10203. 'Incense shall be continual before Jehovah' means in all worship springing from love received from the Lord. This is clear from the meaning of 'incense' as worship springing from love, dealt with in 9475; from the meaning of 'continual' as all and within all, dealt with in 10133; and from the meaning of 'before Jehovah' as from the Lord, dealt with in 10146. The expression 'worship springing from love received from the Lord' is used because both faith and love, the essential elements of worship, come from the Lord, and also the raising up to the Lord of everything of worship is done by Him. The person who has no knowledge of the arcana of heaven supposes that worship comes from himself since he thinks about and pays homage to the Lord. But worship which comes from a person himself is not worship; only that which comes from the Lord with a person is such. For love and faith compose worship, and since love and faith come from the Lord worship too comes from Him. Nor is a person able to raise anything from himself up to heaven; it is the Lord who raises it. Within the person there is solely the capacity for this to happen, which he is endowed with when being regenerated, 6148; but all the motive force and energy of that capacity come from the Lord.

Life itself comes from the Lord, and men and angels are recipient forms, see 1954, 2021, 2536, 2706, 3001, 3318, 3484, 3741-3743, 4151, 4249, 4318-4320, 4417, 4523, 4524, 4882, 5847, 5986, 6325, 6467, 6468, 6470, 6472, 6479, 9338.

6470. The truth that all life comes from the Lord I have also been allowed to know from the consideration that no spirit's thought or speech originates in himself but comes from others, and that these others derive theirs from others again, and so on. This truth has often been demonstrated to those who believed that life was intrinsic, not something which flowed in. From this demonstration of it they were led to conclude that since nobody's thought or speech begins in himself but comes from others, everyone's comes ultimately from a single source, thus from the Lord. And unless everyone's had come from a single source it would have been quite impossible to introduce order into the lives of those in heaven. Such order does however exist there, involving clear-cut divisions into communities on the basis of their good. The situation would be altogether different if everyone's actions sprang from life that was his own.