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.

6472. The nature of the influx of both kinds of life - the life of thought and the life of the will coming from the Lord - has been made known to me through revelation. That is to say, I have been shown that the Lord flows in in two ways - indirectly by way of heaven, and from Himself directly - and that the influx from Himself is both into the rational levels of a person's mind, which are his interior ones, and into the natural levels of it, which are his exterior ones. What flows in from the Lord is the good of love and the truth of faith, for what goes forth from the Lord is Divine Truth holding Divine Good within it. But the way a person receives them varies, that is to say, his particular character determines how they are received.

[2] The Lord does not compel a person to accept what flows in from Himself but leads him in freedom; and so far as the person allows He leads him by means of freedom to good. Thus the Lord leads a person in accordance with his delights. He also leads him in accordance with his illusions and resulting false assumptions; but from these He gradually leads him away, though it seems to the person as though he leads himself away. Thus the Lord does not shatter those assumptions, for that would violate the person's freedom, which must of necessity exist if a person is to be reformed, 1937, 1947, 2875, 2876, 2881, 3145, 3146, 3158, 4031. The fact that the Lord flows into a person in this way - not only indirectly by way of heaven, but also from Himself directly, both into the interior levels of a person's mind and into the exterior ones - is an arcanum that has remained unknown up to now.