Acknowledgment and Worship
By Rev. Paul Booth
Lessons: Exodus 29:42-46 | Matthew 5: 16; John 4:21-24
Arcana Coelestia 10143: 3-5
By Rev. Paul Booth
Lessons: Exodus 29:42-46 | Matthew 5: 16; John 4:21-24
Arcana Coelestia 10143: 3-5
It sha1l.be briefly stated what that Divine worship is which is signified by sacrifices and burnt offerings. Sacrifices and burnt offerings signified specifically purification from evils and falsities, and then the implantation of good and truth, and conjunction of both, thus regeneration. The man who is in these is in true worship; for purification from evils and falsities consists in desisting from them, and shunning and holding them in aversion; and in implantation of good and truth consists in thinking and willing what is good and true and uttering and doing them. Arcana Coelestia 10143:3
&…;the understanding only teaches and does not from itself conjoin itself with the will; but acknowledgment conjoins itself for nothing can be acknowledged except by consent of the will. Divine Providence 231: 2
Today, even this day, the Lord is present with each of us. He is waiting patiently to be accepted, gently urging us, softly persuading us, wanting to make His abode within us, in our minds and hearts, thus wanting to conjoin Himself with us. Because of His love for all mankind, He has come to earth and has overcome the evils that rule all mankind and that today want to rule our life. He has subjugated them in hell and has brought the Heavens into order. He has established a new Heaven and earth: Thus, He is, today, forming a new Church in man, that is, a new church on earth from that new Heaven which flows as good and truth into all who turn to the Lord. Although the Lord is today present with man, He is conjoined only to those who accepts His love and who live from Him; these are those who become that new Church formed by a new will and understanding from the Lord. What is it that conjoins us with Him so that we are the recipients of His life and of His love and by which we are not only reformed, but regenerated and, so, will see salvation?
Has not the person, the one who lives from the Lord's love, acknowledging the Lord, and is it not he who acknowledges the Word, that is, the Lord, as the Truth! It is he who truly worships the Lord. Here, many may say to them selves, "I acknowledge that there is a God and that He loves me, and that He who came to save me is called the Son of God." However, to say that only because we know it from the religious scientifics that we were taught or have learned from our own study of the Word is not the same as an acknowledgment. Indeed, from our doctrine we know that today sacrifices and burnt offerings are not required in our worship. One can say that knowing the Lord, knowing of His qualities and attributes, of His love for all mankind, consists of only thinking of what is true and good. Yet, to be a man or a women as the Lord created us is more than just knowing and thinking about what is true and good of the Lord and from the Lord for we know that all thoughts flee from us and are soon forgotten when our attention is turned to other things. The question asked is: How can those good thoughts we know and learn about from the Lord's Word become a part of us so as to become one with our life We know that if we have thoughts and have thought and talked about them long enough that they become a part of our memory from which we can recall when the occasion arises and that these thoughts might in some way service us, hopefully, for good and not for ill or evil. Still, can one say that just because he or she knows something about the Lord that they will live according to that knowledge? No, of course not, because we know that how we live is directed from our will and that even though we may have great knowledge of many things about the Lord, we do not necessarily will to live according to that knowledge, but according to our own desires and, so, we live according to that love, which is for ourselves and not the Lord So, one sees that to know something about the Lord and His work on earth is not an acknowledgment that we will live according to what we know so that it will become a new way of life with us and that our understanding be made anew. It is our will that rules how we live and not our understanding. Here, with a little reflection, we can understand that how we live is according to our will and that our actions are driven by our desires. The knowledge we learn from the Word of the Lord indeed informs us of the way we are to live in order to become conjoined with Him and: thus, we can be reformed from our own old way of life, which is a live without the Lord and, therefore, we can learn how to become regenerated and, so, be saved. Yet, that knowledge does not save us and unless we obey such teachings we never come to live from the Lord. We live because of the Lord, but we have taken His life, that influx from Him, and have twisted it so that instead there are falsities in place of truths and evil in place of good. That knowledge, twisted or true, remains only is our memory and is being formed and twisted by our will, that is, by our love of self. The life that we live without the Lord is willed by us, that is, it is by our desires, and, so: we live according to our desires and not according to the will of the Lord, unless we not only know how to live, but have lived, that is, acted from an affection for the truth revealed in the Word because it is the truth
Therefore, acknowledgment consist of not just knowing that a thing is true and good or is evil and false, but in our obedience to the Lord's teachings and, so, we are to desist from doing what is evil and from what is against the Lord, shunning and holding such acts in aversion and by not only thinking of the truths and the good taught to us, but in willing what is good and true, in uttering and doing them. In this, one sees that living from them comes from the conjunction of both knowing and acknowledging them. Isn't this of the understanding and will conjoined and not separated? Thus, there is formed within a man a new will and understanding from the Lord. For hasn't the Lord said, "Behold, I make all things new"? Now wouldn't this mean to create within us a new will and understanding and consequently a new life, for why should a new physical earth become necessary when it is not evil as man is? Man has turned from the Lord not the earth.
This new will and understanding, in time, develops within us and there comes within a new way of life and the life lived then is according to the Lord's will as is taught in His Word. You see, a man has then acknowledged that as 'of himself he can do no good thing and that the good done' as if by himself is from the Lord within and is not just because of the Lord's presence, that is, that he has the Lord's Word There is now with this person a conjunction between him or her and the Lord and the life he or she lives is from the Lord.
Generally, a person's worship consists in adoration and in prayer, that is, in things belonging to one's utterance and one's thought, such as attending worship services: joining in prayer and in the sacraments, and in hearing sermons, as the Lord has taught, and thus increasing one's knowledge of truth about the Lord, Heaven, the Church, and about the Word. Work or employment, generally, one regards as his own effort and, so, comes from the self, from the need to live to sustain him or herself in this world. In effect, his or her willing and doing is then not the Lord's:
but is their own and the Lord Himself is closed out of this life, except on the days of worship and that is often done only with the lips and not from the heart. Has such a person acknowledged the Lord as coming to save him or does he only know what is taught, but does not live according to that knowledge? Such a person in effect is saying, "I believe", but he is not willing to obey and, so, to act from what he says that he believes is the truth. He really doesn't believe.
Do you think the Lord would accept such a person's prayer and his participation in the worship services anymore then he would if one brought an offering to be sacrificed in worship and has not treated his neighbor well? Would not the person's worship be only from the understanding and not from the will and would even be shown by his way of life? Worship is an acknowledgment; it is doing from the will because there is affection for the sake of truth, the truth which is the Lord's. So, one who acknowledges that revenges and lies and other evils are sins against God and yet commits them is in profanation. For the Lord says, "The servant who knows his Lord's will and does not His will, shall be beaten with many strips" (Luke 12: 47).
Now, let us examine the subject more deeply. Even an evil person can know and yet not acknowledge and even would attempt to destroy doctrinal things by his reasoning. Unbelievers can acknowledge and even preach and confirm, and persuade with zeal. To acknowledge is to have faith. It is the person who has faith: knows, acknowledges, and believes, that has charity and a conscience. If a person only knows or if he acknowledges, but does not believe, than the person has no true faith in the Lord, for faith is not predicated of him for the things are not true of him. For to merely know what is of faith is of his memory only and is without the concurrence of his reason. Thus, to acknowledge is of a rational consent induced by certain causes and for the sake of certain ends and, so, to have true faith is of conscience, that is, of the Lord working through the conscience (cf. AC 896). If not, then the faith one has is spurious or it may not be faith at all.
Knowing is not believing; believing is internal, for it is impossible, except in affection for good and truth. Thus, it is impossible to believe unless one is in the good of charity towards the neighbor. In other words, unless one is doing good from willing good which is spiritual and is love towards the neighbor, he does not believe, but has acted only from the memory. Anyone can understand this: We are to will good, doing it to the neighbor, because we believe what the Lord teaches this and thus, we have affection for good and truths, that is, for the Lord.
What is it that we acknowledge and do that we truly believe? What has our rational consented to and for what ends? Is our faith of our conscience, that is, in the Lord working through our conscience? It is only a man who is in good and truth that believes because he has affection for what is good and true. The person in evil and falsities cannot believe except in himself, for his affection is for self. Such a person has destroyed the internal within him and his beliefs are external and of natural things and the internal, the spiritual, is not known or believed by him or her.
Faith in the understanding or doctrine will cease and, so, will the church with man unless the Lord's Divine remains in it, for the Lord's Human is Divine and is the inmost of the Church without the Divine there is no true Church. Therefore, what is the life of religion of man, but the acknowledgment and the adoration of the Lord's Divine Human. Is not man of such a nature as to desire to worship that which he or she has some perception of and some thought of as Divine? Even sensuous men may perceive by some sense, that which is Divine in which they worship?
0, how strong is our desire for self and for worldly things that we keep rejecting all the Lord's efforts to bring us to Him and Heaven, and to conjoin us to Him, so that our life is lived in the fullest in joy and peace to eternity.
Amen.
&…;the understanding only teaches and does not from itself conjoin itself with the will; but acknowledgment conjoins itself for nothing can be acknowledged except by consent of the will. Divine Providence 231: 2
Today, even this day, the Lord is present with each of us. He is waiting patiently to be accepted, gently urging us, softly persuading us, wanting to make His abode within us, in our minds and hearts, thus wanting to conjoin Himself with us. Because of His love for all mankind, He has come to earth and has overcome the evils that rule all mankind and that today want to rule our life. He has subjugated them in hell and has brought the Heavens into order. He has established a new Heaven and earth: Thus, He is, today, forming a new Church in man, that is, a new church on earth from that new Heaven which flows as good and truth into all who turn to the Lord. Although the Lord is today present with man, He is conjoined only to those who accepts His love and who live from Him; these are those who become that new Church formed by a new will and understanding from the Lord. What is it that conjoins us with Him so that we are the recipients of His life and of His love and by which we are not only reformed, but regenerated and, so, will see salvation?
Has not the person, the one who lives from the Lord's love, acknowledging the Lord, and is it not he who acknowledges the Word, that is, the Lord, as the Truth! It is he who truly worships the Lord. Here, many may say to them selves, "I acknowledge that there is a God and that He loves me, and that He who came to save me is called the Son of God." However, to say that only because we know it from the religious scientifics that we were taught or have learned from our own study of the Word is not the same as an acknowledgment. Indeed, from our doctrine we know that today sacrifices and burnt offerings are not required in our worship. One can say that knowing the Lord, knowing of His qualities and attributes, of His love for all mankind, consists of only thinking of what is true and good. Yet, to be a man or a women as the Lord created us is more than just knowing and thinking about what is true and good of the Lord and from the Lord for we know that all thoughts flee from us and are soon forgotten when our attention is turned to other things. The question asked is: How can those good thoughts we know and learn about from the Lord's Word become a part of us so as to become one with our life We know that if we have thoughts and have thought and talked about them long enough that they become a part of our memory from which we can recall when the occasion arises and that these thoughts might in some way service us, hopefully, for good and not for ill or evil. Still, can one say that just because he or she knows something about the Lord that they will live according to that knowledge? No, of course not, because we know that how we live is directed from our will and that even though we may have great knowledge of many things about the Lord, we do not necessarily will to live according to that knowledge, but according to our own desires and, so, we live according to that love, which is for ourselves and not the Lord So, one sees that to know something about the Lord and His work on earth is not an acknowledgment that we will live according to what we know so that it will become a new way of life with us and that our understanding be made anew. It is our will that rules how we live and not our understanding. Here, with a little reflection, we can understand that how we live is according to our will and that our actions are driven by our desires. The knowledge we learn from the Word of the Lord indeed informs us of the way we are to live in order to become conjoined with Him and: thus, we can be reformed from our own old way of life, which is a live without the Lord and, therefore, we can learn how to become regenerated and, so, be saved. Yet, that knowledge does not save us and unless we obey such teachings we never come to live from the Lord. We live because of the Lord, but we have taken His life, that influx from Him, and have twisted it so that instead there are falsities in place of truths and evil in place of good. That knowledge, twisted or true, remains only is our memory and is being formed and twisted by our will, that is, by our love of self. The life that we live without the Lord is willed by us, that is, it is by our desires, and, so: we live according to our desires and not according to the will of the Lord, unless we not only know how to live, but have lived, that is, acted from an affection for the truth revealed in the Word because it is the truth
Therefore, acknowledgment consist of not just knowing that a thing is true and good or is evil and false, but in our obedience to the Lord's teachings and, so, we are to desist from doing what is evil and from what is against the Lord, shunning and holding such acts in aversion and by not only thinking of the truths and the good taught to us, but in willing what is good and true, in uttering and doing them. In this, one sees that living from them comes from the conjunction of both knowing and acknowledging them. Isn't this of the understanding and will conjoined and not separated? Thus, there is formed within a man a new will and understanding from the Lord. For hasn't the Lord said, "Behold, I make all things new"? Now wouldn't this mean to create within us a new will and understanding and consequently a new life, for why should a new physical earth become necessary when it is not evil as man is? Man has turned from the Lord not the earth.
This new will and understanding, in time, develops within us and there comes within a new way of life and the life lived then is according to the Lord's will as is taught in His Word. You see, a man has then acknowledged that as 'of himself he can do no good thing and that the good done' as if by himself is from the Lord within and is not just because of the Lord's presence, that is, that he has the Lord's Word There is now with this person a conjunction between him or her and the Lord and the life he or she lives is from the Lord.
Generally, a person's worship consists in adoration and in prayer, that is, in things belonging to one's utterance and one's thought, such as attending worship services: joining in prayer and in the sacraments, and in hearing sermons, as the Lord has taught, and thus increasing one's knowledge of truth about the Lord, Heaven, the Church, and about the Word. Work or employment, generally, one regards as his own effort and, so, comes from the self, from the need to live to sustain him or herself in this world. In effect, his or her willing and doing is then not the Lord's:
but is their own and the Lord Himself is closed out of this life, except on the days of worship and that is often done only with the lips and not from the heart. Has such a person acknowledged the Lord as coming to save him or does he only know what is taught, but does not live according to that knowledge? Such a person in effect is saying, "I believe", but he is not willing to obey and, so, to act from what he says that he believes is the truth. He really doesn't believe.
Do you think the Lord would accept such a person's prayer and his participation in the worship services anymore then he would if one brought an offering to be sacrificed in worship and has not treated his neighbor well? Would not the person's worship be only from the understanding and not from the will and would even be shown by his way of life? Worship is an acknowledgment; it is doing from the will because there is affection for the sake of truth, the truth which is the Lord's. So, one who acknowledges that revenges and lies and other evils are sins against God and yet commits them is in profanation. For the Lord says, "The servant who knows his Lord's will and does not His will, shall be beaten with many strips" (Luke 12: 47).
Now, let us examine the subject more deeply. Even an evil person can know and yet not acknowledge and even would attempt to destroy doctrinal things by his reasoning. Unbelievers can acknowledge and even preach and confirm, and persuade with zeal. To acknowledge is to have faith. It is the person who has faith: knows, acknowledges, and believes, that has charity and a conscience. If a person only knows or if he acknowledges, but does not believe, than the person has no true faith in the Lord, for faith is not predicated of him for the things are not true of him. For to merely know what is of faith is of his memory only and is without the concurrence of his reason. Thus, to acknowledge is of a rational consent induced by certain causes and for the sake of certain ends and, so, to have true faith is of conscience, that is, of the Lord working through the conscience (cf. AC 896). If not, then the faith one has is spurious or it may not be faith at all.
Knowing is not believing; believing is internal, for it is impossible, except in affection for good and truth. Thus, it is impossible to believe unless one is in the good of charity towards the neighbor. In other words, unless one is doing good from willing good which is spiritual and is love towards the neighbor, he does not believe, but has acted only from the memory. Anyone can understand this: We are to will good, doing it to the neighbor, because we believe what the Lord teaches this and thus, we have affection for good and truths, that is, for the Lord.
What is it that we acknowledge and do that we truly believe? What has our rational consented to and for what ends? Is our faith of our conscience, that is, in the Lord working through our conscience? It is only a man who is in good and truth that believes because he has affection for what is good and true. The person in evil and falsities cannot believe except in himself, for his affection is for self. Such a person has destroyed the internal within him and his beliefs are external and of natural things and the internal, the spiritual, is not known or believed by him or her.
Faith in the understanding or doctrine will cease and, so, will the church with man unless the Lord's Divine remains in it, for the Lord's Human is Divine and is the inmost of the Church without the Divine there is no true Church. Therefore, what is the life of religion of man, but the acknowledgment and the adoration of the Lord's Divine Human. Is not man of such a nature as to desire to worship that which he or she has some perception of and some thought of as Divine? Even sensuous men may perceive by some sense, that which is Divine in which they worship?
0, how strong is our desire for self and for worldly things that we keep rejecting all the Lord's efforts to bring us to Him and Heaven, and to conjoin us to Him, so that our life is lived in the fullest in joy and peace to eternity.
Amen.
| About |
| Doctrine
Site Content Copyright 2001 by The Lord's New Chapel All Rights Reserved
Site Concept and Creation Copyright 2001 by Stealth Media Solutions All Rights Reserved