Arcana Coelestia #33
33. Everyone is capable of knowing very well that no life is possible without love of some kind, nor any type of joy whatsoever except the joy that flows out from the love. Furthermore the nature of the love determines the nature of the life and of the joy. If you took away your loves, and what amounts to the same, your desires (since these stem from love), thought would instantly perish and you would be as one dead. This I have been shown convincingly. Self-love and the love of the world present a semblance of life and of joy, but because they are absolutely contrary to true love, which is loving the Lord above all things and the neighbour as oneself, it is clear that neither of them is love but hatred. For the more anyone loves himself and the world, the more he hates his neighbour and so the Lord. Consequently true love is love to the Lord, true life is the life inherent in love from Him, and true joy is the joy of that life. The existence of more than one true love is not possible. Nor consequently is the existence of more than one true life possible which is the source of all true joy and happiness, such as angels in the heavens enjoy.
James 4:1-10
1
Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don't they come from your pleasures that war in your members?
2
You lust, and don't have. You kill, covet, and can't obtain. You fight and make war. You don't have, because you don't ask.
3
You ask, and don't receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it for your pleasures.
4
You adulterers and adulteresses, don't you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
5
Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, "The Spirit who lives in us yearns jealously"?
6
But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble."
7
Be subject therefore to God. But resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
8
Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9
Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom.
10
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will exalt you.
