoodWill and whatsoever else can be gleaned from Paul’s vision of the fruit of the Spirit which he defines for us as: “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith…Meekness, temperance” (Galatians 5:22-23). Here then IS our lesson, to seek after the fruit and to discount ALL that IS not according the Truth of Love. And it IS from this point that the Master takes us to the idea of keeping His words; not the words of men in the world whose fruit IS not His Truth, but the Truth of His word. His message IS that it matters not what a man may believe to be True and that His Truth IS found as the fruit; in the Love that He teaches and here it IS Truly hard for the man in the world to find his own True place to stand. Many there are who profess to have the Truth and many there are that follow these; many there are that learn the doctrines of the churches and who can be among those who say “Lord, Lord….have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?“. This IS ALL to no avail however if the fruit IS NOT there in the teaching nor in the understanding; the Truth of Love and the reality of keeping His words. The message IS clear here for those that hear and turn their attention away from the illusion and the glamour by which they are captivated; and Jesus offers us this message saying that it IS “he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21-22) who will be accounted worthy.
The Master closes out His words according to Matthew with a parable that IS NOT Truly a parable as the reality is apparent and not hidden. Yes He uses examples of men building houses but the Truth of keeping His words could not be any clearer. We read this from both Matthew and Luke and we should remember that in both places these words follow upon the Masters saying on calling on His Name which we will include below:
From Matthew’s Gospel: “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….Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it” (Matthew 7:24-27).
From Luke’s Gospel: “And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say? Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like: He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock. But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great” (Luke 6:46-49).
Much of the commentary on these sayings is centered in the doctrinal view of keeping His words which at times IS NOT nearly what the Master intends as doctrine goes to faith in Jesus and believing that He is their deliverance. The reality IS of course in actually keeping His words and, according to the Apostle James, this means ALL His words as “For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2:10). Here we should be able to recognize the special focused attention that one needs in order to be accounted worthy of the Kingdom of God; there IS NO simple doctrinal formula that will work and the Master covers this reality in His words, especially these that we are reading now: “whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them“. This too is the same idea that we find in James’ words saying “be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22); here James gives us the extra clarity that to be among those who call Lord, Lord without keeping His words IS to be practicing self-deception.
In the Master’s stark comparison between the man who keeps His words and the man who does not we should see the ruination of the Life from a spiritual perspective; there is no destruction other than the ruin of the current Life and we should understand that these ideas ARE NOT frozen in regard to a particular man nor time as there IS yet the reality of Repentance, of change, which is the salvaging of one’s current Life. We should try to see here that the house IS one’s Life in the world and this IS the reality as well; one’s Life in the world is the dwelling place of the Soul, the Christ Within. If then the Life in the world, the house that one is building, IS NOT founded in His words, then this house will fall from the perspective of the Soul; it IS OF NO USE to the Soul’s need for expression. If however one’s Life in the world IS founded in His words, IS founded in Love, then it IS a house meet for the use by the Soul for the expression of his Love and Power. This IS the simple reality of His words in which we can also see the ‘strength’ of the man whose focus is on the things of God, how he can stand strong in the face of ALL adversity. And we can see as well the spiritual futility of the Life of the man whose focus IS upon the things of the world; he may find success but it IS fleeting and temporal and it builds little or no True “treasures in heaven“.
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.
“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. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also” (1 John 4:16-21).
Today’s Quote of the Day from the First Epistle of John is his reflection on God and on Love. John tells us that God is Love and, as we have discussed, Love is certainly as aspect and an attribute of the Godhead and one which is supremely represented by the Christ. John tells us further that without Love there is no relationship with God and likens the Truth of dwelling in Love to being in His Kingdom and in His Presence. He draws for us the idea of Love for ones fellowman being the prime prerequisite for Love of God for although one may say that he Loves God, it cannot be True unless he first Loves his fellowman. In John’s words the equation is certain: “he who loveth God love his brother also“. And, lest we forget that the idea of Love that the Master teaches in not the emotional attraction that we live with daily, we repeat again: LOVE is….
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’. To this we add the ever important High Ideal as taught by the Christ: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them” (Matthew 7:12).
Let the peace of God rule in your hearts!
- 8 Bible commentaries on BibleStudyTools.com
