Making Faith Our Own - Part 2

In a previous post I quoted two passages about how we make our faith our own. Another great passage on this topic is Arcana Coelestia 5432. It also indicates that we're likely to believe what we grew up with - whether true or false - and explains what we should do to try to know what's actually true.

[T]he truths of faith of the church, which are called doctrinal things, when learned in early life, are taken into the mind and committed to memory just like any other memory-knowledges, and remain as such until the man begins to view them with his own eyes, and see whether they are true, and after seeing that they are true, wills to act according to them. This viewing of them, and this will, make them no longer memory-knowledges, but precepts of life, and finally life; for in this way they enter into the life to which they are appropriated....

[T]hey who are in the affection of truth for the sake of truth and of life... have indeed faith in the doctrinal things of the church; but still they search the Word for no other end than the truth, from which their faith and their conscience are formed. If anyone tells them that they ought to stay in the doctrinal things of the church in which they were born, they reflect that if they had been born in Judaism, Socinianism, Quakerism, Christian Gentilism, or even out of the church, the same would have been told them; and that it is everywhere said, Here is the church! Here is the church! Here are truths and nowhere else! And this being the case the Word should be searched with devout prayer to the Lord for enlightenment.

What distinguishes people from animals?

Arcana Coelestia 5302 provides a nice short explanation of what makes a person different from an animal.

Stupid people suppose that man is man from his outward form, in that he has a face like a man's; those less stupid say man is man because he can speak; and those still less stupid, that man is man because he can think. But man is not man from these things, but from the fact that he can think what is true and will what is good, and that when he thinks truth and wills good he can look up to the Divine and perceptibly receive it. It is in this that man is distinguished from the brute animals.

Change the Locks!

Rev. George McCurdy gave a great sermon about the need to make the Lord and the Word the center of our lives. He said,

You and I have come here today to listen to the Word of the Lord so that in some way we can do reparation - we can get Him back into the center - and not have Him on the circumference.

He quoted Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture 111:

[W]ithout the Word there is no rational conception of the Lord, and thus no salvation... it therefore pleased the Lord to descend from heaven; and, coming into the world, to fulfill the Word, and thus to renew and restore it, giving light again to the inhabitants of the earth....

Using Obadiah, Haggai, and Micah he demonstrated how the questions asked by the prophets were answered by the Lord when He came on earth.

He talked about how hell tries to keep us from having the Lord as the center of our lives.

What hell wants to do is have us say, “I can't read the Word. I'm not bright enough. It's repetitive.” You know all the things people say about the Word.

He also talked about how True Christian Religion 320 describes people who think nothing of the truth as being like thieves who carry keys that they can use to open the door of any house and said,

What the Lord is saying is, “Friends, there are spiritual thieves and robbers out there with keys into any house. Change the locks!”

A Comparison of the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg and Mormonism

I just ran across an extensive study of the similarities and differences between the teachings of the New Church and the teachings of the Church of Latter Day Saints, or Mormonism. I have not read much of it myself but, in a footnote, the author, Craig Miller, acknowledges the help of Kurt Simons, Victor Odhner, Carroll Odhner, and Rev. John Odhner, which hopefully speaks for the study's accuracy.

After a brief history of Swedenborg, Miller writes,

The similarities between LDS doctrine and Swedenborg's teachings are striking - and impossible for me to imagine as mere coincidences. Likewise, the differences are also just as outstanding and cause me to wonder how the similarities can coexist with such marked differences.

Getting More Out of a Familiar Blessing

In worship services we often hear this blessing from Numbers 6:24-26:

The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make His face shine upon you, And be gracious to you; The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, And give you peace.

I just ran across a passage that helps me get more out of hearing these words. Apocalypse Explained 412:4 explains,

“To make the faces to shine and to be gracious” signifies to enlighten in Divine truth, and to bestow intelligence and wisdom; and “to lift up the faces and give peace” signifies to fill with Divine good and to bestow love. Both are necessary to make man wise....

Real faith (or truth) and charity (or love) can seem hard to come by sometimes so it's nice to know that the meaning of this blessing is, “May the Lord give you real faith and real charity.”