"Follow Me."

The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee.

Finding Philip, He said to him, "Follow Me."

Philip, like Andrew and Peter,

was from the town of Bethsaida.

Philip found Nathanael and told him,

"We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law,

and about whom the prophets also wrote -

Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."

"Nazareth!  Can anything good come from there?"

Nathanael asked.

"Come and see," said Philip.

When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching,

He said of him,

"Here is a true Israelite,

in whom there is nothing false."

"How do You know me?" Nathanael asked.

Jesus answered,

"I saw you while you were still under the fig tree

before Philip called you."

Then Nathanael declared,

"Rabbi, You are the Son of God:

You are the King of Israel."

Jesus said, "You believe

because I told you I saw you under the fig tree.

You shall see greater things than that."

He then added,

"I tell you the truth,

you shall see heaven open,

and the angels of God ascending and descending

on the Son of Man."

(John 1:43-51)

"If you believed Moses,

you would believe Me,

for he wrote about Me.
But since you do not believe what he wrote,

how are you going to believe what I say?"

(John 6:46-47)

DP 2 - Divine Providence

DP 2

. . . the government of the Lord's Divine love and wisdom

is what we call Divine providence.

(DP = Divine Providence)

Praying on the Mount of Olives

Each day Jesus was teaching at the temple,

and each evening He went out to spend the night

on the hill called the Mount of Olives,

and all the people came early in the morning

to hear Him at the temple.

(Luke 21:37-38)

Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives,

and His disciples followed Him.

On reaching the place, He said to them,

"Pray that you will not fall into temptation."

He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them,

knelt down and prayed.

"Father, if You are willing,

take this cup from Me;

yet not My will, but Yours be done."

An angel from heaven appeared to Him

and strengthened Him.

And being in anguish,

He prayed more earnestly,

and His sweat was like drops of blood

falling to the ground.

When He rose from prayer

and went back to the disciples,

He found them asleep,

exhausted from sorrow.

"Why are you sleeping?" He asked them.

"Get up and pray

so that you will not fall into temptation."

(Luke 22:45-46)

DLW 426 - Who loves useful service?

DLW 426

Spiritual and celestial love

is love for the neighbor and love toward the Lord,

while natural and sensual love

is love of the world and love of self.

By love for the neighbor

we mean a love of useful services,

and by love toward the Lord

we mean a love of performing useful services . . ..

These loves are spiritual and celestial for the reason

that to love useful services

and to perform them from a love of them

is divorced from a person's love of his own self-interest.

For one who loves useful services spiritually

regards not himself

but others apart from himself,

being affected by a concern for their welfare.

. . . even though a person does not sensibly perceive

whether the useful services he performs

are for the sake of the useful services

or whether they are for the sake of himself,

or in other words,

whether the useful services are spiritual

or whether they are merely natural,

still he can know it

from considering whether he thinks evils are sins or not.

If he thinks they are sins,

and on that account does not do them,

then the useful services he performs are spiritual.

And when the same person

refrains from sins from an aversion to them,

he also begins to perceive sensibly in himself then

a love of useful services for the sake of the useful services,

and this because of the spiritual delight he finds in them.

Peace and Glory

When He came near the place

where the road goes down the Mount of Olives,

the whole crowd of disciples

began joyfully to praise God in loud voices

for all the miracles they had seen:

"Blessed is the King 

who comes in the Name of the Lord!"

"Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!"

Some of the pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus,

"Teacher, rebuke your disciples!"

"I tell you," He replied,

"if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out."

(Luke 19:37-40)

DLW 424 - a love of useful service; DLW 425 - freedom & rationality

DLW 424 [3]

. . . there exists a love of ruling from a love of useful service,

not from a love of useful service for the sake of self,

but from a love of useful service

for the sake of the common good.

A person can hardly distinguish the one from the other,

yet the difference between them

is as that between heaven and hell.

DLW 425

. . . it is a person's love

that becomes spiritual and is regenerated,

and it cannot become spiritual or be regenerated

unless it knows through its intellect

what is evil and what is good,

and consequently what is true and what is false.

When it knows this

it can choose the one or the other;

and if it chooses good,

it can through its intellect

be informed of the means by which it can arrive at good.

The means by which a person can arrive at good

have all been provided.

To know and understand these means

is the function of rationality,

and to will and do them is the function of freedom.

It is freedom also

to will to know, understand and think about them.

[3]  Still, it should rightly be known

that these two faculties of freedom and rationality

are not a person's own,

but are the Lord's in a person;

that they cannot be assigned to a person as his own,

nor given to a person as his own,

but are continually the Lord's in him;

and yet that a person never has them taken away.

The reason they are not taken away

is that a person cannot be saved without them,

for without them he cannot be regenerated . . ..

On a Sabbath 

Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues,

and a woman was there

who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years.

She was bend over and could not straighten up at all.

When Jesus saw her,

He called her forward and said to her,

"Woman you are set free from your infirmity."

Then He put His hands on her,

and immediately she straightened up and praised God.

Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath,

the synagogue ruler said to the people,

"There are six days for work.

So come and be healed on those days,

not on the Sabbath."

The Lord answered him,

"You hypocrites!

Doesn't each of you on the Sabbath

untie his ox or donkey from the stall

and lead it out to give it water?

Then should not this woman,

a daughter of Abraham,

whom Satan has kept bound

for eighteen long years,

be set free on the Sabbath day

from what bound her?"

When He said this,

all His opponents were humiliated,

but the people were delighted

with all the wonderful things He was doing.

(Luke 13:10-17)

DLW 422 - when love puts truth into practice

DLW 422

The intellect does not become spiritual and celestial,

but the love does,

and when the love does,

it makes the intellect, its partner,

spiritual and celestial also.

Love becomes spiritual and celestial by a life

in accordance with the truths of wisdom

that the intellect teaches and shows it.

Love learns these through its intellect,

and not on its own.

The fact is that love cannot elevate itself

unless it knows truths,

and it can know these only through an intellect

that has been elevated and enlightened.

In the measure that it then comes to love truths

by putting them into practice,

in the same measure the love, too, is elevated.

For it is one thing to understand and another to will,

or one thing to speak and another to do.

It is consequently

when love puts into practice

the truths of light which it understands and utters

that it is then elevated.

Listen

As Jesus and His disciples were on their way,

He came to a village 

where a woman named Martha 

opened her home to Him.

She had a sister called Mary,

who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what He said.

But Martha was distracted by all the preparations

that had to be made.

She came to Him and asked,

"Lord, don't You care

that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?

Tell her to help me!"

"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered,

"you are worried and upset about many things,

but only one thing is needed.

Mary has chosen what is better,

and it will not be taken away from her."

(Luke 10:38-42)

DLW 419 - if the will and intellect are elevated together

DLW 419

If they are elevated together,

love or the will is purified in the intellect. 

 

A person from birth loves only himself and the world,

for nothing else appears before his eyes,

and therefore he considers nothing else in his heart;

and this love is carnally natural,

and can be called materialistic.

Moreover, this love has also become impure

owing to the separation of heavenly love from it in parents.

[2] This love cannot be separated from its impurity

unless the person has the ability

to elevate his intellect into the light of heaven

and to see how he should live

in order that his love may be elevated together

with his intellect into wisdom.

Through the intellect 

love, which is to say, the person,

sees what evils there are that defile and pollute the love,

and sees, too,

that if he refrains from those evils

and turns away from them as sins,

he loves such things as are opposed to those evils,

all of which are heavenly.

He also sees as well

the means which enable him to refrain from those evils

and turn away from them as sins.

The Greatness of God

"O unbelieving and perverse generation,"

Jesus replied,

"How long shall I stay with you

and put up with you?

Bring your son here."

Even while the boy was coming,

the demon threw him to the ground in convulsion.

But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit,

healed the boy

and gave him back to his father.

And they were all amazed at the greatness of God.

(Luke 9:41-43)

DLW 414 - the elevation of love and intellect

DLW 414

. . . the intellect can be elevated into the light of heaven

and draw from it wisdom.

. . . love or the will can be equally elevated,

if it loves such matters

as are matters of the light of heaven,

or matters of wisdom.

However, love or the will

cannot be elevated by any measure

of honor, glory or material gain as its end,

but by a love of useful service,

not so much for its own sake,

but for the sake of the neighbor.

And because this love is bestowed

only from heaven by the Lord,

and is bestowed by the Lord

when a person refrains from evils as being sins,

therefore it is by these means

that love or the will can be elevated also,

and apart from these means it cannot be.

The will's love . . . is elevated into the warmth of heaven,

whereas the intellect is elevated into the light of heaven,

and if both are elevated,

a marriage of the two takes place there,

which we call the heavenly marriage,

because it is a marriage of heavenly love and wisdom.

That is why we say that love is elevated also

if it loves its partner wisdom in the same degree.

Love for the neighbor from the Lord

is the love proper to wisdom,

or the genuine love proper to the human intellect.

Specks

"Why do you look

at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye

and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

How can you say to to your brother,

'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,'

when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye?

You hypocrite,

first take the plank out of your eye,

and then you will see clearly

to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

(Luke 6:41-42)

DLW 406 - three conjunctions: love, intellect, activity

DLW 406

Through these three conjunctions

love or the will

is in the enjoyment of its sensory life and its active life.

Love without the intellect,

or an affection of love without the thought of the intellect,

is incapable of any sensation or action in the body,

and this because love without the intellect

is as though blind,

or because affection without thought

is as though in thick darkness.

An action also takes its being from love

and its character from intelligence.

Good, furthermore, has all its power through truth.

Consequently good acts in truth and so by means of it;

and good is a matter of love,

while truth is a matter of the intellect.

What the Shepherds and Demons Knew

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven,

the shepherds said to one another,

"Let us go to Bethlehem

and see this thing that has happened,

which the Lord has told us about."

So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph,

and the Baby, who was lying in the manger.

When they had seen Him,

they spread the word concerning

what had been told them about this Child,

and all who heard it

were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.

(Luke 2:15-18)

When the sun was setting,

the people brought to Jesus

all who had various kinds of sickness,

and laying His hands on each one,

He healed them.

Moreover, demons came out of many people,

shouting, "You are the Son of God!"

But He rebuked them

and would not allow them to speak,

because they knew He was the Christ.

(Luke 4:40-41)

DLW 404 - everyone possesses

DLW 404 [2]

. . . everyone possesses a perception of truth

to the degree of his affection for understanding it.

For take away any affection for understanding truth,

and no perception of truth will exist.

Zechariah's Song

"Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,

because He has come and has redeemed His people.

He has raised up a horn of salvation for us

in the house of his servant David

(as He said through His holy prophets of long ago),

salvation from our enemies

and from the hand of all who hate us -

to show mercy to our fathers

and to remember His holy covenant,

the oath He swore to our father Abraham:

to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,

and to enable us to serve Him

without fear

in holiness and righteousness before Him

all our days.

And you, my child,

will be called a prophet of the Most High;

for you will go on before the Lord

to prepare the way for Him,

to give His people the knowledge of salvation

through the forgiveness of their sins,

because of the tender mercy of our God,

by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven

to shine on those living in darkness

and in the shadow of death,

to guide our feet into the path of peace."

(Luke 1:68-79)

DLW 396 - the downfall of the love of self and the world

DLW 396

As for the love of self and love of the world 

being hellish loves,

and why people could come into them

and so destroy in themselves the will and intellect,

the reason is that the love of self and love of the world

are from creation heavenly loves,

being loves of the natural self serving spiritual loves,

as foundations serve for the building of houses.

For it is owing to his love of self and the world

that a person is concerned for his physical well-being

and that he endeavors to be properly nourished,

clothed and housed, to take care of his household,

to seek employments in order to be useful,

indeed to be held in honor

in accordance with the status of the business

that he administers for the sake of being obeyed,

and also to be entertained and recreated

by delights of the world -

yet all of these for the sake of an end,

which ought to be useful service.

For through these endeavors

he is in a state to serve the Lord

and to serve the neighbor.

However, when he has no love

of serving the Lord and serving the neighbor,

and only a love of serving himself for the sake of the world,

then that love

from being heavenly becomes hellish;

for it causes the person to immerse his mind and his heart

in his own native self,

which in itself is completely evil.

A Young Man

A young man,

wearing nothing but a linen garment,

was following Jesus.

When they seized him,

he fled naked,

leaving his garment behind.

(Mark 14:51-52)

DLW 384 - two of each

DLW 384

Since all the mind's constituents

are connected with the will and intellect,

and all the body's constituents with the heart and lungs,

therefore in the head

the brain is divided into two structures,

and these are as distinct from each other

as the will and intellect from each other.

The cerebellum serves primarily the will,

and the cerebrum primarily the intellect.

In the body, the heart and lungs are likewise separated

from the rest of the organs there.

They are separated by the diaphragm

and enveloped in their own covering, called the pleura,

and they form that part of the body called the chest.

In the remaining constituents of the body, called its members,

organs and viscera, these two elements are conjoined.

Consequently the parts exist in pairs,

such as the arms and hands, loins and feet, eyes and nostrils,

and, inside the body, the kidneys, ureters, and testes.

Even organs that do not exist in pairs

are divided into a right and left side-including

the cerebrum itself into two hemispheres,

the heart itself into two ventricles,

and the lungs themselves into two lobes.

Moreover, the right side of these

relates to the goodness of truth,

and the left side to the truth of good.

Or to say the same thing,

the right side relates to the goodness of love

from which arises the truth of wisdom,

and the left side to the truth of wisdom

arising from the goodness of love.

Consequently, because the conjunction

of goodness and truth is a reciprocal one,

and by that conjunction they become as though one,

therefore these pairs in the human being, too,

operate together and conjointly

in their functions, movements, and perceptions.