new church life: march/april 2017
our own lives in daily life.
In the teachings for the New Church the Lord has told us that we all have
a king. Our king is what we make most important in our lives.
There are many kinds of loves, but two of them are like lords or kings, namely,
heavenly love and hellish love. Heavenly love is love toward the Lord and love for
the neighbor, while hellish love is love of self and love of the world. These two kinds
of loves are as opposed to each other as heaven and hell; for one who is impelled by
a love of self and the world does not wish anyone well but himself, whereas one who
is impelled by love toward the Lord and love for the neighbor wishes all well. These
two loves constitute people’s life’s loves, but with much variety. Heavenly love is the
life’s love of those who are led by the Lord, while hellish love is the life’s love of those
who are led by the devil. . . .
Love dwells in its affections like a lord in his manor or like a king in his kingdom.
Their dominion or reign is over the constituents of the mind, that is, over the
constituents of a person’s will and intellect, and so over the constituents of the body.
Through its affections and consequent perceptions, and through its delights and
consequent thoughts, a person’s life’s love governs the entire person – the internal
level of his mind by its affections and consequent perceptions, and the external
level of his mind by the delights of its affections and consequent thoughts. (Divine
Providence 106)
Our daily decisions shout praise to whatever rules in us. Our daily
decisions are values and ideas expressed in word and deed that are like clothes
and palms laid as a pathway for whatever rules us to advance more fully into
our lives. Unless we seek the Lord’s help it will be impossible for us to recognize
the true nature of the king in our lives.
Hear the following from the teachings
of the New Church:
Our daily decisions
shout praise to whatever
rules in us. Our daily
decisions are values
and ideas expressed
in word and deed that
are like clothes and
palms laid as a pathway
for whatever rules
us to advance more
fully into our lives.
A person is incapable of perceiving the lusts
of his own evil. He perceives, indeed, their
delights, but he also little reflects on them,
for the delights beguile his thoughts and
divert his reflections. Consequently, if he
did not know from some other source that
they are evil, he would call them good and,
in freedom in accordance with reason of his
thinking, would commit them. And when he
does this, he makes them his.
To the extent that he makes these allowable,
he enlarges the court of his reigning love,
which is his life’s love. His lusts form its
court, for they are, so to speak, its ministers
and attendants, by which it governs the outer
elements which constitute its kingdom.
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