“Peace has in it confidence in the Lord: that He directs all things, provides all things, and that He leads to a good end.” - Arcana Caelestia §8455
Kempton New Church

December
22

Humility Before the Lord

And lo, the star which they saw in the east went before them, till it came and stood over where the little Child was. And having seen the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy. And coming into the house, they found the little Child with Mary His mother, and falling down they worshiped Him. (Matthew 2:9-11)

The church is from the Lord and is with those who approach Him and live according to His commandments…. That it is with those who approach Him, is because in the Christian world His Church is from the Word, and the Word is from Him, being from Him in such wise that it is Himself. In the Word is Divine Truth united with Divine Good, and this also is the Lord. Nothing else is meant by the Word which was with God and which was God, from which men have life and light, and which was made flesh … Furthermore, that the Church is with those who approach Him, is because it is with those who believe in Him; and the belief that He is God, the Savior and Redeemer, Jehovah our Justice, the Door by which to enter into the sheepfold—that is, into the Church—the Way the Truth and the Life, that no one comes to the Father but by Him, that the Father and He are one, and much else which He Himself teaches, this belief, I say, is possible to no one except from Him. That it is not possible unless He is approached, is because He is the God of heaven and earth, as He also teaches. Who else is to be approached? and who else can be approached? (CL 129)

The angel of the Lord said to Hagar, “Return yourself to your mistress and humble yourself beneath her hands” (Gen. 16:9). This signifies that [the external rational] ought to compel itself to be under the sovereign power [of interior truth]…. “To humble oneself” is expressed in the original tongue by a word which signifies “to afflict.” That “to afflict oneself” is, in the internal sense, to compel oneself…. Man ought to compel himself to do what is good, to obey the things commanded by the Lord, and to speak truths, which is to “humble himself under” the Lord’s hands, or to submit himself to the sovereign power of the Divine good and truth…. The arcanum herein contained is that a man is thus gifted by the Lord with a heavenly Own. …This Own which man during his bodily life thus receives through what is apparently compulsory, is filled by the Lord in the other life with illimitable delights and happinesses. (AC 1937:1,3,6)

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