Day: May 1, 2017

Evil

New Christian Bible StudyNew Christian Bible Study

← Previous   Next →

 Evil

This video is a product of the New Christian Bible Study Corporation. Follow this link for more information and more explanations – text, pictures, audio files, and videos: http://www.newchristianbiblestudy.org

 

The essence of the Lord – what He’s made of; what he actually is – is love. It’s perfect love, boundless and pure and complete.

Love, of course, innately desires an object. We can’t just love in a vacuum; we want to love someone or something, and in loving them we want to be close to them and ultimately conjoined with them. To fulfill Himself, then, the Lord created the universe and ultimately created us so that he could have something outside Himself to love.

The Lord’s goal for us, then, is to accept His love and to be conjoined with him. For that relationship to work, though, there are two essential elements. First, we have to have a choice; if we didn’t have a choice it would be compulsion, not love, and would be no more meaningful than the instinctive love a dog has for its master. Second, we have to remain separate from the Lord; if we became part of Him, he would be loving Himself.

The first of those elements creates the potential for evil to exist. To give us a choice, the Lord created us with the ability to refocus His love and turn it on ourselves – to use the power and life He freely gives us to love and worship ourselves instead of loving and worshipping Him. That is pretty much the definition of evil, and the Writings tell us that it is the state we are all in from birth and the state we would all return to instantly if it were not for the loving influence of the Lord.

Many find that idea upsetting. Why would the Lord let us be born into evil? Shouldn’t we be essentially neutral if we are to have a choice? And surely we can’t be saying that babies are evil!

In a way, though, the fact that we’re born into evil is the Lord’s way of balancing things out. He is pouring love on us constantly, leading us toward good in countless ways; if we were not innately evil we would be overwhelmed by His love and would lose our ability to choose. As for babies, the Writings do say that babies and young children have a degree of natural goodness, which shows as a love for their parents and kindness toward other children. As they get older and begin to be more rational, the Lord draws this into their interiors so He can continue to affect them as they grow. They are also innocent, lacking the ability to choose either good or evil.

But for all their innocence and sweetness and the powerful love they inspire in us, children are, if you think about it, deeply self-centered. And that self-centered state often persists through adolescence into adulthood, when real choices begin.

This means that we all enter adulthood with some degree of self-love, love of wealth, love of dominating others, love of being in charge, pride in our intelligence and a sense of entitlement. It might not be dominant, but it’s there. What do we do?

Well, remember that the Lord is pouring love on us constantly; our problem is that we are full of evils and there’s no place for that love to attach itself. What we need to do, then, is start attacking those evils. If we can uproot them, the Lord will fill the space with love.

And that, the Writings tell us, is the work of our lifetimes. We are called on to learn what is good and use that knowledge to shun evils – to push them aside so the Lord can replace them with desires for good. Do it long enough and diligently enough and the Lord will set the evils aside permanently and fill us with love – the state of angels. We will then go to a society in heaven to be with people whose loves are similar to ours.

There are a few points worth making about this process:

● It is slow. Our loves are our life, so if the Lord simply took all our evils away at once it would kill us. It’s a process.

● We have to know evil to fight it. The Lord has given us the capacity to know what is right even while we desire what is wrong; we can use that power to examine ourselves and identify our evils so we can combat them.

● Temptation is key. The only way to really uproot an evil love is to fight it, and the battle can only come when that evil desire is active, eating at us, calling to us, trying to drag us away. This is not to say we should seek temptation – the Lord will provide it at the right time – but we can recognize it as an opportunity to grow spiritually.

● We can’t make ourselves good. Only the Lord can do that; our part is to try not to be bad and ask for His help.

● We’re not necessarily responsible for evil thoughts. Just as the Lord is constantly leading us toward goodness and light, the hells also want us to join their ranks in evil and darkness. One way they do this is by bombarding our minds with evil thoughts. But our thoughts are not our life; our loves are. If we let evil thoughts go on by us and don’t make them part of what we intend to do, we’re not responsible for them.

● We’re not necessarily reponsible for evil intentions or actions. Some people are raised without any knowledge of right and wrong, and have no idea that things they desire are evil. Those evils don’t become a permanent part of them unless they embrace them while knowing they are wrong.

And if we fail, then what? Well, that’s a mirror image of the “going-to-heaven” process – if we choose to embrace evils and knowingly make them our own, we will ultimately go to hell to be with others who have similar evil loves.

But here’s an interesting point: The Writings say that the Lord never really takes our evils away, even if we become angels in heaven. He pushes them aside and negates their power, but he doesn’t remove them. Why?

The answer lies in the second of the two elements we mentioned earlier, that we have to stay separate from the Lord in order to be loved by Him. If the Lord actually removed our evils and made us fully pure and good, He would also remove the element that makes us separate, the part of ourselves that is not part of the Lord. The Lord can’t be evil, so the evil in us will always be outside Him. This maintains our identity even in the most exalted angelic state we could reach.

http://newchristianbiblestudy.org/

Home | About the Project | Project Blog | Read the Bible | Popular Bible Stories | Read Swedenborg’s Works | Contact Us | Generic Search | Suggestion/Bug Report

Three Steps to Making Better Choices

Swedenborg Foundation

By Hanna Hyatt

Dear God,

How are people so awful?

Police shooting unarmed man . . . refugees . . . another massacre . . . bomb threat . . . terror . . . death.

Being entrenched in these nasty ideas, and living in a world where these things happen every week, fills people with all kinds of terror. This terror sometimes leads to people looking to God for some answers.

According to Swedenborg’s theology, people have to be free to be horrible because they have to be free to be good. People must be free to do bad things and good things, so that they can freely choose to love and follow the good stuff and reject the bad stuff.

(If you’d like to know more about Swedenborg’s theology of freedom, check out this page on divine providence. Or, if you’re the visual type, there’s a quick video overview on our offTheLeftEye YouTube channel and a more in-depth discussion in “How You End Up in Heaven or Hell.”)

blog_choices

When people are choosing between good and evil, Swedenborg describes three degrees of decision-making: love, thought, and action. The first step has to do with what we love or value; these are the feelings that, for better or for worse, drive everything we do. In the second step, the love that drives a person connects with their thoughts (“I could do the dishes so no one else has to suffer through them”); and the third step is about what we actually do. Each of these degrees of decision-making helps people connect the things they love with the things they do—and it can lead to good things or to bad things, depending on the person.

Step One: Love

People are all motivated by love, even when they do awful things that destroy something beautiful. People can be motivated by every love that exists in the world: domination, success, fear, horror, helping, leading and guiding others—the list never ends.

Swedenborg says that because people are in this jumbled world, they have a mix of all sorts of loves. They love thousands of things every moment. So a person could be motivated by a good (selfless) love in one decision, and then a bad (selfish) love in the next. That’s just part of being human. But he also says that over time, we will tend toward one type of love or motivation more than any other—what he calls a “dominant love.”

Step Two: Thought

Before we bring love to life by acting on it, we must start to plan or dwell on certain thoughts. Swedenborg notes that people have many loves, and usually people cannot know which love inspires them to think, process, and plan in every moment. The responsibility of human beings on earth is to be careful of the thoughts we entertain; if our goal is to be loving or kind, we should reject thoughts of harming others.

It’s impossible to constantly control individual thoughts, but it’s possible to control the ideas one invites back to stay for a while. Thoughts create a bridge between loving something and doing something about it, and this bridge comes in the form of a plan or developed idea. Usually, these thoughts are fun for the brain to dwell on; fun ideas are fun because of the love that influences them—but for a bad person, it’s the negative thoughts that are fun to dwell on, and for a good person, it’s the loving, caring thoughts.

Step Three: Action

Acting on loves happens in good and bad ways. Someone can love hurting other people, think about and plan ways to hurt others, and then act on that love, making it real and impacting others in potentially awful ways. Someone could love sharing with their neighbor, and think about ways to make delicious food to share with their family, and in that decision, they are acting on that love.

Swedenborg notes that our responsibility lies primarily in action—we can control our actions much more easily than we can control what we love. If everyone could easily control their loves, the world would be a much different place.

In most ways, this is a comforting thought. We are responsible for the actions we take, not the thoughts that wander into our heads or an occasional wish for acclaim or power, even though those aren’t things we would want to rule our lives.

So . . . Why Do People Make Terrible Decisions?

People make awful decisions because they dwell on awful ideas that come from terrifying loves. They are responsible for their actions, because they are acting on wrong and/or harmful ideas that they love. Every person has the ability to do awful things. It’s a necessary choice for people to have, because without the choice, people wouldn’t be free.

Swedenborg says that God allows for terrible things to happen to preserve this most-important freedom for humanity. These bad situations aren’t always hopeless—they also present a chance for humankind to step up and love the people around them, which is why people create GoFundMe accounts for survivors of tragedy or “Take Them a Meal” accounts for people with hardships.

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers—so many caring people in this world.” —Fred Rogers

People have freedom in their response to horrible situations, to turn negative situations into an opportunity for growth or love. People are free to act, think, and love to the best of their abilities.

How to be happy in your marriage

How to be happy in your marriage

 by Lori Odhner

Often on television today weddings are portrayed as joyful events while marriages look like a burden. Carry the contentment and joy of your wedding day on into your life together.

We live in a world that is saturated with images of happiness. I can be driving along contentedly when I see a billboard that instantly convinces me that I would be happier if I stopped and bought fries and a cola. But wait! I don’t even like soda! Other commercials convince me that happiness comes with a new car. Without my paying attention, that message takes root in my brain. Ideas of what happiness looks like are imposed on me from the outside all the time. But, I can also choose to take the lead. I can promote feelings of contentment with what I already have.

I heard of a man who loved and missed his wife deeply after she died. One way he nourished that love was to take her framed picture with him wherever he traveled, unpack it first and put it up in plain view. Another couple I know say their wedding vows on the first day of every month, to strengthen their commitment. Sometimes they are not feeling especially happy when they start, but we can lead our feelings with greater intention than comes from glancing at a billboard.

My own dear husband has a new motto. He says “You are my highest priority.” Sometimes it is completely heartfelt, and other times I wonder if he is reminding himself. I, too, have been known to forget. Often in our marriage support groups we start by inviting couples to tell the story of how they fell in love. It is delightful to see the change in them as they speak, taking out memories and dusting them off.

I have never played football. But I have watched movies of people who do. I have seen teams that were discouraged slump in at halftime and hear a pep talk that rejuvenates their resolve and sends them tearing back onto the field. They have learned ways to shift from hopelessness to cheering with abandon.
Recently, there were people who went to great lengths to get tickets to the World Series games in Philadelphia. In a depressed economy they were still highly motivated to spend a month’s mortgage to be at a game in the pouring rain that they could have watched from their cozy living rooms. Imagine if we put a similar amount of effort and commitment into creating happiness in our marriages!

We can choose good things for our marriages. We can look at pictures of our ideals instead of advertising for fast food and cars. We can recite the words that once came so easily, and so invite those feelings to return. We can tell our own stories and hear them anew. We can find a coach or mentor who can cheer us on at halftime. We can choose to attend a conference that surrounds us with a community of love for marriage. And maybe we will find ourselves in the midst of a jubilant parade, celebrating the victory of marriage.

Lori Odhner is the Director of the Caring for Marriage program. Learn more at www.caringformarriage.org

Home

DAILY INSPIRATION

“When truth is used in life, it becomes good.”

Apocalypse Revealed 17

Works that Contain Charity in Them

Lastchurch - The Eternal PurposeSelection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:  For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:  Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.  Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?  Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?  And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.     (Matt 25:34-40)

What are your works? That this signifies about services and uses… for these are goods. All the goods which are called goods of charity are nothing but uses, and uses are nothing but works for the neighbor, for our country, for the church, for the Lord’s kingdom. Moreover regarded in itself charity itself does not become charity until it comes into act and becomes work. For to love anyone, and not do him good when we have the power, is not to love him; but to do him good when we have the power, and to do it from our hearts, this is to love him; and then all things of charity toward him are contained within the very deed or work; for a man’s works are the complex of all things of his charity and faith, and are what are called spiritual goods, and indeed become goods by exercise, that is, by means of uses.

As the angels who are in heaven are in good from the Lord, they long for nothing more than to perform uses. These are the very delights of their life, and it is also according to uses that they enjoy bliss and happiness, which likewise the Lord teaches in Matthew:

The Son of man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and then shall He render to everyone according to his works (Matt. 16:27);

by “works” here are not meant works such as they appear in the outward form, but such as they are in their inward form, namely, such as is the charity contained in them; the angels regard works in no other way.

And because a man’s works are the complex of all things of his charity and faith, and the life causes charity to be charity and faith to be faith, thus good, therefore the Lord loved John more than the rest of His disciples, and he lay on His breast at supper (John 21:20); for by him were represented the goods or works of charity; for which reason also the Lord said unto him, “Follow Me,” and not to Peter, by whom was represented faith. Wherefore faith, which is “Peter,” said with indignation, “Lord, what shall this man do? Jesus said unto him, If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou Me” (John 21:21-23). By this was also foretold that faith would despise works, and yet that these are near the Lord, as may also be clearly seen from the Lord’s words to the sheep and to the goats (Matt. 25:34-46 above), wherein nothing but works are recounted. And that faith would reject the Lord is evident from the representation by Peter when he denied Him thrice; that he did this at night, signifies the last time of the church, when there is no longer any charity; that he did it thrice signifies that this condition is then complete; that it was before the cock crew, signifies before newness of the church would arise, for the twilight and morning which follow the night signify the first of the church.

(Arcana Coelestia 6073)
April 29, 2017

Spiritual Contraception

We not only have the means to prevent unwanted births, we have adopted similar means of preventing ideas from inseminating our minds.

For instance, the Ten Commandments can be read, stored in the memory as data, but never acted upon. The Lord, while in the world, simplified these ten laws into two – loving God and loving the neighbor. Still, the Lord’s teaching of loving God and loving others can simply be filed away in the memory as mere data.

Anything that prevents God’s ideas from taking hold in the mind and not being allowed to grow into the mature and loving actions of one who seeks eternal life and blessedness is spiritual contraception.

The Christian doctrine of salvation by faith alone is just such a spiritual birth control pill. The reason is that faith alone stresses “belief” over “acts of goodness” for obtaining salvation and entry into the gates of heaven.

This is holy hogwash!

Believing alone is like allowing a concept to enter into one’s memory without the conceiving. In other words, when an idea is not allowed to germinate and change the way we act in the world, how can mere “believing” lead to our spiritual rebirth?

Rebirth implies real, tangible process.

What possible process is involved when ideas simply remain as un-germinated seeds in the soil of the human memory? Those who embrace the doctrine of faith alone point out that no one is perfect and that no human act or deed of goodness can help us gain the credit of the Lord’s righteousness.

The doctrine of faith alone allows Christians to overlook their personal flaws and serves as a prophylactic to the commandments and introspection. Such believers cleverly point out that an individual who seeks salvation through good deeds seeks his or her own merit. But they miss the point that, because people are imperfect, they must seek and pray for the Lord’s help in becoming a better person. One does not seek merit if he or she approaches the Lord with sincerity and humility. (And one cannot effectively seek God’s help unless one sees specific inclinations and compulsions that need overhauling.)

The other thing people tend to overlook is that good deeds are not sincere until someone tackles their personal flaws. Otherwise, a person can accomplish good deeds for the sake of reputation, self-promotion, and even to keep personal agendas hidden from the world.

Repentance precedes good deeds. This brings innocence to the deed.

Love is faith put into action. True faith is the love to do what is true. Love makes faith alive. The warmth of Love is how faith germinates in our memory and grows out into the living actions of our heart. Any religious doctrine that deters the growth and development of spiritual love in our lives is “rebirth control.”

God’s heavenly kingdom consists of mutual love. Mutual love is more than our possessing the right idea in our noggins. It necessitates doing the right thing from a spiritual conscience.

Posted on January 12, 2009by thegodguy

http://www.provinggod.com

Posted in god, Inner growth, love, psychology, Reality, religion, spirituality, unity | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Pretentious people – why do we smile at them?

Spiritual Questions & Answers

Being pretentious can be due to seeking social acceptance, status or admiration. But it hinders authentic spiritual living. pretentiousDon’t you just smile when you see someone with a ludicrous beard, use unnecessarily long words, speak with a very posh accent or wear very uncomfortable way-out clothes trying to look trendy? Name-dropping is an another example of acting in a pretentious manner. It’s like saying “I’m important: look at the eminent people I know,” when all the name-dropper has done is bump into them somewhere.

But, sometimes, when you spot people putting on a false show, you have to keep your smile to yourself, for they may not agree they are acting in a stuck-up way: may not realise they are behaving as if they deserve more merit than they actually do.

You may remember the story of the Emperor’s invisible clothes. A vain ruler, who cares about nothing except looking good, hires two swindlers who promise him the best suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is hopelessly stupid. The Emperor and everyone else pretends that they can see the clothes, not wanting to appear stupid. Then a child in the crowd, too young to understand the desirability of keeping up the pretense, blurts out that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all.

Agreeing about when someone is being pretentious can be difficult without knowing the person. Even then there is usually an alternative reasonable explanation. After all, the whole point of pretending to be something one isn’t, is about misleading others and often this means also misleading oneself.

“To say you want to be a director is to risk sounding obnoxious, pretentious, arrogant, and I think women are more fearful of sounding that way than men are.” (Nicole Holofcener)

Why do we fear sounding pretentious and smile at people who do?

Wanting to get socially accepted by being pretentious

Teenagers are well known to be prone to pretentious behaviour. Perhaps it is their way of getting noticed, finding social acceptance and thus to avoid being ignored? For example a so-called poseur (or poser) is a pejorative term often used by those in the goth, skateboarding, surfing and jazz communities, to describe an individual who copies the clothes, speech, and mannerisms of such a subculture, who is thought not to share or understand its values and attitudes.

Wanting social status by being pretentious

What we can accept about youth, we might feel more critical of in older people who for example try to enhance their own status by adopting the fashion and tastes of a social elite: pretending to be something one is not. We smile when we see snobbish servants of the landed gentry portrayed in television sitcoms as ‘putting on airs’ in this way.

Another way of aping those of high status is thought to be through conspicuous consumption – buying luxury goods such as expensive clothes, jewelry, cars. The comical figure of Mrs Bott in the William Brown stories comes to mind. In the end it is sad that one might feel there is something to prove about oneself to avoid being looked down on.

Wanting to appear better than others by being pretentious

Perhaps we can more easily forgive those who indulge in what we see as pretentious behaviour because they want to be noticed, or socially accepted: or even if they do so because they mistakenly believe their fragile self-esteem can be enhanced through increased social status. After all we all try to manage the social impression we make on others – like at a first date, party or job interview to mention just a few examples.

However, others try to put on a false show in many situations to gain unmerited admiration. When they get away with it they will be popular and attract a following. They run the risk – if seen through for what they actually are – of coming across as egotistical, big-headed and shallow. Taken to extreme, wanting admiration can amount to seeking glory at the expense of others. Many brutal dictators are said to have lived in a fantasy where they are the heroes. Was glory-seeking not the motivation of Hitler, Mussolini and Napoleon?

Pretentious behaviour and spiritual development

According to many spiritual theories, the way to grow and mature is to learn how to be authentic in what one says and does. This means being more aware of your feelings and desires, strengths and weaknesses. In addition to being more honest with yourself, it also involves being honest about yourself with others. This can be quite a challenge because one can no longer pretend to be something one is not. Being a genuine person one acts in accord with what one truly values and wants rather than merely to impress others for the sake of your own ego.

Emanuel Swedenborg’s visionary experiences of a higher heavenly realm is filled with angelic people who do not think or speak from self-interest yet experience the sublime feelings of content, joy and peace.   The way such individuals vary is seen in terms of the quality of their useful functions rather than any sense of social class, stigma, or fame carried over from the world.  No concern about status there or worry how others may admire one. Just an interest in allowing the divine life to flow through one’s inner being.

For Swedenborg an angelic attitude is to have an authentic charitable heart.

“People with whom no charity is present ..if they say anything good it is for the sake of themselves or of one with whom they seek to curry favour under an outward show of friendship. But people in whom charity is present think nothing else than good of the neighbour and speak nothing but good, and this not for their own sake or that of him with whom they seek to curry favour, but from the Lord thus at work within charity” (AC 1088)

Copyright 2015 Stephen Russell-Lacy

Author Heart, Head & Hands (http://spiritualquestions.org.uk/2012/10/heart-head-hands-ebook/)

Inner well-being – Exploring Spiritual Questions

Posted on17th April 2015AuthorEditorCategoriesLatest post, Other aspects of meaningTags, , , , , , ,,  Leave a comment