New Church Life July/August 2015 | Page 93

     I believe that “God is one in essence and in person, in whom is a Divine trinity, and that He is the Lord God the Savior Jesus Christ.” I believe that “no mortal could have been saved unless the Lord had come into the world.” I believe that “He came into the world to remove hell from man, and that He did remove it by means of contests with it and victories over it, and thereby He subdued it and reduced it to order and made it obedient to Himself.” I believe that “He came into the world to glorify His Human which He took on in the world, that is, to unite it with the Divine from which [are all things], and thereby He eternally holds hell in order and under obedience to Himself. As this could be accomplished only by means of temptations admitted into His Human, even to the last of them, which was the passion of the cross, He endured even that.” I believe that we are to “believe in the Lord; for by believing in Him [we have] conjunction with Him and so salvation. To believe in the Lord is to have confidence that He saves; and as only those who live rightly can have this confidence, this, too, is meant by believing in Him.” (True Christian Religion 2) I believe in the Word of the Old and the New Testaments and in the Second Coming of the Lord through the Heavenly Doctrine of the New Church. As a priest I am called by the Lord to care for the salvation of souls, to teach the way to heaven, and to lead those who are taught, not by what is my own but only by the truths of the Lord’s Word. (Life 39) Lord, I pray for the humility to seek truth for the sake of truth and for the sake of serving Your people. I pray for enlightenment in understanding Your Word so that I might see how I am to teach and to lead those whom You will put in my care. I pray for the conviction and trust in You to shun evils as sins and follow You in all the paths o bגƖfRࠐ