The "midst" of something in the Bible represents the thing that is most central and most important to the spiritual state being described, the motivation that drives everything else. In general this will be something we love or feel, because at the core of things we are what we love; our loves define us.

(Referenties: Apocalypse Revealed 44, 90, 268; Arcana Coelestia 2252, 2940, 10153, 10365, 10557, 10635, 10641)

129. FROM THE ARCANA COELESTIA.

A life of piety without a life of charity, is of no avail, but when united therewith aids (n. 8252, seq.). External sanctity without internal sanctity is not holy (n. 2190, 10177). Of the quality of those in another life, who have lived in external sanctity, and not from internal (n. 951-952).

There is an internal and external of the church (n. 1098). There is internal worship and external worship, and the quality of each (n. 1083, 1098, 1100, 1151, 1153). Internals are what make worship (n. 1175). External worship without internal is no worship (n. 1094, 7724). There is an internal in worship, if man's life is a life of charity (n. 1100, 1151, 1153). Man is in true worship when he is in love and charity, that is, when he is in good as to life (n. 1618, 7724, 10242). The quality of worship is according to good (n. 2190). Worship itself consists in a life according to the precepts of the church from the Word (n. 7884, 9921, 10143, 10153, 10196, 10645).

True worship is from the Lord with man, not from man himself (n. 10203, 10299). The Lord desires worship from man for the sake of man's salvation, and not for the sake of his own glory (n. 4593, 8263, 10646). Man believes that the Lord desires worship for the sake of glory; but they who thus believe know not what Divine glory is, nor that it consists in the salvation of the human race, which man has when he attributes nothing to himself, and when he removes his proprium by humiliation; because the Divine is then first able to flow in (n. 4347, 4593, 5957, 7550, 8263, 10646). Humiliation of heart with man exists from an acknowledgment of himself, which is, that he is nothing but evil, and that he can do nothing from himself; and from a consequent acknowledgment of the Lord, which is, that nothing but good is from the Lord, and that the Lord can do all things (n. 2327, 3994, 7478). The Divine cannot flow in except into a humble heart, since so far as man is in humiliation, so far he is absent from his proprium, and thus from the love of self (n. 3994, 4347, 5957). Hence the Lord does not desire humiliation for His own sake, but for man's sake, that man may be in a state for receiving the Divine (n. 4347, 5957). Worship is not worship without humiliation (n. 2327, 2423, 8873). The quality of external humiliation without internal (n. 5420, 9377). The quality of humiliation of heart, which is internal (n. 7478). There is no humiliation of heart with the evil (n. 7640).

They who have not charity and faith are in external worship without internal worship (n. 1200). If the love of self and of the world reigns interiorly with man, his worship is external without internal, however it may appear in the external form (n. 1182, 10307-10309). External worship in which the love of self reigns inwardly, as is the case with those who are of Babylon, is profane (n. 1304, 1306-1308, 1321-1322, 1326). To imitate heavenly affections in worship, when man is in evils from the love of self, is infernal (n. 10309).

What the quality of external worship is when it proceeds from internal, and when it does not, may be seen and concluded from what has been said and adduced above concerning the INTERNAL and the EXTERNAL MAN.

Concerning those who renounce the world and those who do not renounce it, their quality, and their lot in the other life, may be seen in the work on Heaven and Hell, under the following heads: Of the Rich and Poor in Heaven (n. 357-365); and of the Life that leads to Heaven (n. 528-535).