AC 5957 - For Our Sake

AC 5957

For everything that flows in from the Lord
through the internal into the external,
or into the natural . . . is given gratuitously.
The Lord does indeed demand
humiliation, adoration, thanksgivings,
and many other things from a person,
which appear like repayments,
and thus not gratuitous;
but the Lord does not
demand these things for His own sake,
for the Divine has no glory
from a person's humiliation, adoration, and thanksgiving.
In the Divine,
anything of the love of self is utterly inconceivable --
that such things should be done for His own sake;
but they are for the sake of the person himself;
for when a person is in humiliation
he can receive good from the Lord,
because he has then been separated from
the love of self and its evils,
which are the obstacle;
and therefore the Lord wills
a state of humiliation in a person for his own sake;
because when he is in this state
the Lord can flow in with heavenly good.
The case is similar with adoration,
and with thanksgiving.