Meekness “Meekness in a person’s heart is one of the virtues needed to gain the inner light of life. This virtue consists of the right love for God and for one’s fellowman. It is the gentle patience of the heart through which a person, although recognizing his own superiority, never raises himself over his weaker brothers, but surrounds them with all the more love endeavouring to raise them to his own level of perfection by teaching, word and deed. (GGJ VII) Love for fellowman/ neighbor "[13] The seed for the true knowledge of God and the living faith in Him is in the first place the love for fellowman, and in that, also the pure love for God. [14] However, if someone is already so heartless that he cannot even lovingly help his poor fellowman whom he can see, then how will he, in the hard blindness of his soul, be able to love God whom he impossibly can and want to see and be aware of?" (78. The trial of the heartless in the beyond – GGJ Book 22) [13] True, pure and living love is in itself completely unselfish. It is full of humility, active, full of patience and compassion. It will never unnecessary burden anyone and will gladly tolerate everything. It does not take pleasure in the need of its fellowman, but is always trying to help everyone who needs help.
[14] So also, pure love is chaste in the highest degree and does not feel pleasure in the lustfulness of the flesh. But the purity of the heart is all the more pleasing to him. (42. The way to spiritual perfection - GGJ Book 18) Who is my neighbor? [1] I SAID: “The living faith that you have in Me will protect you against this, and if you will show your faith in Me through works of true neighborly love, you also will be entirely aware that I truly am the promised Messiah, and you will then reread in the prophets and see that everything written about Me in the Scripture was accomplished by Me and everything confirmed in Me.” [2] The eldest said: “Lord and Master, to show neighborly love to the people would be all right if we only would know very clearly who actually our neighbor is.” [3] I said: “Your neighbor is every human being, friend or enemy, who needs your help in no matter what good manner that is in accordance with God’s commandments. But it is obvious that you should not help anyone who acts against God’s commandments, but should withhold him from doing it. If you will do that, you will practice neighborly love and your reward in Heaven will be great. [4] If poor people come to you and grieve about their need, help them according to your strength and ability, because what you will do for the poor I will consider it as if you have done it for Me, and I will repay you already here and even more everlastingly later in My Kingdom. [5] When some true disciple and prophet in My name will come to you, accommodate him, listen to him and show love to him, for by doing so you have accommodated Me and you will also be worthy of the reward of a prophet. [6] But soon a great number of false prophets in My name will arise. They will teach the people for the sake of their own wallet and will deceive them through false signs which they learned from the magicians. Do not accommodate such false teachers and prophets, even when they loudly shout: ‘Look, here, or, there is the Messiah, the anointed One of God’, but show them with love and earnest that they are and act against Me. If they will listen to you and will give up their wrongdoing, then you also may consider and treat them as friends. But when they will not listen to you and will not repent, then chase them out of the community. [7] You will easily recognize a false teacher and prophet from his selfish works and deeds that are full of self-love, because from thistles you do not reap figs and from thorns no grapes. [8] Be always full of love, meekness, humility, mercy, justice and truth to everyone, then I also will be like that to you. Do not become deaf or hardhearted to the voice of poverty concerning the spirit as well as the body, then I also will not be like that to you when in some need you will lift up your voice to Me. With the measure with which you will measure, will also be measured to you. [9] If you – as I very well know – possess big earthly treasures and you lend it only with a good interest to those who can repay you at a fixed time, then you also have practiced a certain kind of neighborly love, but such neighborly love which rewards yourselves with a good interest will not be taken into account for a reward by Me. However, if you also lend your treasures to the poor without interest, of whom you know that they will not have it easy to pay you back, then I will be the One who will pay the interest and will repay your treasures, and no one will fall short with Me. [10] Look at the inhabitants of this village, who were poor. They only could live very scantily, but when poor or needy people came to them, they were immediately accommodated and were taken care of as possible without repayment. I surely knew that and came to them now at the right time as the best Rewarder, and none of them will say that I came too early or too late. Do likewise, then at the right time I also will be your Rewarder. {mospagebreak} (GGJ, Book 24, chp. 21) Love of God and love of fellowman. "That is why true, unselfish love for fellowman is one with the love for God, and God rewards his love already in this world and will once on the other side in His eternal Kingdom reward it even more with eternal life.Truly, not even 1 drink of water that you have given with a good heart to a thirsty person will remain unrewarded to you." (GGJ, Book 21,28 :4) "[6] To love God above all means: To completely merge with-and enter into - God. And to love the neighbour likewise means: To completely enter into the neighbour, otherwise one can never wholly love him; but half a love is neither to him who loves nor to the one who is loved of any benefit. [7] If you want to have the full view on all sides from a high mountain, you must at any rate climb its summit, because from a lower viewing point a great deal of the overall view will always be concealed. So also where love is concerned everything, including the outermost, must be done from the innermost so that its fruits will become manifest in you. [8] Your heart is a field, and the active love is the livings eed; but the poor brothers are the manure for the field. Whoever among you will place many grains of seed into the well-manured field will obtain a rich harvest. The more poor ones you will use with whom to manure the field, the richer the harvest will be. Whoever sows richly will harvest richly, but who sows poorly will harvest poorly. [9] But herein lies the greatest wisdom, that you become wise through the most active love! Therefore, do not strive so much for great knowledge but endeavour to love much, and love will give you what no knowledge can ever give you. It is good for the three of you to have used the three hours for the enrichment of your knowledge and your experience, but all this in itself would be of little benefit to your soul. But if from now on you will devote your time just as diligently to the love for the neighbour, already one day will then be of greater benefit to your soul. [10] What good would it do you before Me if you were struck with amazement at My power, greatness and unfathomable majesty, but outside your house there were poor brothers and sisters crying from hunger, thirst and cold? How miserable and useless would be a loud bawling and a praising and glorifying of God which would drown out the misery of the poor brothers. What good are all the rich and most lavish sacrifices in the temple while a poor brother dies of hunger at its door? [11] Therefore, investigate first of all into the misery of your poor brothers and sisters; give them help and comfort. Then you will find more in one brother whom you have helped than by having travelled to all the stars and praised Me with the tongues of the Seraphim. [12] Truly, I tell you, all angels, all heavens and all worlds with their wisdom cannot give you in eternity what you can attain by truly helping with all your might and with all you have to help a brother who is in misery. Nothing is higher and closer to Me.than alone the true, active love. [13] If, while praying to God, you do not hear the plaintive voice of your poor brother who came to you for help during your praying hour, cursed be then your empty bawling! My glory consists in love - not in the idle bawling of your mouth. [14] You shall not be like those whom Isaiah meant when he called out: 'Behold, this people praises Me with the lips, but their heart is far from Me!, ' but when you pray to Me, do it in the spirit and in all truth. For God is a Spirit and can only be adored in the spirit and in truth. [15] Therefore, the only true prayer in the spirit pleasing Me does not consist in the movement of the tongue, the mouth and the lips, but only in the active practice of love. What benefit is it to you if you adorn a prophet's grave with many pounds of gold, while at the same time you ignore the voice of a suffering brother? Do you think I shall be pleased with this? Fool! I shall look at you with angry eyes because you have ignored the voice of the living one an account of one dead." (GGJ IV, chap.1) The Parable of the Landowner. The poor are Lord's children's everywhere, the rich mostly are world's children "[1]THE Pharisees, the usurers who always know how to safely lend their large quantity of gold and silver against high interest rates to other big estate agents and usurers, and then spoil and maliciously squander their high lending interests to whores and falsely swearing adulteresses, and when poor and needy people come to them, they say: ‘Turn to God, He will help you, for we are poor ourselves and must beg’ – those will later have it very hard to give an account to Me. [2] Such false servants of God, who preach to the people about love for God and fellowman which they themselves never practiced, are to Me the worst sinners and offenders and will receive their reward for it in the beyond from the prince of Hell whom they served, because such fornicators, adulterers, usurers, revelers, and with that the greatest blasphemer of God, will not enter My Kingdom. So do not take their example. [3] How can one of you say to his fellowman: ‘In your need, turn to God who loves you above all. He will help you’, when he himself does not believe in God and does really not love Him above all. [4] The one who already does not love his needy fellowman whom he can see, how shall he love God above all whom he does not see? Love for God on the part of man is determined by the love for his fellowman. The one who says that for one’s salvation it is only necessary to love God above all, but then closes his heart and door for his poor fellowman, is in great error because love for God is without love for fellowman eternally not thinkable and also not possible. So love your fellowman, because they are just like you God’s children, then by doing so you will also love God above all. [5] Look, once there was a very rich landowner who had a lot of possessions, and everyone who was in his service had a good life. That landowner had also many children whom he loved and whom he sent to worldly schools, so that they should become experienced men. [6] But he only gave what was most necessary for them in the worldly schools, so that they would not indulge and become lazy and then unsuitable to manage his possessions. [7] These children were not so well off in those worldly schools, and they often had a real poor subsistence and not seldom they asked strange people for alms. [8] Some of the people they contacted said: ‘Oh, you have a very rich father. Contact him, he will help you’, and they did not give anything to the children. [9] A few others thought however within their softer heart within themselves: ‘We know that the father of these children is very rich and he would like to help his children who study here, but he must have very wise reasons not to do so, and these children with us are clearly suffering and in need and we will help them the best we can.’ And what they thought they also did. [10] After some time, the very rich landowner himself came to that foreign worldly city where his children had to acquire various knowledge and experience, and he took detailed information as to who showed love to his children. [11] And look, the children brought their father to all the places where love had been shown to them, and the father rewarded the benefactors of his children a hundred times and took the greatest benefactors with him on his possessions and treated them as his own children. [12] Look, here before you stands in Me that landowner. The poor in this world are truly My children everywhere. The rich however are mostly the children of this world. [13] In order that My children would not indulge, I let them also in this hard – but for them extremely beneficial – school of life to suffer need. And in their need they come to the rich of the world. What these will do for My children, I also will do for them, and I will reward them already here manifold and in My Kingdom endlesslyfold. [14] So the one who has the love of the children by his love for the children, has also the love of the Father and has acquired by that the eternal reward. Do you now understand what it means to love God above all?” (GGJ, Book 24, chp. 22) The real love for fellowman is one with the love for God "[4] That is why true, unselfish love for fellowman is one with the love for God, and God rewards his love already in this world and will once on the other side in His eternal Kingdom reward it even more with eternal life. Truly, not even 1 drink of water that you have given with a good heart to a thirsty person will remain unrewarded to you.” (GGJ, Book 21, 28:4) Neighborly love means no exceptions "[10] Concerning neighborly love, our Marcus asked Me: “Lord and Master, should we also show neighborly love to well-known bad people and squanders who mostly have wasted and reveled away their wealth in an irritating sinful manner, and also to those who are clearly our enemies?” [11] I said: “In showing neighborly love you should not make any exception, but do good to everyone, because for the one who will make exceptions, I also will make all kinds of exceptions. [12] When someone is in need and comes to you, then show him neighborly love in a spiritual or also in a material way. However, the spiritual neighborly love should come before the material. [13] If you have converted a sinner, and he is in need in an earthly way, then help him out of it. If he sins again after that, then rebuke him in love, and do not become his enemy. For with the measure with which you measure in My name, will also in turn be measured to you again. [14] Judge no one, then you also will not be judged later. So also, do not condemn or curse anyone, so that you also will not be condemned or cursed later. [15] Do good to those who do evil to you. By that you will strew glowing coals over their heads and make them your friends. Thus, bless also those who hate and curse you, then they will regret it. Forgive your enemies 7 times 77 times. If they will not improve by that, you can present the matter to a worldly judge, and the incorrigible enemy should be put out of the community, because the one who does evil in an incorrigible way should also be chastised, so that his fellowmen would no longer be vexed by him. [16] So be always submissive to the worldly authority, whether it is mild or severe, for it would have no power if it would not have been given from above because of the many incorrigible sinners. [17] But you should not submit a complaint for every little thing, and not go to the worldly judges without an urgent necessity, because what you do not wish to come over you, spare this also to your fellowmen as far as this is possible. Only unmistakable thieves and robbers and too severe fornicators and adulterers you may deliver to justice, as well as one who has committed a murder. But you should not become angry because of that, but only do what is necessary. Leave all the rest to Me and the judges. [18] Look, My friend Marcus, this is My will concerning this point. He who will act accordingly, will also never lack My blessing.” (27. The practise of neighborly love - GGJ Book 22) “He who is led to Me by love, can come to Me at any time and I shall receive him with the same love.” (GGJ IX 164:210) "Whoever is with Me in his heart, with him I am always, and he is also always near Me, and this is really the main thing. For of what benefit would it be to one who, though on this earth always personally near Me, keeps his heart far from Me and instead gives it to the mad world? Truly, he is nevertheless more remote from Me than the most remote thing you could possibly imagine." (GGJ III, 119:4) “In the one who takes delight in Me and loves Me, I too take delight and love him.However, times will be coming when people will also seek Me, but not find Me as promptly and easily as you did. But whoever will in all earnest seek Me in his heart and in his actions in accordance with My word will also find Me and be full of joy at having found Me. Once a person has found Me, he will not lose Me again. For a greater trial of his love and patience I shall now and then for certain moments hide My face from him, yet I shall not leave him. Good for those whom I shall try a great deal, for they will recognize from it that I love them very much. He who is tried much and stands the test, will hereafter in My Kingdom be set over many and great things, whereas he who is tried less because of his weakness will be set over fewer and lesser things. All of you will still have to stand many a test for the sake of My name and truth, and your patience which is still the weakest spirit within you will not be spared the crucial test. [...] For in these days and in the future times does the Kingdom of God suffer force and those who seize it with force shall also possess it. (Great Gospel of John VIII, 103:9-13)
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
NEW REVELATION ExcerptsFundamental Teachings
Categories
All
Archives
March 2019
|