335. Even though we say that functions are useful because they relate to the Lord through us, we cannot say that they are from us for the sake of the Lord. They are from the Lord for our sake because all useful functions are infinitely united in the Lord, and none of them are in us except as gifts from the Lord. We can actually do nothing good on our own, only from the Lord, and the good we do is what we are calling useful functions. The essence of spiritual love is to do good to others for their sake and not for our own. This is infinitely more so in regard to the essence of divine love. It is like the love of parents for their children. They do good for them out of love, for the children's sake, not for their own sake. We can see this clearly in the love mothers have for their little ones.

People believe that because the Lord is to be revered, worshiped, and praised the Lord loves reverence, worship, and praise for his own sake. In fact, he loves them for our sake, because they bring us into a state where something divine can flow in and be felt. This is because by these activities we are removing that focus on self that prevents the inflow and acceptance. The focus on self that is self-love hardens and closes our heart. It is removed by our realization that in our own right we are nothing but evil and that nothing but what is good comes from the Lord. This yields the softening of heart and humility from which reverence and worship flow.

It follows from this that the purpose of the useful functions the Lord provides for himself through us is that he may bless us out of his love; and since this is what he loves to do, our receiving it is the joy of his love.

No one should believe that the Lord is with people who simply worship him. He makes his home with people who do his commandments--that is, his useful functions--and not with the others. See also what it says about this in 47, 48, and 49 above.

71. The following example should illustrate how merely earthly people think in spatial terms about matters spiritual and divine, while spiritual people do so without reference to space. When merely earthly people think, they use images they have garnered from things they have seen. There is some shape to all of these involving length, breadth, and height, some angular or curved form bounded by these dimensions. These dimensions are clearly present in the mental images people have of visible, earthly things; and they are present as well in their mental images of things they do not see, such as civic and moral matters. They do not actually see these dimensions, but they are still present implicitly.

It is different for spiritual people, and especially for heaven's angels. Their thinking has nothing to do with form and shape involving spatial length, breadth, and height. It has to do with the state of the matter as it follows from a state of life. This means that in place of length they consider how good something is as a result of the quality of the life from which it stems; in place of breadth they consider how true something is because of the truth of the life from which it stems; and in place of height they consider the level of these qualities. They are thinking on the basis of correspondence, then, which is the mutual relationship between spiritual and earthly things. It is because of this correspondence that "length" in the Word means how good something is, "breadth" means how true it is, and "height" means the level of these qualities.

We can see from this that the only way heaven's angels can think about divine omnipresence is that Divinity fills everything, but nonspatially. Whatever angels think is true, because the light that illumines their understanding is divine wisdom.