December
13

“With God Nothing be Impossible”

But° Mary said to the angel, How shall this be, since I know not a man°? And the angel answering said to her, The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that which shall be born of thee Holy shall be called the Son of God. And behold, thy kinswoman Elizabeth, she has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God not any saying shall be impossible. (Luke 1:34–37)

It is common in all Divine worship, that man should first will, desire, and pray, and the Lord then answer, inform, and do; otherwise man does not receive anything Divine. (Apocalypse Revealed 376)

The Lord healed [people] according to their faith, because the first and primary thing of the church then to be established was to believe that the Lord is God Almighty … and that He had power to heal and to save. … acknowledgment of the Lord, and that from Him is all salvation, is the first of life from the Divine with man. (Apocalypse Explained 815:3, Arcana Cœlestia 10083:5–6)

There are therefore two principles; one of which leads to all folly and insanity, and the other to all intelligence and wisdom. The former principle is to deny all things, or to say in the heart that we cannot believe them until we are convinced by what we can apprehend, or perceive by the senses; this is the principle that leads to all folly and insanity, and is to be called the negative principle. The other principle is to affirm the things which are of doctrine from the Word, or to think and believe within ourselves that they are true because the Lord has said them: this is the principle that leads to all intelligence and wisdom, and is to be called the affirmative principle. (Arcana Cœlestia 2568:4)

The affirmative which must be the first thing when a man is being regenerated. (Arcana Cœlestia 3923:2)

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