The Bible

 

Matthew 6:24-34 : Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God

Study

24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

25 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

27 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?

28 And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:

29 And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

30 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine #305

Study this Passage

  
/ 325  
  

305. Thus the Lord made His Human Divine.

The Human of the Lord is Divine, because it was from the esse of the Father, which was His soul, illustrated by the likeness of a father and children (n. 10269, 10372, 10823). And because it was from the Divine love which was in Him (n. 6872). Every man is such as his love is, and he is his own love (n. 6872, 10177, 10284). The Lord was the Divine love (n. 2077, 2253). The Lord made all His Human, both the internal and the external, Divine (n. 1603, 1815, 1902, 1926, 2093, 2803). Therefore He rose again as to the whole body, differently from any man (n. 1729, 2083, 5078, 10825). That the Lord's Human is Divine, is acknowledged from the omnipresence of His Human in the Holy Supper (n. 2343, 2359). And it is evident from His transfiguration before the three disciples (n. 3212). And likewise from the Word (n. 10154). And He was there called Jehovah (n. 1603, 1736, 1815, 1902, 2921, 3035, 5110, 6281, 6303, 8864, 9194, 9315). In the sense of the letter there is a distinction made between the Father and the Son, or Jehovah and the Lord, but not in the internal sense, in which the angels are (n. 3035). The Christian world does not acknowledge the Human of the Lord to be Divine, in consequence of a decree passed by a council in favor of the Pope, that he might be acknowledged as the Lord's vicar; from conversation with them in another life (n. 4738).

The Divine Human from eternity was the Divine truth in heaven, thus the Divine existere, which was afterwards made in the Lord the Divine esse, from which is the Divine existere in heaven (n. 3061, 6280, 6880, 10579). The previous state of heaven described (n. 6371-6373). The Divine was not perceptible, and therefore not capable of being received, until it passed through heaven (n. 6982, 6996, 7004). The Lord from eternity was the Divine truth in heaven (n. 2803, 3195, 3704). This is the Son of God born from eternity (n. 2628, 2798).

In heaven no other Divine is perceived but the Divine Human (n. 6475, 9303, 9356, 9571, 10067). The most ancient people could not adore the infinite esse, but the infinite existere, which is the Divine Human (n. 4687, 5321). The ancients acknowledged the Divine, because it appeared in a human form, and this was the Divine Human (n. 5110, 5663, 6846, 10737). The inhabitants of all the earths adore the Divine under a human form, and they rejoice when they hear that God actually became Man (n. 6700, 8541-8547, 9361, 10736-10738). See also Earths in Our Solar System, and in the Starry Heaven. God cannot be thought of, but in a human form, and that which is incomprehensible cannot fall into any idea (n. 9359, 9972). Man can worship what he has some idea of, but not what he has no idea of (n. 4733, 5110, 5663, 7211, 9356, 10067). Therefore the Divine is worshiped under a human form by most in the whole globe, and this is through an influx from heaven (n. 10159). All who are in good as to life, when they think of the Lord, think of a Divine Human, but not of the Human separated from the Divine (n. 2326, 4724, 4731, 4766, 8878, 9193, 9198). They in the church at this day who are in evil as to life, and they who are in faith separate from charity, think of the Human of the Lord without the Divine, and do not comprehend what the Divine Human is, the causes thereof (n. 3212, 3241, 4689, 4692, 4724, 4731, 5321, 6371, 8878, 9193, 9198).

  
/ 325  
  

Thanks to the Swedenborg Foundation for their permission to use this translation.