heartoflovelight

[heartoflovelight]

Words of strengthening filled with truth, love, and joy....... I pray we find consolation in God Himself and in focusing our spiritual and natural eyes to Heaven.

God is wonderful, deeply passionate, and loves with no bounds....... all praise and affection to Him. He has prepared an eternity of loving relationships, perfect health with glorified bodies, in which we shall all be at peace in loving and being loved forever.

Our hearts were created to desire an everlasting union of love with the heart of God and one another in an eternally perfect, beautiful Heaven.

Grateful for our glorious and beautiful God, as He is always great, generous, and good.

The Love of God

The everlasting love which has been pouring its golden light upon us, the love of the Eternal Word which has been beaming on us in varied rays ever since we entered into the glorious Paradise of God, is indeed the highest, the crowning excellence of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

However it is so, only in so far as we regard the Sacred Heart in its relations with ourselves. There can be nothing more beautiful, sublime, precious or divinely magnificent than that everlasting love, lavished as it has been on such as we were foreseen to be. And therefore, we might rest here and say that our task is accomplished. We might fix our abode in this centre of the Paradise, as though we had explored all its delightful confines, tasted its every fruit, and viewed with glad wonder its every flower. However we should not know the Sacred Heart as we may know it in our present state, we should not see all its beauties even as it is given us to see them now, if we did not go one step farther to view its Love for God.

This is truly the last and best excellence of the Sacred Heart. This is the deep channel that pours into its human merits the divine fullness of grace. Love for God is the true solution of all the mysteries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Love for God is the history of its life, the essence of its being. Love for God is the golden link which unites that human heart to the Divinity of the Eternal Word.

We see the same great central sun, with all its dazzling splendors and all its fiery heat, converging not now on us but heavenward upon God. The beams are the same which shone upon us, in the many colored lights of the virtues which the Sacred Heart practised for love of us. The heat is the same which encompassed us from all eternity, however now both light and heat tend towards God, and reveal to us the entire secret of all the virtues, the excellence, the very essence of the Heart of Jesus.

In other words, it loved us in God and for God. It loved us that it might win our hearts for God. It loved us and it was meek, humble, patient, forgiving, obedient, and prudent, because it was necessary for us to be like it, that we might be worthy to love God eternally. It loved us and therefore it poured out its blood as our ransom, because only by such a redemption could our hearts become the conquest of God's love. Then all its love is love for God, all its virtues were created by its love for God, all its history is told in one word, love for God.

Its love went forth from God like the sun, to run its bright career. It gilded the angelic nature with its early magnificence, and shone upon the race of men with its softer, gentler, sadder rays. When its course is run and its treasures have been poured out, in heaven and on earth to the remotest limit of creation, it returns to its source and reposes in God. Its love like a conqueror, sallied forth from the battlements of heaven, to subject the world to the dominion of its Sovereign and to bring all creatures in humble adoration to His throne. It heeds not the hardships of the campaign, the wounds of the battles. Death has no terrors for its devotion to the glory of God. It fights, it dies, but it conquers in its death. And then it returns to the city of God, bearing its trophies and leading its captives in triumph, a happy throng of the redeemed, and lays its laurels and its crowns at the foot of that throne for whose honor alone it labored, bled, and conquered in death.

Nothing can make us understand more clearly, that the love of God and the love of His creatures for His sake is one and the same principle, than this view of the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. They spring from one another so necessarily, they mingle together so intimately, they touch each other, intersect each other in so wonderful a manner, that we cannot separate them or make of them two distinct loves.

Charity is a bright band which unites heaven with earth, God with His creatures. In so far as it touches the earth and embraces the creature, it is brotherly love, but as it unites them to heaven and to God, it is nothing but love for God. It is the golden ladder which reaches from earth to heaven, and on the summit of which God rests and looks down, with fatherly yearning on His children. It is charity for our brethren where it touches the earth, but as it ascends towards heaven and leads us to our Father's bosom, it is again only love for God.

Such was the charity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It had seen God in all the loveliness of His beauty, in all the magnificence of His glory. It had kindled a sacred flame at the burning furnace of the infinite love which glows upon His throne.

Love is not love unless it acts, and love is not great or ardent love unless it does great things for its beloved. What limit then shall we expect to find to the action of an infinite, divine love? The Sacred Heart, therefore burning with an infinite, divine love, must prove its love by a boundless zeal, an everconsuming ardor for Him whom it loves. It must burn with a divinely restless activity for the glory of God, and be ever eagerly looking for means to promote and increase it.

Hence we have seen it with the eye of our faith, ages before creation had sprung into being, placing itself like a Lamb upon the altar of divine Justice, as the victim for the sins of an unborn race. Hence we heard the clear, sweet music of its voice, when there was as yet no created voice in all the wide domain of heaven, as it spoke those words to the Majesty it would propitiate, "Sacrifice and oblation You wouldst not, behold I come to do Your will, and Your law is in the midst of my Heart." Hence, even when countless myriads of zealous angels were sounding aloud the praises of their Maker, even when Mary's sweeter than angelic song ravished the ear of God with its melody, that clearer, sweeter voice still rang out above all other notes of praise, thanksgiving, or resistless intercession, whilst the Heart of Jesus was pleading for our hearts and making them like itself, that they might do worthy homage to the God whom it loved.

The Sacred Heart was loving God with an unconquerable love. It must triumph though at the cost of its very life, at the price of its very last drop of saving and sanctifying blood.

Our hearts were the prizes for which it fought, the spoils which it won. It loved us, it saved us, it washed us from our iniquities. However it loved us for God, it gained us for the glory of God, it cleansed us that we might stand before God and praise Him, for the love which loved Him and made us happy for love of Him.

It was the same ever active love of the Sacred Heart for God, which would not be satisfied with driving Satan from the throne he had usurped, with reconquering the earth for its lawful Lord and restoring His authority and His kingdom in the hearts of men. It would hold its conquests, garrison the citadels it had won and forever exclude the usurper. A wonder of love for God, which surpasses all other wonders, a device of divinely ingenious zeal for the glory of God, which will forever be an unfathomable mystery to angels and men. That heart itself has become the guardian of its conquests. It is itself the sentinel that watches night and day, on the battlements of its fortresses. Its own impenetrable armor shields the walls of the city which it has made the City of God.

The earth must be God's and the fullness thereof, it must be a glorious temple dedicated to the honor of its Maker and echoing His praises at all times, sending up to heaven, from morning till night and from night till morning, a ceaseless canticle of joyous adoration, of thanksgiving worthy of His most royal munificence. How could human voices raise such a song? The Sacred Heart itself then remains in the temple which it has erected, and now from ten thousand altars its music rises and penetrates the skies till it rings along the vaults of heaven, a worthy homage to the Eternal God from the realms of His redeemed creation.

The life of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is a life of love. It is one never ending act of love, love for God and love for us in God and for God. It burns on our altars, like the watchfires on the mountaintops, that our hearts may have a signal and fly to their refuge and be secure against every danger.

It dwells in its lowly tabernacles, that it may avert all evil from us by its ever acceptable intercession. It comes forth at our call, to shed its blessings upon us and to enrich us from the boundless stores of its heavenly treasures. It bleeds as our victim every day, "from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same," to atone for our sins and give back our lost inheritance among the sons of God. It comes even into our bosoms with all its fiery fervor and all its infinite graces, to transform us into its image, to enkindle its flames in our hearts, and to teach us here in our pilgrimage on earth, the love which will be our reward and our bliss in our home beyond the skies.

However all this, though it is immense and inconceivable love for us, is at the same time and essentially love for God, since it all tends to increase His glory by our greater love, by our more abundant redemption. It is love for God which keeps that wonderful Heart a prisoner on earth.

We have then reached the last solution of all the wonders of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the formal and final cause of its whole life, of its very being, and of its eternal subsistence in the glorious immortality of the Sacred Humanity united to the Word of God.

"God is love," says the Apostle of love, who had leaned upon the bosom of Jesus and had drawn his inspiration from His loving heart.

God is love and the Sacred Heart is the love of God, the fire which is kindled to consume whatever is not love for God and to transform it into love, and bring all things back to their origin, that God may be in all and all His creatures in Him, all made one in Him and with Him through the glowing intensity of His love, through whom this blessed oneness was effected.

Heaven will reveal to us what these words mean. For heaven is understanding their meaning, and heaven will be heaven eternally only because we shall be eternally understanding them better. For God is love and God is our heaven, and to love God, to revel forever in His love is our only bliss, the sole essential beatitude of the elect. And now perhaps we can understand better than before, that charity is the queen of virtues, the highest excellence, the one virtue which survives all others, which begins on earth but accompanies us to heaven and is there crowned with immortality. We can understand how charity is the nuptial garment, without which we cannot sit at the banquet of the great King, how all else, even the tongue of an angel, the knowledge of all mysteries, the sacrifice of all possessions and life itself, must have charity inform and pour into them the golden substance of its merit.

"You shall love the Lord your God, this is the greatest and the first commandment," this is the end and the perfection of the law and of the gospel.

This is the great lesson which the Sacred Heart teaches us, the one lesson in which all its other lessons are summed up, and to which they all tend. If we would be truly the disciples of the Sacred Heart, and reward it for its labors in our instruction by learning what it teaches, we must aim at this queenly virtue in all that we do. We must be humble for love of God, meek and obedient, prudent, zealous for God's sake, because we love Him and desire to love Him more, and thus merit to love Him forever.

The Sacred Heart reveals itself to us glowing with love, surrounded by flames of fire which signify its love for God. It gathers us around itself, that it may light these flames in our hearts and make them glow like itself with love for God.

We behold its deep wound, but flames of love pour out from that open mouth, as though it would preach to us the love of our God. The thorny crown which encircles it and the cross which rises above it, are enveloped in the same holy fires but are not consumed, to tell us more plainly than words could tell, that all the virtues which are typified by the cross and the thorns  —  the humility which bears the ignominy of Christ, the obedience which dies with Him, the patience which prays for its enemies and its persecutors, in a word our whole imitation of our crucified model  —  must be reddened by the divine glow of charity and ascend to heaven gilded with its light and borne upon its ardor.

The Paradise of God, The Virtues of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, 1874

The Eternity of Heaven’s Happiness

Having endeavored in the foregoing pages, to form to ourselves some idea of the glorious happiness reserved for us in heaven, there still remains to say something of its crowning glory  —  the eternity of its duration. This is not only its crowning glory, but it is an essential constituent of that unspeakable joy which now inebriates the souls of the blessed. A moment's reflection will make this evident.

Not only is God immutable and therefore unable to change in our regard, but all the companions of our bliss have also become immutable in their love for us. All those defects which now make us so unamiable will be totally removed by our union with God, and no one will ever see anything in us but what is good and deserving of love. From this it follows, that even the happiness which comes to the blessed from creatures is permanent  —  eternal.

In heaven, that awful death shall be no more. We have the word of the Living God for it, "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more, for the former things are passed away." In very deed, "the former things have passed away"  —  all these things have passed away, never more to return. The children of God have entered into the enjoyment of their inheritance, which shall never be torn from them because "death shall be no more." Never shall they see the dawn of a day when father and mother must bid farewell  —  to their heart-broken children, because "death shall be no more."

This is the joyful song of triumph which ever resounds through the vaults of heaven, as "The just shall live forevermore and their reward is with the Lord, and the care of them with the Most High. Therefore shall they receive a kingdom of glory, and a crown of beauty at the hand of the Lord."

In conclusion Christian soul, meditate often and seriously on the happiness of heaven. Such meditations, besides deepening our knowledge of God, and of the things He has prepared for them that love Him, have a wonderful power of detaching our hearts from the world. They moreover, create in our soul an unquenchable thirst for the vision and possession of God, while they infuse into us a new courage to battle manfully against all the obstacles which beset our path in the practice of virtue.

Such meditations fill us with a laudable and noble ambition of reaching a high degree of union with God. This was the ambition of the saints, and it should be ours also. It was this desire of a most intimate union with God, that caused them to deny themselves even the most innocent pleasures of this world and to undergo sufferings, the bare recital of which makes our nature shudder. They knew that "our present tribulation, which is momentary and light, works for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory." Their meditations on eternal truths had convinced them "that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, that shall be revealed in us."

"Be faithful until death," says our Lord Jesus Christ, "and I will give you the Crown of Life."

The Beatific Vision

In the Beatific Vision our will is also to be glorified, and then we shall be happy in loving and being loved. We shall now see that in the Beatific Vision, our will or moral nature is elevated, ennobled, and made like God by a participation of His sanctity, beatitude, and love.

Then shall we find ourselves joyfully willing to do what God wills as He wills it, and because He so wills it. His divine will and ours shall become so totally one, that we shall seem to have no will of our own so completely, and at the same time so sweetly, shall it be identified with the will and good pleasure of God.

In a word, as our intellect is elevated by the light of glory, and filled with the purest knowledge in the Beatific Vision, so also our will is purified, sanctified, and made like God's will, in rectitude and perfect sanctity. Not only shall our will become holy and conformed to God's will, we shall also love God above all things, purely, ardently, and for His own blessed sake, and in that love shall we at last find perfect happiness.

It is in heaven and only in heaven, that all the conditions of love can be fulfilled, and hence it is there only that love will produce pure and perfect happiness, unmingled with the disappointments and insufficiency of human love. First of all, the love of heaven is essentially mutual. The vision of God not only reveals to the soul His divine beauty, goodness, wisdom, and numberless other perfections, which captivate her and set her on fire with a seraphic love, but it also reveals the intense and mysterious love of God for her. The sight of that divine love produces in her the happiness which the heart of man cannot conceive.

These are all secrets of heaven. They are simply unspeakable because they are beyond our present powers of comprehension. Eye has not seen them, ear has not heard them, nor has it entered into the heart of man to conceive them. We shall therefore, make no further attempt to express what no human tongue can utter. We may say that, as a pure and mutual love produces the greatest happiness we know of in this world, so also the mutual love which exists between the soul and God, is the source of the most perfect happiness possible.

For the soul not only sees that He who loved her from eternity will continue to do so everlastingly, she not only sees God as He is, but she also sees everything else as it is. However beautiful therefore creatures may be in heaven, she always sees in God a beauty and perfection vastly, infinitely superior, that it is impossible for her to be captivated by creatures as she was in this world. She loves all the companions of her bliss, it is true, but she loves them all in God and for God. She loves them because they are His and because He loves them. She loves them because they are holy, beautiful, and much like God, and therefore deserving of her love.

However her chiefest, her absorbing love is centred in God, and remains centred there forever. She sees the dawn of a glorious day when her happiness will be increased, perfected, and completed in the resurrection of the body  —  a day when other joys and pleasures will be added to those she now enjoys in the Beatific Vision.

The Beauty and Glory of the Risen Body

We have seen in the foregoing chapters that in the Beatific Vision, the human soul sees, loves, and enjoys God, and that her essential happiness consists in that unfailing, blessed vision. Although the blessedness she now enjoys is far greater than words can express, it is not yet integral or complete, and never will be, except when she is again clothed in her own body, beautified and glorified after the likeness of her Saviour's body.

However, although her happiness is not yet complete, you must not therefore imagine that the least shadow of sadness or unhappiness hangs over her. For as we have seen, her will is now totally conformed to God's will. She wills the resurrection of her body as God wills it, and her body is absolutely necessary to complete her human nature, which essentially consists of both soul and body.

We shall begin our meditations on the resurrection of the body by first contemplating the beauty and splendor of the glorified body. This word glory is one of great and manifold meanings in Holy Scripture. In this particular place and connection it means excellence and beauty, accompanied with a shining splendor.

Wherefore our bodies rising in glory, means first that they shall rise perfect in beauty and symmetry of form. This perfect beauty of form is evidently involved in the promise of rising conformable to the glorious body of our Blessed Saviour, "who will reform the body of our lowness, made like the body of His glory, according to the operation whereby He is also able to subdue all things unto Himself."

The human body was created perfect in the beginning. It was the masterpiece of God's power and wisdom in this world.

What consolation there is in all these glorious promises! To be forever young and vigorous, forever blessed with perfect health of mind and body, to be forever beyond the reach of time, to be clothed with a body that shall forever be a stranger to suffering. These are some of the joys in store for the children of God in the resurrection of the body.

However rising in glory means something more than rising in mere beauty of form, bloom of youth, and the complete perfection of human nature. It also implies a radiant brilliancy wherewith the just will shine on the resurrection day. This is one of the meanings of glory in the language of Scripture.

When Jesus was glorified in His transfiguration, "His face did shine as the sun, and His garments became white as snow." Moreover as a general rule, when celestial inhabitants appeared in this world, they were surrounded with a halo of brilliant light, as we read of the angels who appeared at the birth of Christ, and of those who appeared to the holy women that were going to embalm the body of Jesus. Hence it is that in the paintings of Christian art, the head or the whole body of Christ, of the Blessed Virgin, and of the saints, is always surrounded by this halo of light.

This is the light, the brilliancy which is promised to the saints by our Blessed Lord Himself, when He says, "Then shall the just shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." Thus shall the soul that is now united to God in the Beatific Vision, and already a partaker of the divine nature, communicate her own splendor to the body and surround it with an aureola of glory, which will form a portion of her blessedness for evermore.

Although all the just must rise in glory and in the perfection of human nature, you must not therefore infer that all shall rise in the same degree of beauty and splendor of form. For as the resurrection is a reward to the just, it follows that each one shall have a body glorified in proportion to his own individual merits.

You would maintain that if the resurrection is a reward to the just, the beauty of their bodies should bear some proportion to their merits. You would certainly be right in maintaining this, for it is the very doctrine taught by St Paul when he says, "One is the glory of the sun, another the glory of the moon, and another the glory of the stars, for star differs from star in glory, so also in the resurrection of the dead." Each one therefore shall rise in that particular degree of glory which he has deserved by the more or less holy life he has led in this world.

Perfect personal beauty, accompanied with a heavenly splendor, being one of the rewards in store for the children of God, will then denote sanctity in the just. The more holy they have been in this life, the more beautiful and conformable to the glorious body of Jesus they shall be.

Lead a holy life, a life of purity and perfect charity. Endeavor to reproduce in yourself the virtues which Jesus taught and practiced, and when the angel's trumpet calls the dead to life, your body which must first be sown in dishonor, shall rise in that degree of beauty which you have deserved by the holiness of your life.

Social Joys of Heaven

The life of heaven is one of pure social joys.

Social interaction with our fellow beings affords us some of our purest joys in this world, yet they are not and never can be perfect. How often does it not happen that we go into society with a light heart, and return home sad and heavy?

In a word, if interaction with our fellow creatures is often the source of pure joys, it is not infrequently the occasion of our keenest sufferings.

Let us now raise our eyes to our heavenly home, and there contemplate a life of the purest and most perfect social pleasures. Putting aside for a moment, all the imperfections that mar our social joys in this world, let us look at their bright side and see what it is that makes our social interaction with others a pleasure. This will be as a mirror wherein we shall behold some faint reflections of social joys as they exist in heaven. What are the personal attributes or qualities in others that make our social interaction with them a pleasure?

These are virtue, learning, beauty, refinement, mutual love, and the ties of kindred.

Virtue is the attribute which gives us our highest similitude to God, and it is this also which imparts to us some of the purest social pleasures we enjoy on earth.

When we meet with one who is evidently a man of God, one whose every word is instinct with the spirit of God, whose whole exterior betokens the intimate union of his soul with God, in whose very countenance the beauty of angelical purity shines forth, we deem it a happiness to spend a few moments in his society. The pleasures enjoyed in his company are not only exquisite  —  they are also sanctifying. If that is so in this world where all holiness is imperfect, what shall we say of the pleasures of heavenly society?

Holiness is an essential attribute of every inhabitant of heaven. They are all pure, for none else can see God.

They are all made partakers of the Divine Nature in a far higher degree than is attainable in this world, and consequently they are all clothed with the spotless purity of God himself. Not only are they all pure, but they are moreover, totally free from those natural defects of character, which in this world make many holy persons unamiable and even repulsive. As nature is not destroyed but perfected by glory, our natural character will not be destroyed by our union with God. Whatever is faulty in it or offensive to others will disappear, leaving it amiable and perfect in its own kind. Hence, our social interaction with the saints will ever be the source of the purest pleasures.

Learning, in those with whom we associate, is another source of pleasure.

We can sit for hours listening to the interesting conversation of a learned man. In such a man's society we drink in as it were torrents of pleasures, which are among the most rational we can enjoy in this world. If these pleasures are so exquisite here below, where after all the wisest knows so little, what shall we say of those same pleasures in heaven? There all are learned, all are filled with knowledge, though all do not possess it in the same degree. Nevertheless each one's knowledge will be a source of pleasure to others.

Personal beauty is also a source of pleasure in this world. It is in heaven and there only, that every one will possess the attribute of beauty in its fullest perfection.

For the soul is clothed with the beauty of God himself, which He communicates to her in the Beatific Vision, while the whole body is beautified and glorified after the likeness of Christ's glorious body. Every saint is therefore clothed with a loveliness far superior to anything we ever can see on earth. If then, it is so great a pleasure to associate with persons who possess the natural and perishable beauty of this world, what shall we say of the pleasures which must flow from our interaction with persons who are clothed with the beauty of God Himself.

Refinement is another attribute which makes our social intercourse with others pleasurable.

A cultivated intellect, refined feelings, and elegant manners are necessary to adorn personal beauty, and make it a source of pleasure to those who are attracted thereby. It is very certain that in heaven, where our whole nature is to be elevated and perfected, this refinement of mind and heart, as well as the elegance of personal bearing which flows from both, will exist in its highest perfection, and ever be the source of exquisite pleasures in our social interaction with the blessed.

Another source of social joys is mutual love.

The four personal attributes we have been considering make an amiable character, that is, one which we love spontaneously, and whose love we are certain to have in return for ours. It is this love which crowns and perfects a character of this kind, and produces a very large share of the pure pleasures we enjoy in the society of such persons. However pure human love may be, even when elevated by grace to the virtue of charity, it never can produce unalloyed social pleasures because it never reaches its full perfection in this world.

It is in heaven only that charity is perfect. There we shall love every one with a most tender charity, and see ourselves loved as tenderly and as purely in return. Our charity will be mutual, and therefore, our interaction with the blessed will produce joys and pleasures second only to the unspeakable happiness of the Beatific Vision. Meditate well Christian soul, on these exquisite delights. Think what an unspeakable pleasure that mutual and perfect charity must be to the inhabitants of heaven. That feature alone would almost change for any one of us this cold world into a heaven.

This is precisely the blessedness which awaits us in our heavenly home. There we shall love everyone with the most perfect charity, and everyone will return our love.

"God is charity" and as "we shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He is," it follows that we shall possess that divine charity, in a far higher degree than is attainable here below. Our social interaction with the blessed will therefore, ever be the source of the purest and sweetest joy.

Besides the things already enumerated, there is one more which is to be the source of still greater joy. And what may that be?

It is the meeting in heaven of them whom we loved so well here, because they were bound to us by the sacred ties of kindred or of true friendship. It is the meeting of parent and child, of husband and wife, of brother and sister, of relatives and friends  —  with whom we were united by the bonds of the purest love.

We shall enter heaven with the natural love we now have for our kindred and friends, but in us it will be purified from everything inordinate or imperfect. What a delight that meeting must be for the blessed! We can even now form some faint idea of that heavenly joy, by reflecting on what takes place when a beloved father returns home from a long and perilous voyage, or from some cruel war where he was daily exposed to captivity and death. What outbursts of gladness among the members of his family! How happy they are to see him and embrace him! If these joys are so great in this world, what must they be in heaven. Especially since there they are coupled with the thought that there is no more separation. No, no more separation. What delightful music there is in that short sentence. Death shall be no more, and therefore we shall never more be torn away from the society of our kindred and friends.

The Happiness of Heaven, 1871

Florentin Boudreaux

[heartoflovelight]

Spirit ideals

Give priority to your soul concerns with higher emphasis for the eternal and spiritual Treasure your spirit and release yourself to experiencing the heavenly realm above Know and experience the steadfastness, solid trustworthiness, and faithfulness of God Kneel humbly before God in sincere prayer and have Him enlighten you with His love Receive the greatest and most deeply fulfilling affectionate love and kindness from God Worship God by offering Him the beauty and fragrance He has graciously gifted to you Glorify and love God with reverence and all of your life essence, vitality, and light matter Live in continual awareness of God’s constancy in companionship and close nearness

Plead the blood of Christ and purify yourself by His blood flowing over and through you Accept cleansing, healing, wholeness, tranquility, and serenity into the depths of your heart Maintain a truthful and pure vision for life, with concentration on holiness for your soul Place your sight on being your highest self within and continually sanctifying your spirit Strengthen your spirit by the Word of God and valiantly walk in the power of the Holy Spirit Soar beyond and progress onward with wisdom, loving compassion, and renewed vision Aim for the higher practices of discipline and self control as valuable fruits of the Spirit

Understand God’s true character and inner heart, as revealed in His word and prayer Devote yourself and your greatest endeavors into deepening communion with God Identify yourself above all by your heartfelt, personal, and sacred connection to God Honor retreats of seclusion to experience holiness, passion, and heart union with God Trust entirely in God, living in a state of calmness and steadfast reliance and assurance View all in light of the age to come and with a paradigm of eternity transcending time Be secure in the fullness and completeness of the relationship you established with God Surrender to the daily leading of God and His gentle guidance all throughout your days

Willingly honor God’s known will, vision, and plans for the earth and people He created Commit to walking according to the precepts, principles, and essence of the nature of God Utilize the talents and resources granted to you by God for the beneficence and good of all Serve selflessly and sacrificially while relying on God as your source of inspiring strength Learn that ways of lowly and painful suffering are your treasure and costly wisdom gained Embrace and walk your personal path of spiritual completion, attainment, and fulfillment Walk the unseen, challenging, yet most rewarding straight and narrow path for God Continue the invaluable work He has given to you for this age with grace and love

See truth in the light of God with deeper understanding, divine intuition, and discerning eyes Open your ears to the prophetic and truthfulness within the biblical narrative for this age Progress past the veils of this world and attain wisdom, insight, and direction from heaven Saturate your mind with the word of God as the living and breathing truth within yourself Embed the truth deeply inside your mind and heart, allowing it to guide you as a lighthouse Contemplate and reflect on Spirit truths, continually hearing God’s voice as You walk with Him Adhere to the truth courageously, overcoming all suffering, challenges, and difficulties of life Liberate your spirit by adhering to the distinctive qualities of a true follower of the Holy Spirit

Love your brothers and sisters in the family of God with genuine and sincere caring concern Share and sacrifice yourself for the sake of others and cohesively walk into united destinies Uplift one another by encouraging and strengthening with words of wisdom and knowledge Merge resources, dialogue, and communicate God’s messages, dreams, prophecies, and visions Labor for the salvation of souls, as ambassadors and noble missionaries to the ends of the earth Create a world of true shalom, pure holiness, and hearts filled with the grace and humility of Christ Continually intercede on behalf of all saints and sacrifice for brothers and sisters of faith globally Gather as one and jointly pursue a singular vision, becoming a unified beating heart for Christ Sacrificially wash and cleanse the feet of one another, loving as you would desire to be beloved

Integrate prayer and fasting all aspects of life periodically and consistently into daily living Pray continually in tongues for spiritual awareness, sanctification, edification, and revelation Yield to the Holy Spirit and receive a flow of continuous understanding, inspiration, and instruction Apply the power of prayer to affect the spirit realm and subsequently transform the natural realm Impart virtue by establishing human integrity, justice, and righteousness in all the spheres of society Intercede for cities and nations, sound God lead authorities, the awakening and protection of people War consciously against the spiritual forces of evil, powers and principalities of darkness, and Satan Empower yourself with the reassurance of angelic hosts guarding, protecting, and ministering to us

[heartoflovelight]

All in the name of Jesus

Our Father everlasting, the all creating One God Almighty

Through Your Holy Spirit, conceiving Christ the Son Jesus our Savior

I believe in God our Father, I believe in Christ the Son, I believe in the Holy Spirit

Our God is three in One

I believe in the resurrection, that we will rise again

For I believe in the name of Jesus, our Judge and our Defender

Suffered and crucified, forgiveness is in You

Descended into darkness, You rose in glorious life

Forever seated high, I believe in You

I believe You rose again, I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord

I believe in life eternal, I believe in the Virgin birth

I believe in the Saints' communion and in Your holy Church

I believe in the resurrection when Jesus comes again

For I believe in the Name of Jesus

You were the Word at the beginning, one with God the Lord Most High

Your hidden glory in creation now revealed in You our Christ

What a beautiful Name it is, what a beautiful Name it is

The Name of Jesus Christ my King, what a beautiful Name it is

Nothing compares to this, what a beautiful Name it is, the Name of Jesus

You didn’t want heaven without us, so Jesus You brought heaven down

My sin was great Your love was greater, what could separate us now

What a wonderful Name it is, what a wonderful Name it is

The Name of Jesus Christ my King

What a wonderful Name it is, nothing compares to this

What a wonderful Name it is, the Name of Jesus

Death could not hold You, the veil tore before You

You silence the boast of sin and grave, the heavens are roaring

The praise of Your glory, for You are raised to life again

You have no rival, You have no equal, now and forever God You reign

Yours is the kingdom, Yours is the glory, Yours is the Name above all names

What a powerful Name it is, what a powerful Name it is

The Name of Jesus Christ my King, what a powerful Name it is

Nothing can stand against, what a powerful Name it is

What a powerful Name it is, the Name of Jesus

Hillsong

[heartoflovelight]

The new life

Heavenly Peace

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will protect your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Philippians

The Resurrection

When you sow, you do not sow the body that shall be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. Then God gives it a body as He pleases, and to each seed its own body. All flesh is not the same flesh. There is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fish, and another of birds.

There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies. The glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars. One star differs from another star in glory.

The first man was of the earth made of dust, the second man was the Lord from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of dust, and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. As we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

Listen, I tell you a mystery — We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible will put on incorruption, and this mortal will put on immortality.

Earthen Vessels

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

We have this treasure in earthen vessels, the excellency of the power being from God and not from ourselves. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that also the life of Jesus might be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then, death works in us, but life in you.

We have the same spirit of faith. As it is written, I believed, and therefore I have spoken.

So we also believe and therefore speak, knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us through Jesus and will present us with you. All these things are for your sakes, so that the abundant grace through the thanksgiving of many might overflow to the glory of God.

Living by Faith

For this reason we do not lose heart — Even though our outward man is perishing, yet our inward man is being renewed day by day. Our light affliction, which lasts but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

We know that if our earthly house, this tent, were to be destroyed, we have an eternal building of God in the heavens, a house not made with hands. In this one we groan, earnestly desiring to be sheltered with our house which is from heaven. Thus being sheltered, we shall not be found unsheltered.

Now He who has created us for this very thing is God, who also has given to us the guarantee of the Spirit. For we walk by faith, not by sight. 

Paul, 1 and 2 Corinthians

The Transfiguration

After six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John His brother and brought them up to a high mountain alone, and was transfigured before them. His face shone as the sun, and His garments became white as the light.

Matthew

The Ascension

Then He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. While He blessed them, He parted from them and was carried up into heaven. Then they worshiped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God.

Luke

Stephen the Martyr

Being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

Acts

A Vision of Christ

I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And when I turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks, and in the midst of the seven candlesticks was one like a Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and with a golden sash wrapped around the chest. The hair on His head was white like wool, as white as snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters. He had in His right hand seven stars, and out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword. His appearance was like the sun shining brightly.

When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as though I were dead. Then He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am He who lives, though I was dead. Look! I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.

“Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after this. The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks — The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven candlesticks which you saw are the seven churches.

The Thousand Years

And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness of Jesus and for the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. 

Blessed and holy is he who takes part in the first resurrection. Over these the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with Him a thousand years.

John, Revelations

[heartoflovelight]

Psalm praises

Make a joyful sound to the Lord, all you lands. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before His presence with singing. Know that the Lord, He is God. It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, and bless His name. For the Lord is good. His loving kindness endures forever, and His faithfulness to all generations.

Praise the Lord! I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, in the council of the upright and in the congregation.

The Lord’s works are great, pondered by all those who delight in them. His work is honor and majesty. His righteousness endures forever. He has caused His wonderful works to be remembered. The Lord is gracious and full of compassion.

He has given food to those who fear Him. He will ever be mindful of His covenant. He has shown His people the power of His works, in giving them the heritage of the nations. The works of His hands are truth and justice. All His precepts are sure. They are established forever and ever. They are done in truth and uprightness.

He has sent redemption to His people. He has ordained His covenant forever. His name is holy and awesome. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. All those who live it have insight. His praise endures forever.

Praise the Lord, all you nations. Exalt Him, all you peoples. For His loving kindness is great toward us. The Lord's faithfulness endures forever. Praise the Lord!

[heartoflovelight]

A year with God

Reflections and understandings from a year with God.......

God desires to be loved with the deepest of affection

He knows the depths of our hearts and souls, and He desires the best of our love. When the innermost place of our hearts are filled with a tender love reserved for Him, a throne upon which He alone may rest, and an absolute loyalty towards His ways first and foremost, the reason for which we were created is fulfilled, as we love and adore Him above all.

God loves to be worshiped with all of our hearts

When we expend ourselves and pour our pure praises out at the altar of worship as living, breathing sacrifices, God is glorified and His heart is captivated with our sincerity and offering of love. The expression and mode of worship may vary by denomination, nevertheless He sees and relishes the hearts of those whom are worshiping Him.

God faithfully tends to His own with constancy and patience

The faithfulness with which God sustains, preserves, and maintains His own is a testament to His character of steadfastness and strength. Man is dust imbued with the breath and life of God, and God is the origin and source of all livelihood and fortitude with which to continue His will. He is the One who establishes, builds, loves, and brings into fulfillment all of His plans and sovereign will.

God delights in being the One we share our joys and sorrows with

The One we select to give the first moments of any elation and bring the first hours of times in vulnerability and pain, is the One we are the closest with. His shoulder is the sturdiest to lean on in all of the Universe, and from the minutest to grandest of celebrations, God is with us always in every moment and there is no other Being like Him.

God is transcendent by nature of Being and divine existence

While we are part spirit and part flesh, God is not contained within the boundaries of physical design and limitations. The magnitude with which His mind operates and moves far exceeds the capacity of all human minds from antiquity til present. The plane upon which He exists is beyond the multitude of dimensions within this cosmos, as He exists outside of created time and space itself.

God subsists of pure Spirit, emanating the brightest Light

The purest existence and presence of God is an immeasurable, heavenly, and transcendental light. His countenance is metaphysical and spiritual, impossible to be fathomed by the human soul except by means of His gracious permission. He is light and He is fire itself, existing in the highest of realms in heaven, yet He may transfigure Himself into any form or subsistence.

God longs to be loved for His presence in our daily lives

Our high and glorious God however, most desires to be present in every and all the moments of our lives. He takes pleasure in being present for our daily work and endeavors, chores, social activities and communication. He longs to be wanted for discussion, dialogue, and even debate with Him at times. He is the God of the daily life and glories in all the minutiae.

God wants us to share in His greatest pain and suffering

Communion with God in its truest sense is to empathically experience all He has experienced, that which is permissible within our capacities. Full immersion with God into feeling His sorrow in the torture of His flesh and bleeding of His blood, and to be in pain with Him as long as He desires, this is true friendship with God. To have our hearts and bodies experience what He has and to a certain extent is still experiencing, is to have become one with Him.

God requests to be trusted and followed absolutely

When on earth He walked in meekness, lowliness, and utter humility, and He asks us to lay our lives down to enter in the lowly way and walk with Him awhile. There is a great and hidden joy in this pathway, as the inner truths of heaven’s values are revealed to us. He wants to know that our trust in Him is absolute and that we will be faithful to Him irregardless of the outer manifestations.

God is pleased when we truly love His people and creatures

He accompanies us wherever we go and whomever we meet, and when we are His kindness and goodness to those we love on and minister to, God is pleased to the utmost. He is pleased and His heart gently says, these are my beloveds with whom I am well pleased. There is no joy as the joy that is before God when He sees us loving, healing, and praying for one another.

[heartoflovelight]

Heavenly Life

Love and faith work the same way in our inner being as warmth and light work in our outer flesh and are therefore represented by warmth and light. This is why the lights are said to be placed in the expanse of the heavens, or our inner being, the greater light in our will and the smaller in our intellect. But they only seem to be present there, just as the light of the sun only appears to be in physical objects. It is the Lord’s mercy alone that stirs our will with love and our intellect with truth or faith. The fact that the great lights symbolize love and faith and that they are named sun, moon, and stars can be seen in many places in the prophets.

The entirety of heaven gives itself over to love, because no other kind of life than that of love exists in the heavens. Love is the source of all their happiness, which is so immense that not a bit of it can be put into words or grasped in any way by the human mind. People who dwell in love do love the Lord with all their heart, but they know, say, and perceive that all love comes from the Lord and from nowhere else, as does all life (which is the product of love alone) and so all happiness. Not the smallest measure of love, life, or happiness do they claim to possess on their own. In the Lord’s transfiguration, the great light — the sun — represented the fact that He is the source of all love, since His face shone like the sun, while His clothes became like the light. The face symbolizes the deepest levels of being, while clothes symbolize the things that issue from those levels. So the sun (love) means the Lord’s divinity, and light (the wisdom that rises out of love), His humanity. Anyone can see perfectly well that no hint of life ever exists without some kind of love and that no trace of joy ever exists unless it results from love. The nature of the love determines the nature of the life and of the joy.

Genuine love then, is love for the Lord, and genuine life is a life of love received from Him. True joy is the joy of that life. Only one genuine love can exist, so only one genuine life can exist, and it gives rise to true joy and happiness, like that felt by angels in heaven. Love and faith can never be separated, because they make a single unit. This is why the sources of light when first mentioned are treated as grammatically singular in the statement, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens.”

Spiritual people acknowledge spiritual and heavenly types of truth and goodness, but their acknowledgment stems from faith — as do their actions. Heavenly people believe and perceive truth and goodness of spiritual and heavenly kinds, but they acknowledge no other faith than one that springs from love, and love is also what moves them to action. Those who are spiritual focus first on eternal life as their goal, and then on the Lord. Those who are heavenly concentrate first on the Lord as their goal, and then on His kingdom and eternal life.

Angelic life consists in usefulness and acts of neighborly kindness. Nothing makes angels happier than giving information to spirits newly arrived from the world and teaching them, serving people on earth, making sure that the evil spirits present with them do not go too far, and inspiring them with good, and reviving the dead as they enter eternal life, eventually taking them to heaven, if the condition of their souls allows it. Angels find more happiness in these activities than could ever be described. In performing them they become images of the Lord. In performing them they love their neighbor more than themselves. This makes heaven. Usefulness  (that is, the good that comes of love and charity) is accordingly the substance, the source, and the measure  of the angels’ happiness.

“All unity is formed out of harmony among many,” they said. “The way that the many harmonize determines what kind of unity they have. No monolithic unity lasts, only the unity created by harmony. So every community in the heavens forms a single unit, as do all the communities — or the whole of heaven — taken together. The Lord alone makes this happen, and He does so through love.”

Secrets of Heaven, 1749

Emanuel Swedenborg

[heartoflovelight]

Essence and Truth

Resurrection

We are created in such a way that as far as our inner being is concerned we cannot die. This is because we can believe in God and can also love God. We can be joined to God by faith and love, and to be joined to God is to live forever. Everyone who is born has this “inner being.” Our outer being is our inner being’s means of carrying out the intentions of its faith and love.

Our life after death is the life of our love and our faith, so the kind of love and faith we have when we live in this world determines the kind of life that will be ours to eternity. It is a life of heaven for people who have loved God above all and their neighbor as themselves. The life of heaven is what is called “eternal  life.”

Providence

Providence is the name for the Lord’s governance in the heavens and on earth. Since all the goodness that comes from love and all the truth that leads to faith — the things that are required for our salvation — come from Him and none whatever comes from us, we can see that the Lord’s divine providence is involved in absolutely everything that contributes to the salvation of the human race. As the Lord teaches in John: I am the way, the truth, and the life.

As part of His providence, the Lord governs everything in accord with the divine design, so providence is His governance in keeping with the divine design. All things that occur under His governance are things that He wills or things that He can accept or things that He has to allow. The differences depend on the nature of the individual involved. Providence works invisibly. Many things that happen because of providence seem to us to be coincidental. The reason providence works invisibly is so that we will not be compelled to believe by visible signs of providence’s handiwork.

Eternal life is instilled in us only when we are in a state of freedom and when our powers of reason are enlightened. What is ours is what we do freely according to our own reasoning, and what we do freely is what we do because we will it and love it. Our will or our love is our true self.

As for happiness in heaven, people know and understand that our being led in this direction is not something accomplished by our own prudence. Heavenly happiness comes from the Lord and is brought about by His divine providence preparing us for goodness and constantly guiding us in that direction. It is important to know that there is divine providence and there is also divine foresight.

The Divine Design

The divine truth that emanates from the Lord is the origin of the divine design, and divine goodness is what constitutes its essence. The Lord Himself then is the divine design, because divine goodness and divine truth come from the Lord, and in fact are the Lord in the heavens and on earth. The entire heaven, with all its angelic communities, is arranged by the Lord according to His divine design, since the divine nature of the Lord in and among the angels is what constitutes heaven.

The Lord

There is one God, who is both the Creator and the Sustainer of the universe, and who therefore is God of heaven and God of earth. There are two things that make a life of heaven for us — the good that we do out of love and the truth we believe. This life is given to us by God, and nothing of it comes from ourselves. For this reason, the primary duty of a church is to acknowledge God, believe in God, and love Him. Those born within the Christian church should acknowledge the Lord, His divine nature, and His human nature, and believe in Him and love Him, because all salvation comes from the Lord.

Our concept of God is a concept of three aspects in one person, when we think that the Father is in the Lord and that the Holy Spirit emanates from the Lord. In this case all three aspects are in the Lord: divinity itself, which is called the Father, the divine-human nature, which is the Son, and divinity emanating, which is the Holy Spirit.

The Lord had a divine nature from the very moment of His conception. The Lord had a divine nature from the Father. Only the Lord was born from divine seed. His inmost core was the Divine itself, and the covering over that came from His mother. The divine nature was the reality underlying the Lord’s life. From it His human nature came forth and became the manifestation of that underlying reality. We are to acknowledge the divinity of the Lord.

When the Lord was in the world, His human nature was divine truth. When He was in the world, the Lord made His human nature divine truth from the divine goodness that was in Him. The Lord then arranged everything within Himself into the form of heaven in accord with divine truth. As a result, heaven was then in the Lord and the Lord was like heaven. The Lord spoke from the divine truth itself. So in the Word, the Lord used correspondences when He spoke. As a result, the Lord is the Word and is called the Word, which is divine truth.

In the Word, “the Son of Humanity” means divine truth and “the Father” means divine goodness. Since the Lord was divine truth, He was also divine wisdom. Only the Lord’s perception and thinking came entirely from Himself, and they transcended all angelic perception and thinking.

In this way the Lord made His human nature divine. The Lord’s human nature is divine because it came from the underlying reality of the Father that was the Lord’s soul, and because it came from the divine love that is within Him. The nature of every individual is determined by the nature of his or her love. The Lord was divine love. The Lord made every aspect of His human nature divine, both inner aspects and outer ones. So unlike anyone else, He rose from the dead with His whole body. The fact that the Lord’s human nature is divine can be recognized from the omnipresence of that human nature in the Holy Supper and from His transfiguration in the presence of three of His disciples, as well as from various statements in the Word.

The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Teachings, 1758

Emanuel Swedenborg

[heartoflovelight]

Merry Christmas everyone……. may love and peace, joy and grace fill your hearts and homes this day as we commemorate the birth of our Messiah, King, and God, Lord Jesus Christ.

All our love, all the glory, and all that is beautiful and true, may it be attributed to You, Jesus, the giver and sustainer of all life, truth, strength, and light. You are our one and only Majesty, eternal and everlasting, throughout all ages and human civilization, as You rule above all.

Heaven and earth are in Your hands, yet You came to us in humility and sacrificial love in the form of a babe, to share in our lives and eternally abide with us. We worship You with all that we are, dust filled with the Spirit and breath of the living God, and long to be in Your temple for all of eternity.

Gratitude and love overwhelm our hearts today…….  For Your coming and abiding with humankind, we are truly grateful, and we will stand by Your side as Your holy, faithful, and loving ones.

And we faithfully await your second coming……. Return for us and establish the New Jerusalem here on earth, as it is in heaven……. we love you, maranatha Jesus.

A few hymns for the Christmas spirit....... with love always

Beautiful Savior

Beautiful Savior, King of Creation, Son of God and Son of Man! Truly I would love You, truly I would serve You, light of my soul, my joy, and my crown.

Fair are the meadows, fair are the woodlands, robed in the flowers of blooming spring. Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer, He makes our sorrowing spirit sing.

Fair is the sunshine, fair is the moonlight, bright the sparkling stars on high, Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer than all the angels in the sky.

Beautiful Savior, Lord of the nations, Son of God and Son of Man! Glory and honor, praise, adoration now and forevermore be Yours.

Lutheran Hymnal, 1677, translated by Joseph Augustus Seiss, 1873

  Good News from Heaven the Angels Bring

Good news from heaven the angels bring, glad tidings to the earth they sing, to us this day a Child is given to crown us with the joy of heaven.

What living hope those words proclaim that come from holy Bethlehem! Though ages pass, their message true, within our hearts be ever new!

Redeemer Lord from heaven above, descend and fill our hearts with love, whenever we sing that song again of “Peace on earth, good will toward men.”

Martin Luther, 1531

Angels from the Realms of Glory

Angels from the realms of glory, sound your clarion over the earth, tell o tell the wondrous story, and proclaim Messiah’s birth.

Shepherds in the field abiding, watching over your flocks by night, angel hosts to you confiding, yonder shines the hallowed light.

Sages leave your contemplations, brighter visions beam afar, seek the great desire of nations, follow ye His natal star.

Watchers at the altar bending, waiting long in hope and fear, lo the Lord of life descending, in His temple does appear.

Come and worship, come and worship, worship ye the Lord our King.

James Montgomery, 1816

On This Day Earth Shall Ring

On this day earth shall ring, with the song children sing to the Lord, Christ the King, born on earth to save us. Hope and joy He gave us.

God’s bright star over His head, wise men three to Him led, kneel they low by His bed, lay their gifts before Him. Praise Him and adore Him.

On this day angels sing, with their song earth shall sing, praising Christ heaven’s King, born on earth to save us. Peace and love He gave us.

Gloria Deo! Gloria Deo! Gloria, Gloria, in excelsis Deo!

Piae Cantiones, 1582, translated by Jane Marion Joseph, 1917

Of the Father’s Love Begotten

Of the Father’s love begotten ere the worlds began to be, He is Alpha and Omega, He the source, the ending He, Of the things that are, that have been, and that future years shall see, evermore and evermore.

By His word was all created, He commanded, it was done, Heaven and earth and depths of ocean, universe of three in one, All that sees the moon’s soft shining, all that breathes beneath the sun, evermore and evermore.

O that birth forever blessed, when the Virgin full of grace, By the Holy Ghost conceiving, bore the Savior of our race, And the Babe, the world’s Redeemer, first revealed His sacred face, evermore and evermore.

This is He whom seers in old time chanted of with one accord, Whom the voices of the prophets promised in their faithful word, Now He shines, the long expected, let creation praise its Lord, evermore and evermore.

O ye heights of heaven adore Him, angel hosts, His praises sing, Powers, dominions, bow before Him, and extol our God and King, Let no tongue on earth be silent, every voice in concert ring, evermore and evermore.

Christ, to You with God the Father and O Holy Ghost to You, Hymn and chant and high thanksgiving and unwearied praises be, Honor, glory, and dominion, and eternal victory, evermore and evermore.

Aurelius Clemens Prudentius, 5th century

[heartoflovelight]

Unity of the Divine Being

There is one God

Mark

Who can search out this God to perfection? None of the creatures that He has made. Only some of His attributes He has been pleased to reveal to us in His word. Hence we learn that God is an eternal Being. “His goings forth are from everlasting,” and will continue to everlasting. As He ever was, so He ever will be, as there was no beginning of His existence, so there will be no end. This is universally allowed to be contained in His very name, Yahweh, which the Apostle John accordingly renders, “He that was, and that is, and that is to come.” Perhaps it would be as proper to say, “He is from everlasting to everlasting.”  

Nearly allied to the eternity of God, is His omnipresence. As He exists through infinite duration, so He cannot but exist through infinite space. According to His own question — “Do not I fill heaven and earth? says the Lord” (heaven and earth in the Hebrew idiom, implying the whole universe) which therefore is filled with His presence.  

This God is a Spirit. It was the opinion both of the ancient Jews and the ancient Christians, that He alone is a pure Spirit, totally separate from all matter, whereas they supposed all other spirits, even the highest angels, even cherubim and seraphim, to dwell in material vehicles, though of an exceeding light and subtile substance. At that point of duration which the infinite wisdom of God saw to be most proper, for reasons which hid in the abyss of His own understanding, not to be fathomed by any finite mind, God “called into being all that is,” created the heavens and the earth, together with all that they contain.“

All things were created by Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. He created man in particular, after His own image, to be “a picture of His own eternity.” When He had raised man from the dust of the earth, He breathed into him an immortal spirit. Hence He is peculiarly called, “The Father of our spirits,” yes, “The Father of the spirits of all flesh.”

The eternal, omnipresent, almighty, all-wise Spirit, as He created all things, so He continually superintends whatever He has created. He governs all, not only to the bounds of creation, but through the utmost extent of space, and not only through the short time that is measured by the earth and sun, but from everlasting to everlasting. We know that as all nature, so all religion, and all happiness, depend on Him.

He “made all things for Himself, for His glory they were created,” seeing “He gives to all life, and breath, and all things.” He made all things to be happy. He made man to be happy in Himself. He is the proper centre of spirits, for whom every created spirit was made. So true is that well-known saying of the ancient Fathers: Fecisti nos ad te, et irrequietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in te. “You have made us for Yourself, and our heart cannot rest till it rests in You.” This observation gives us a clear answer to that question in the Assembly’s Catechism, “For what end did God create man?”  The answer is, “To glorify and enjoy Him forever.” This is undoubtedly true. Now is not this the very principle that should be inculcated upon every human creature — “You are made to be happy in God,” as soon as ever reason dawns? 

It is in consequence of our knowing God loves us, that we love Him, and love our neighbour as ourselves. Gratitude towards our Creator cannot but produce benevolence to our fellow creatures. The love of Christ constrains us, not only to be harmless, to do no ill to our neighbour, but to be useful, to be “zealous of good works, as we have time to do good unto all men” and to be patterns to all of true, genuine morality, of justice, mercy, and truth.

As soon as the Father of spirits reveals His Son in our hearts, and the Son reveals His Father, the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts, then and not till then, we are happy. We are happy, first, in the consciousness of His favour, which indeed is better than life itself. Next, in the constant communion with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. Then, in all the heavenly tempers which He has wrought in us by His Spirit. Again, in the testimony of His Spirit, that all our works please Him. And lastly, in the testimony of our own spirits, that “in simplicity and godly sincerity we have had our conversation in the world.” Standing fast in this liberty from sin and sorrow, wherewith Christ has made them free, real Christians “rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks.” And their happiness still increases as they “grow up into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” 

"The Father reveals His Son” in his heart, and he “calls Jesus, Lord, by the Holy Spirit.” And then the love of God is “shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Spirit which is given unto him.” From this principle springs real, disinterested benevolence to all mankind, making him humble, meek, gentle to all men, easy to be entreated — to be convinced of what is right, and persuaded to what is good, inviolably patient, with a thankful acquiescence in every step of His adorable providence.

And see that you begin where God Himself begins, “You shall have no other gods before me.” First therefore, see that you love God, next your neighbour — every child of man. From this fountain let every affection, every passion flow. So shall that “mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” Let all your thoughts, words, and actions spring from this! So shall you “inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.”

He to whom this character belongs, to him the one, eternal, omnipresent, all-perfect Spirit, is the “Alpha and Omega, the first and the last,” not his Creator only, but his Sustainer, his Preserver, his Governor, his Father, his Savior, Sanctifier, and Comforter. This God is his God, and his All, in time and in eternity.

Sermon 114, Dublin, 1789

John Wesley

[heartoflovelight]

Prayer for Israel

תפילה לשלום מדינת ישראל

Tefilah l’Shalom Medinat Yisra’el

Our Father who art in Heaven, Protector and Redeemer of Israel, bless the State of Israel which marks the dawn of our deliverance. Shield it beneath the wings of Your love, spread over it Your canopy of peace, send Your light and Your truth to its leaders, officers, and counselors, and direct them with Your good counsel.

God, strengthen the defenders of our Holy Land, grant them salvation and crown them with victory. Establish peace in the land, and everlasting joy for its inhabitants.

Remember our brethren, the whole house of Israel, in all the lands of their dispersion. Speedily let them walk upright to Zion Your city, to Jerusalem Your dwelling place, as it is written in the Torah of Your servant Moses, “Even if you are dispersed in the uttermost parts of the world, from there the Lord your God will gather and fetch you. The Lord your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it.”

Unite our heart to love and revere Your name, and to observe all the precepts of Your Torah. Shine forth in Your glorious majesty over all the inhabitants of Your world. Let everything that breathes proclaim, “The Lord God of Israel is King, His majesty rules over all.”

Amen, Selah

By the Chief Rabbinate of Israel, Yitsḥak HaLevi Hertzog

Hear Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.

Blessed be the name of His glorious majesty forever and ever.

You were the same before the world was created, You have been the same since the world has been created. You are the same in this world, and You will be the same in the world to come. Reveal Your holiness to those who sanctify Your name, manifest Your holiness throughout Your world. May our strength rise and be exalted through Your deliverance.

Blessed are You, Lord, who sanctifies Your name in the presence of all men.

You, Lord our God, are in heaven and on earth and in the highest heavens. Truly, You are the first and You are the last, besides You there is no God. Gather those who yearn for You from the four corners of the earth. Let all mankind realize and know that You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all that is in them.

We sanctify Your name in this world even as they sanctify it in the highest heavens.

Be pleased, Lord our God, with Your people Israel and with their prayer, restore the worship to Your most holy sanctuary, accept Israel’s offerings and prayer with gracious love. May the worship of Your people Israel be ever pleasing to You. May our eyes behold Your return in mercy to Zion. Blessed are You, Lord, who restores Your divine presence to Zion.

Grant us everlasting love, remember the covenant of the patriarchs in favor of their children. Bring us to Zion Your city with song, to Jerusalem Your sanctuary with everlasting joy.

Blessed are You, Lord our God and God of our fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob. Great, mighty, and revered God, sublime God, who bestows lovingkindness, and are Master of all things, who remembers the good deeds of our fathers, and who will graciously bring a redeemer to their children’s children for the sake of Your name.

King, Supporter, Savior, and Shield. Blessed are You, Lord.

Ha-Siddur Ha-Shalem, 1949, translated by Philip Birnbaum

National Museum of American Jewish History

[heartoflovelight]

A special thank you

A heartfelt thank you to everyone for being consistently genuinely kind and considerate in all your words, love, and encouragement throughout this year. Of what will be in eternity, loving relationships that endure through every season of the soul, are our treasures and gifts from God.

Thank you to all who have been pouring their hearts, sincere concern, precious time, and God given talents, into diligently and faithfully loving one another as oneself for the sake of love, and persevering in upholding all that is good, true, and honorable of humanity for the everlasting glory of God.

May God continue to bless you with the fullness of His presence, His covenantal friendship and faithfulness, and His strengthening love, which are our sustenance, renewal, and delight. I pray that all your endeavors, sacred work, and committed devotion to serving one another selflessly and sacrificially be rewarded by God Himself.

And may God’s hands and sovereignty be over Southern California....... especially praying for your safekeeping, preservation, and hosts of angels to be with you....... The greatest honor to all the firefighters risking their lives to contain the fire, and to those who have suffered the loss of their homes, we are with you in your distress........

Wishing all a blessed Hanukkah and an early Merry Christmas....... may the upcoming New Year be fulfilling and healing, anointed with heavenly light, and one to be cherished.

Love and peace,

Elis

[heartoflovelight]

Beautiful name, Jesus

Unto us Christ is born.......

Yeshua

יֵשׁוּעַ

The Anointed One, Messiah

הַמָּשִׁיחַ

God is with us, Immanuel

עִמָּ֫נוּאֵ֫ל

Beloved One

יְדִיד

Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.

There was given to Him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion.

On that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is to the east of Jerusalem. And the Lord will be king over all the earth. In that day it will be—“The Lord is one,” and His name is one.

For to us a Child is born, to us a Son is given and the government shall be upon His shoulder, And His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were created through Him, and without Him nothing was created that was created. In Him was life, and the life was the light of mankind. The light shines in darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. This man came as a witness in order to testify concerning the Light, that all men through Him might believe. He was not this Light, but was sent in order to testify concerning the Light.

The true Light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was created through Him. Yet to all who received Him, He gave the power to become sons of God, to those who believed in His name, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, the glory as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.

John bore witness of Him and cried out, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.’ ” We have all received from His fullness grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The only Son, who is at the Father’s side, has made Him known.

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest, for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways, to give knowledge of salvation to His people by the remission of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise from on high has visited us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you. Therefore the Holy One who will be born will be called the Son of God.

I am the servant of the Lord. May it be unto me according to your word.

Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment to those things which were spoken to her by the Lord.

Bethlehem Ephrathah, although you are small among the tribes of Judah, From you will come forth for Me one who will be ruler over Israel. His origins are from of old, from ancient days.

He will stand and shepherd in the strength of the Lord, In the majesty of the name of the Lord His God. Then they will live securely, because now He will be great Until the ends of the earth, and He will be their peace.

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, and peace among those with whom He is pleased“

When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us now go to Bethlehem and see what has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.”

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the Child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house, they saw the Child with Mary His mother, and they fell down and worshiped Him.

He was named Jesus, the name given by the angel Gabriel

Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It was revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. Led by the Spirit, he came into the temple. And when the parents brought in the Child Jesus, to do for Him according to the custom of the law, he received Him in his arms and blessed God.

“Lord, now let Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word, for my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.”

Psalms, Daniel, Zechariah, Isaiah, Gospels, and Micah

[heartoflovelight]

My personal resolutions.......

A compilation of qualities and ideals to personally and collectively embrace, flourish in, and cultivate in the New Year.......

gratitude

reciprocating love, contentment, acknowledgment and recognition, affirmative giving of commendation, feeling of thankfulness for benevolence, being appreciative and sincerely pleased

meekness

true strength under self-control, gracefulness toward brothers and sisters in Christ, patience under persecution, longsuffering, righteous forbearance, yielding as a lamb to the slaughter, mildness in nature

respect

high regard, consideration for and being mindful of another, abiding by certain codes of conduct, civility and courtesy, admiration elicited by attributes, adhering to veneration, reverence, and worship of God

humility

offering and reflecting a spirit of deference, heart posture of lowliness, meekness toward one another, willingness to yield to God, modesty, deeply considering and personally experiencing another perspective

empathy

compassionately sharing in the life of another, thorough understanding through the Holy Spirit, spiritual identification, heightened awareness and emotional sensitivity, sacrificially healing the heart

graciousness

tenderness and gentleness, merciful acts, kindness and consideration in manners, tact and generosity of spirit, beneficence, beauty in form or movement, favorable approach

conscientiousness

carefulness, respectful etiquette and politeness, being governed by conscience in accordance to inner truth, cautious responsiveness, thoughtfulness, dedication and diligence

sincerity

genuineness, earnestness, naturalness, wholeheartedness, cleanliness in personal integrity, sharing from the innermost chambers of the heart, purity in thoughts and understanding, trustworthiness

kindness

being affectionate, altruistic selflessness, warmheartedness and tenderheartedness, respectfully treating another soul with loving favor and graciousness

peacefulness

tranquility, inner sense of calmness, fullness of the Holy Spirit, repose and sereneness, moments of gratitude and reflection, fairness toward self and others, harmoniousness and accord, solace

faithfulness

living in covenantal love, resoluteness, assurance of constancy, fortitude, steadfastness in loyalty, centering all on God, reliability, responsibility, prevailing in trusting God

integrity

firm adherence to principles, living in accordance to spiritual virtues as embodied by Christ, uprightness in conduct, state of being whole and unified, soundness of character, stability, inward consistency

good character

formation of being inspired by a Theophany, divine counsel, and guidance, holy essence or noble nature of the spirit, inner and outer valiance, truthfulness in thoughts and actions, Godly distinguishing honorable features

perseverance

persistence, resilience of character, continuance in belief and vision of life, faithfulness to sacred inspiration, tenaciousness in fulfilling commitments, eternal and spiritual perspective in endeavors

[heartoflovelight]

Your will be done

In the will of God creation has its origin, existence, happiness, power, and glory. 

To the will of God the life of grace in the heart owes its origin, blessedness, power, and glory. In knowing and loving, in doing and bearing, in fulfilling all that will, the spiritual life finds its growth, strength, and everlasting blessedness. Whether it be God’s will in His providence in time, His purpose in eternity, His precepts or His promises, he that lives in the will of God will there find God Himself and all His salvation.

The will of God, the glory of heaven

In the will of God we have the perfect expression of His divine perfection. As He is a fountain of all beauty and blessedness, His will is inconceivably beautiful and blessed. In it His divine wisdom and goodness make themselves known. Through it the creature can know his God, and in accepting and doing that will he finds the only and sure way to fellowship and union with God. 

The glory and the blessedness of heaven consist in that God’s will is done there in and by all.

God’s holy providence

When the Christian learns to see God’s will in everything that comes to him, grievous or pleasing, great or small, the prayer ‘Your will be done’ will become the unceasing expression of adoring submission and praise. The whole world with its dark mysteries and life with all its difficulties, will be illumined with the light of God’s presence and rule. And the soul will taste the rest and the bliss of knowing it is every moment encircled and watched over by God’s will, that nothing can separate it from the love of which the will is the expression.

God’s righteous precepts

Every command of our Father in heaven is a ray of the divine will, radiant to the eye that can see it, with all the perfection of the divine nature. We all naturally connect the rays of light on earth with the sun from which they come. The more the Christian links every precept with the infinite will of love from which it comes, the more will he see the nobility of a life of entire obedience, the privilege and honor of carrying out in human forms the perfect will of the Father in heaven.

He says of God’s precepts, ‘They are the rejoicing of my heart,’ and ‘Your will be done as in heaven’ becomes the inspiration of a glad fulfillment of all God’s commands.

God’s precious promises

Let every believer seek earnestly to realize what God’s will is in His promises. God’s will is His determination to do a certain thing and His engagement to do it for or in us, if we will trust Him. Behind the promises there is the faithful and almighty God waiting to fulfill them. What a strength it would give in prayer to be quiet and trace the promises to the living will and the loving heart that make them true to all who yield themselves in trust and dependence.

God’s eternal purpose

The believer who longs to enter fully into all the will of God, will be led on into a wider and deeper insight into the glory of its counsels. He will learn something of that great purpose which filled the heart of God from eternity, which reveals the triumph of God’s redeeming love in a world of sin. He is led by the Holy Spirit into the great counsels of redemption, into the meaning of the sacrifice by which God has sought to accomplish them, of the patience with which He is working out His plans, and the final triumph which is sure and glorious.

‘Your will be done, as in heaven, on earth’ becomes the expression of his fellowship with God in His carrying out of His everlasting counsel of grace, of his intercession on behalf of a perishing world, and of his joyful anticipation of all flesh seeing the glory of God. He feels himself as a particle of dust floating in the sunlight of God’s presence. He knows himself an instrument, a vessel, a member of the body of Christ, through which God’s glory is working His perfect will.

This prayer needs your whole heart and the indwelling of Jesus Christ in the heart to be able to pray it. It calls for a heart, a will, and a life entirely given to the Father in heaven by His Spirit dwelling in us to understand it. Let the glory of God doing His will in us and through us, be met by a will entirely given to do His will on earth as it is done in heaven.

God’s will, our union with Jesus

Christians long greatly for a more intimate fellowship with Jesus and the thought of a fuller experience of His love, of His abiding presence, and of His power to save from sin and self greatly attracts them. The way into the most intimate union with Christ is very simple  —  doing the will of His Father.

Thinking as God thinks, loving what God loves, willing as God wills, doing what God says, could we think that there is any way but this to the fellowship or the favor of God? Of Himself Jesus said, ‘I have kept the commandments of My Father and abide in His love.’ 

The spiritual knowledge of God, His presence, His power, and His indwelling is given to the obedient. ‘If a man loves Me he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our residence with him.’

Christ speaks of the will of the Father as the expression of a personal, living communication in which the Father’s voice and presence is ever known and never for a moment separated from Him. The ever present love of God showing His will and the ever blessed enjoyment of that love, enabled Christ to be obedient even to death. This alone can enable us to do the Father’s will.

The only power to do God’s will is the unceasing experience of the Father’s presence, His loving voice, His guiding eye, and His inspiring love. 

  Our Lord said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.’ He came not to do His own will, but the will of the Father. This is the way in which He will lead you, the new and living way He opened in His blood by doing God’s will. This is the truth He will be to you, in the doing of the Father’s will is the union with Him perfected. This is the life He will give you, the life of God given in Christ revealed and perfected by the will of God, as it is willed and done by us.

As God’s will is truly and fully taken up into our willing and doing, God reveals Himself to us. ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’ 

The will of God is the heavenly treasure in the earthen vessel of our will, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us, and we trust God to work His own will in us and through us. There is in the will of God a divine vitality and energy, that to the heart that wills and does as God wills, it becomes life and strength. He that seeks honestly to do them in reverence of God will learn to know the mystery of Christ. Will to do God’s will and you shall have divine light and certainty as to all that Christ has taught. A will, a disposition set upon doing God’s will, is the only organ for knowing God’s truth. All believers who long to have these promises shine with divine light in their hearts.

Obedience even to death 

In Gethsemane, Christ entered into the very deepest and nearest fellowship with you in surrendering His will to death. It is sin that needs this sacrifice, it is to take away sin that He is here. And the first part of His work is that He Himself resist and conquer it. Scripture teaches us to look to what gave that suffering and death its inner value  —  Christ’s obedience. It was not merely in what He did or suffered, but in the spirit in which He acted that infinite worth and atoning merit are to be found. During His whole life He had spoken of not doing His own will. Here He proves that He will do the will of the Father, even though it costs Him His life. The very nature and essence of the salvation He imparts is what was the very nature and essence of His own life  —  a delight and power to do God’s will. 

In Christ and His holy, sinless nature, there was obedience through what He suffered until it culminated in the surrender of His will to death, that there may be in the believer who seeks to follow his Lord in full conformity, insight into the absolute necessity of a surrender of all self-will and divine certainty of God’s working in us. He is led to know experientially that he is crucified with Christ and dead to self and its will. There can be no thought of our understanding or attaining this, until the desire has come to surrender all even to death, to live in the will of God alone. Death to self-will means a quiet bowing before God and a simple trusting in the blessed Lamb of God, who passed through death as the only way to the perfect surrender of His will to God’s will, to breathe His own Spirit and with it the very will of God into us. 

God’s own heart

A man who does all God’s will is the man after His own heart. Nothing can delight in God’s will and actually do it, but a new and divine nature born and daily renewed by a divine power from above. 'All’ is the secret of true consecration, of a life ‘worthy of the Lord to all well pleasing,’ of being a man after God’s own heart. God Himself through His Son and Spirit lives and works in the inmost recesses of our being, and inspires all its powers. Believe that you have a divine nature prepared to do all God’s will, on the condition that you hold it in close and continual dependence on the Holy Spirit. Faith with a humble, patient, and dependent surrender to God, will bring you to an entirely new position and power in doing God’s will. 

Give yourself to Him, a loving Father, that you take His commands as a loving will, made known in loving fellowship by Himself to yourself. Look at God’s will as one great whole  —  the revelation of His loving purpose with man and with you. Bow yourself in the deepest humility to wait on God to work in you. The humility that bows in deep grief at the enmity of our nature against God’s will, in the dependence of waiting on God for Him to work His will in you, will be an entrance into the kingdom of heaven and divine sufficiency in Christ for all that the Father asks of you, when He calls you to be a man after His own heart who shall do all His will.

A renewed mind

He who would live as an acceptable sacrifice must live in the acceptable will of God. To live in the will of God is the one and only thing that can make us well pleasing to Him. The object of true consecration is doing the will of God. The three adjectives Paul uses, the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God, indicate three stages in our proving and knowing the will of God. 

The first refers to our discerning between good and evil, and our accepting what we know of God’s will as indeed good. The second refers to our knowledge of God’s will in special relation to ourselves. The third tells us that we may not rest content with what we already know and do of God’s will. This is only a beginning and we must press on to stand perfect in all the will of God. To know and accept the will of God as good, is good. To know it in our personal relationship to Him as well pleasing, is better. To know the perfect will of God is best of all, the true aim of the full Christian life. On the first great call of the Epistle  —  live entirely as sacrifices to God, follows at once the second as its complement  —  live only to do the will of God.

‘Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.’ 

The renewal in regeneration must be followed by a continual, daily renewing of the Holy Spirit. ‘He saved us that you be renewed in the spirit of your minds, through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit.’ This is the only power that can enable us to live as living, holy, and acceptable sacrifices that delight in doing the will of God. It is only a healthy man who can do a healthy man’s work. It is only a spiritual man who can walk in the spiritual path of obedience to all God’s will. To prove what is the good and acceptable will of God is the calling and the privilege of every believer. The only power that can overcome is that of the Holy Spirit, and to be daily transformed in the renewing of our mind gives the spiritual capacity to know, to love, and to do all God’s will. 

The eternal Spirit through whom Christ said, ‘I delight to do Your will,’ and offered Himself a sacrifice to God, is in you. Yield yourself as a sacrifice for Him, believe and receive His daily renewing, and He will fit you for proving all the perfect will of God.

Sanctification

‘This is the will of God, your sanctification.’ 

‘Be holy, for I am holy. I am the Lord who sanctifies you.’ 

Holiness is the very nature of God, inseparable from His being, and can only be communicated by Himself and His own life. We are God’s ‘elect, chosen to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit.’ The new nature we have derived from Him has been created in true holiness. Our holy calling is in the power of the new, divine, and holy nature to act out its principles. As we believe in God working in us through Christ and the Spirit, the inflow of the holy life from above is renewed, and we have the courage and the power to live out the precepts that reveal the way to act. The whole of salvation, sanctification, or the life of holiness, is the result of man’s cooperating with God. In eternity God predestinated us to be holy, ‘we are elect according to the foreknowledge of God in the sanctification of the Spirit.’ 

Worship God in His holiness, until every thought of God in His glory and grace is connected with deep conviction. In those who yield their consent, who love that will and long that it should be done on earth as in heaven, God Himself works out all things after the purpose of His will. The commands of God have unspeakable value and through them the Holy One seeks to make us partakers of His own holiness. 

Let the whole spirit, soul, and body be sanctified. Let every command that points to true Christ-like life  —  humility, love, and self-sacrifice  —  be welcomed as the channel of God’s holiness. As we know Him as the living God, holy, loving, almighty, ever present and working, His will and His holiness will become to us heavenly realities, and we shall know how certainly and blessedly His will is our sanctification.

Living to the will of God

The living presence and power of Christ in the heart enables us to do God’s will from the heart. We need to pray very earnestly that every power, every moment, and every movement of our life be in harmony with that will. 

Jesus Christ has said, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for all I ask of you, for all you have to do.’ 

Living to God’s will is only possible, is truly possible, by the power of Jesus Christ resting on us and working in us through the Holy Spirit. God’s Spirit dwells in you as the power for you to do God’s will. To live to God’s will, we need to wait daily for divine guidance of the Holy Spirit to make that will known to us. The will of God is a living light and power, revealed in fellowship with Him. The believer who would truly live to the will of God in all things, will deeply feel the need of divine guidance, leading him day by day in the path and the steps of Jesus. All power to do God’s will is in Him. As we truly say Christ lives in me, we shall find His strength is perfected in our weakness. The call comes to each believer, sanctified in the will of God by the offering of the body of Jesus and perfected forevermore, to accept the will of God as done by Christ for us and still being done in us by Him, as God’s gift.

When the heart sees, accepts, loves, and vows this doing of God’s will as its desire, Jesus does take charge of a surrendered will, and in the power of Him who lives in heaven and lives in us, the doing of God’s will can become our daily life.

God Himself working His will in us

Our God of peace has brought the great Shepherd of the sheep from the dead, in the blood of the everlasting covenant. All that the Epistle to the Hebrews says about our Lord Jesus has taught us about the covenant, the blood of the covenant, and the exaltation of Christ to the throne as Priest King. And now the God of peace, who gave Christ to do His will and die on the Cross, who then raised Him from the dead, is the same God who will perfect us to do His will. As much as it was God who sent and enabled Christ to do His will, and through that perfected Him and perfected our salvation, it is God who will perfect us in every good to do His will. 

God's will being done in us is to God of the same interest as His will done in Christ and He cares for the one as much as the other. The omnipotence which created for Christ a body through the Virgin Mary and empowered Christ  —  who could do nothing of Himself  —  to do that will, even to the agony of Gethsemane and surrender of His Spirit into His Father's hand on Calvary, raised Him from the grave to His own right hand, the same omnipotent God is working in us that we may do His will. The God who worked all in Christ, even to raising Him from the very dead, is working all in us and all is of God.

The great redemption is for us to do God's will here on earth, and for this we were created, this was God's image and likeness in us, and this was our fitness for fellowship with God and participation in His rule of the world to which we were destined. To redeem and bring us back to this, God worked the astounding miracle of power and of love  —  His Son becoming man, that as man He might show us to do God's will, and by doing it sin could be atoned and conquered. For this Christ lives in heaven and in our hearts, that through Him God may work in us that which is well pleasing in His heart.

We believe that all the mysteries of redemption, Christ's resurrection and exaltation to heaven were wrought ‘by the working of the strength of God's might.’ Scripture affirms as distinctly that the same exceeding greatness of His power works in them that believe. The will of God is so holy and divine, no one can do it but God Himself. God has given us a renewed will, capable of knowing and desiring, and even delighting in His will, but not of doing in our own strength. This is indeed our glory, that God who according to His very nature, is working Himself in us that which is pleasing in His sight. 

And with this we understand His power cannot work freely and fully in us except as He dwells in us. Jesus said, ‘The Father abiding in Me does the work.’ It is through Jesus Christ that God works in us what is pleasing in His sight. Through Jesus Christ dwelling in the heart by the power of the Holy Spirit, God by a continual, almighty operation is working His will in us. What is needful is a simple but unceasing and unlimited faith in the indwelling Jesus. ‘I come,’ He said, ‘and I delight to do Your will.’ He is the executor of the Father's will, through whom it is all carried out. 

The glory of God’s will

They cast their crowns before the throne saying, ‘Worthy are You, our Lord and God, to receive the glory, the honor, and the power, for You have created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created.’ 

In the book of Revelation we have the glory of God as Creator. The living creatures that are in the midst of the throne, have no rest day nor night as they sing, 

‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and is and is to come.’ 

As they show forth the glory of the divine Person as Him who lives for ever and ever, the twenty four elders fall down and worship Him in His works. Then follows the glory of God as Redeemer, where the song of the ransomed, ‘Worthy are You’ and of the angel hosts, ‘Worthy is the Lamb’ is followed by the adoration of all creatures, 

‘Blessing, honor, and glory be to Him that sits on the throne and to the Lamb, forever.’ 

Midway between the worship of God in the glory of His divine Being as the holy and everliving One, and His glory of redemption with the Lamb in the midst of the throne, comes the glory of His divine will as the Creator of all.

‘Worthy are You, our Lord and God, to receive the glory, the honor, and the power, for You have created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created.’

In heaven where all veils are taken away, where everything is seen in the light of God and God is known, the elders, at the thought that God has been pleased to will creation into existence, fall down on their faces in worship, cast their crowns before the throne, and give Him glory because of His will. God's glory shines out in His works. The connecting link between the glory of His divine Person and of the works He has made, is His will. 

God’s will is the highest glory of creation, and the God of all glory has willed creation, the expression and embodiment of His all perfect and almighty will, which bears on it the stamp of His divine glory. The glory of the Creator and the glory of the creature unite in the glory of the divine will, the connecting link between the two. In heaven, creation is seen to be in every detail the manifestation of the presence, power, and goodness of God. And the heavenly beings, as the mouthpiece and interpreter of creation, cease not to give glory to this all creating ‘Will.’ And it is because they see the glory of God's will and adore it, they delight in doing it as it is done in heaven.

If we are to do God's will on earth as it is done in heaven, we need the same spirit of adoration and worship. We need to have our heart opened to the inconceivably wonderful thought, ‘Because of God's will, we have and are what we are. God has willed us into existence. That will maintains us every moment. In virtue of that will we are His redeemed children. On that will we can count to carry out His purpose. Here we are, the workmanship of the glorious will of the holy and everliving God, as His handiwork partaking of and manifesting His glory. Every moment of our existence, every power of our being, may be the embodiment, the manifestation of God's will.’ 

Surely if our eyes and hearts are opened to see this, we would fall prostrate and worship as well. ‘You are worthy to receive the glory, for because of Your will we were created, and are what we are.’ And if we have as yet no crowns to cast before the throne, we have that which is as the crown of our being  —  our will, our heart, our life, and our love to offer to Him who sits upon the throne, as we ever say again, ‘You are worthy to receive the glory, whose will has made us the recipients of Your creating and redeeming love.’

The glory of the will of God! 

In Him, who sits upon the throne! 

In the universe, which He created to show forth that will! 

In the heavenly hosts, who worship before the throne where that will is enthroned in glory! 

In the Beloved Son, who came as man to do that will upon earth! 

In the heart of the believer, who has yielded his life to be conformed to it! 

In the Church, through which that will is working out its eternal purpose in the world! 

Oh the glory of the will of God! 

May we gaze, worship, and give glory to God, as the will of God rules on the throne of our heart as on the throne of heaven, and is done in our life on earth as it is done in heaven. 

God’s Will, Our Dwelling Place, 1901

Andrew Murray

[heartoflovelight]

Spirit of peace, spirit of grace, and spirit of love for Israel

We are praying and interceding for you, you have our hearts and our blessings

[heartoflovelight]

Spirit of God within us

I will pray to the Father and He will give you another Counselor, that He may be with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive for it does not see Him and neither does it know Him. You know Him, for He lives with you, and will be in you.

You believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places. I am going to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, you may be also. You know where I am going, and you know the way. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him.

I will not leave you fatherless as orphans. I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see Me no more, though you will see Me. As I live, you will live also. On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me. If a man loves Me, he will keep My word. 

He who loves Me will be loved by My Father. And I will love him and will reveal Myself to him. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. I have spoken these things to you while I am still with you. 

The Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. 

Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. 

Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. You have heard Me say to you, ‘I am going away and am returning to you.’ If you loved Me, you would rejoice as I said, ‘I am going to the Father,’ for My Father is greater than I. Now I have told you before it happens so that, when it happens, you may believe. After this I will not speak much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over Me. I do as the Father has commanded Me so that the world may know that I love the Father.

I am the true vine and My Father is the vinedresser. Abide in Me, as I abide in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, bears much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing. If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, you will ask whatever you desire and it shall be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, so you will be My disciples.

As the Father loved Me, I also loved you. Abide in My love.

If you love Me, keep My commandments. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, even as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. I have spoken these things to you, that My joy may be in you, and your joy may be full. 

This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master does. I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from My Father have I made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that the Father may give you whatever you ask Him in My name. This I command you, that you love one another.

When the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness of Me. And you also will bear witness, as you have been with Me from the beginning. I did not say these things at the beginning, as I was with you. Now I am going to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ Rather, sorrow has filled your heart.

Nevertheless I tell you the truth, it is for your good that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you. If I go, I will send Him to you. When He comes, He will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. Concerning sin, as they do not believe in Me, concerning righteousness, as I am going to My Father and you will see Me no more, and concerning judgment, as the ruler of this world stands condemned. I have yet many things to tell you, but you cannot bear them now. 

When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own authority. He will speak whatever He hears, and He will tell you things that are to come. He will glorify Me, for He will receive from Me and will tell it to you. All that the Father has is Mine. Therefore I said that He will take what is Mine and will tell it to you.

I have told you these things in figures of speech. The time is coming when I will no longer speak to you figuratively, for I will speak to you plainly about the Father. On that day you will ask in My name. I am not saying to you that I shall ask the Father on your behalf. For the Father Himself loves you, as you have loved Me, and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world. As I said, I am leaving the world and am going to the Father. I have told you these things that in Me you may have peace. 

In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world.

Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son that Your Son may also glorify You. As You have given Him authority over all flesh, He will give eternal life to all whom You have given Him. 

This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent. I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work You have given Me to do. And now Father, glorify Me in Your own presence with the glory which I had with You before the world existed.

I have revealed Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. Now they know that all things You have given Me are from You. For I have given them the words which You gave Me. They have received them and certainly know that I came from You, and they have believed that You sent Me. 

I pray for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom You have given Me. For they are Yours. All that are Mine are Yours, and all that are Yours are Mine. And I am glorified in them. I am to be no longer in the world, though these are in the world, for I am coming to You. 

Holy Father, through Your name keep those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are one. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. I have kept those whom You have given Me. And none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.

Now I am coming to You, and I say these things in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them Your word. And the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world even as I am not of the world. 

Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I sent them into the world. For their sake I consecrate Myself, that they may be sanctified by the truth.

I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one, as You, Father are in Me, and I in You. May they be one in Us, that the world may believe that You have sent Me. I have given them the glory which You gave Me, that they may be one even as We are one, I in them and You in Me. 

May they be perfect in unity, that the world may know You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.

Father, I desire that they, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, that they may see My glory which You have given Me. For You loved Me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, the world has not known You, but I have known You, and these have known that You sent Me. I have made known to them Your name, and will continue to make it known, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them and I in them.

Jesus