“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
15

“Then Joseph Did as the Angel Commanded”

And Joseph, being awakened from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord had ordered him, and took to him his wife, and knew her not, until she brought forth her firstborn Son; and he called His name Jesus. (Matthew 1:24‒25)

Compliance is the very good itself of faith and charity … everyone shall receive heaven and its joy in the measure of his affection of truth and good, and in the measure of his obedience. (Arcana Coelestia 7161.1; Apocalypse Explained 695:8)

A life of faith consists in doing the commandments from obedience and a life of charity in doing the commandments from love. (Arcana Coelestia 9193.3)

The Divine order is that man should set himself in order for the reception of God and prepare himself to be a receptacle and abode into which God may enter and in which, as in His temple, God may dwell. From himself man must do this, and yet must acknowledge that it is from God. This he must acknowledge because he does not feel the presence and operation of God, although God in closest presence operates all the good of love and all the truth of faith in man. Every man progresses and must progress in accordance with this order, if from being natural he is to become spiritual. (True Christian Religion 105)

He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him. (John 14:21)

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