“The Church is... where the Lord is acknowledged, and where the Word is.” - The New Jerusalem and Its Heavenly Doctrine §242
Kempton New Church

December
17

What Does the Lord Want You to Do?

And it came to pass, that after the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the men, the shepherds, said one to another, Let us now go even to Bethlehem, and see this saying that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us. And they came in haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in the manger. (Luke 2:15-16)

Life from the Lord flows in solely into a humble and submissive heart, because such a heart has been fitted to receive. (Arcana Coelestia 8873)

The Lord does not compel man to receive what flows in from Himself; but leads in freedom, and so far as man allows, through freedom leads to good. (Arcana Coelestia 6472.2)

"Bethlehem" signifies the Word in respect to its spiritual sense; and there He chose to be born because the Lord is the Word. (Apocalypse Explained 700.9)

But he who is being regenerated is led by degrees from this more remote life (that is, moral life), into a life nearer to Divine doctrinal things; that is, into spiritual life. When this comes to pass the man begins to wonder why such commandments or precepts were sent down from heaven in so miraculous a manner, and written on tables by the finger of God, when yet they are known to every people, and are also written in the laws of those who have never heard anything from the Word. If when he comes into this state of thought he is among those who are capable of being regenerated, he is brought by the Lord into a still more interior state, namely, into a state of thinking that deeper things lie concealed therein, with which as yet he is unacquainted; and when he reads the Word in this state, he finds everywhere in the Prophets, and especially in the Evangelists, that each one of these precepts contains within it things still more heavenly. (Arcana Coelestia 3690.4)

While people are being regenerated, they have a desire for truth because they’re intent on becoming intelligent, but once they’ve been regenerated they’re intent on becoming wise. Put another way, in the former state they have a desire for truth out of concern for what it teaches, but in the subsequent state out of concern for life. (Arcana Coelestia 6247)

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