And it happened as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, one of His disciples said to Him, Lord teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. And He said to them: When you pray, say, Our Father who is in Heaven, hallowed be Your name, let Your kingdom come, let Your will be done on earth as it also is in Heaven. Give us our needed bread day by day; and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil. (Luke 11:1-4)

Having dealt now with each part of the Lord’s Prayer separately it’s important that we are able to take the ideas we have explored and bring them together so that their application to living the spiritual life can be seen as a whole. Hopefully you have seen that the prayer, or any prayer for that matter, is not a matter of the lips, but of the heart or life and that when we speak of something being of the heart we are talking about what is of the affections or will. The idea of the things of the heart being a matter of affection is something we easily grasp but we don’t so easily grasp that when we speak of the affections we are speaking of the will and intention. In fact, in the teachings for Spiritual Christianity heart, intention and will, what we actually do or how we actually live, are inseparable – they are the same thing. So when giving our attention to the heart and its affections from a spiritual perspective, we need to cut through any sense of sentimentality that we carry in our understanding of what these things refer to. Our culture emphasises feel good sentimentality or emotion with matters of the heart and while these are related they are merely a surface manifestation which often gets confused with the idea of love. In the spiritual life, love is our commitment to living the truth as we understand it, love is taking responsibility for our life, love is reorganising our values so that in spite of how we feel, we make spiritual principles a priority in our dealings with others and it often involves compelling ourselves to live and act in ways that we don’t necessarily feel overly excited about.

We attach a sentimental kind of love to our idea of the Lord when we think of Him in terms of being a person just like us. Sentimental love needs an external object of devotion and depending on the state of mind, in the area of religion and spirituality, this could be a physical form of stone or wood or some metal fashioned into an object of focus. This is of course what we understand by idolatry but idolatry isn’t limited to or dependent upon a material or physical form as its point of focus. It can also take on a more internalised form as an image created or fashioned within the imagination around which a person builds a world. In this ‘world’ all their needs and desires are met, their actions are justified and their interactions with other people are assessed and reinterpreted to fit in with this inner world perspective of life. We are all prone to this kind of fantasy building to a greater or lesser degree because it is what the lower mind spends most of its time and energy doing, and we buy into it to the extent that we seek to avoid having to face the things in our life that we really need to face. For those who are attracted to spiritual or religious matters within a Christian context, there is a phase in which the natural mind creates and offers us an idealised image of the Lord that is sense-based, where He is seen as a person who has all the attributes of a finite-being or person just like us. There is nothing wrong with this as a starting point; indeed our state of mind is so immersed in natural ideas that any deeper view is impossible. However, there will come a time when this sensual view of the Lord will have to die if we are to find a deeper more fulfilling sense of spiritual life.

One of the main characteristics to this kind of natural faith, which regards the Lord as to His person first and essence second, is that spiritual things are externalised. For example, prayer becomes something verbal or of the lips directed to a God “out there” who hears our verbal utterances. But we know that the Lord isn’t “out there” in space and time in the way that a person next to us is perceived as “out there” and as someone we can talk to. Yet on another level we see that our actions, which in this case is our prayers, are often performed as if we believe that this is in fact where the Lord is. A natural understanding of the Lord as a person sees the emphasis, as far as prayer is concerned, on its external verbalisation or at least it’s being brought to consciousness as inner talk in the thought of the mind. When God is seen as “out there” in sensual terms He is approached as one who can bring about what we want or desire and that all we have to do is pray long enough or hard enough or with enough force demonstrating our faith, and in so doing we will be able to move Him to act because of our many words. Thus prayer becomes something more like a magical incantation that can get us what we want rather than a means by which we can align our thoughts and affections with the will and purposes of the Lord for our life.

The Lord Himself commented on this state of life in the Gospels just before He gave us the Lord’s Payer when He said;

When you pray, don’t use vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think they will be heard for their much speaking…(Matthew 6:7)

This is often understood to mean we are not to use mantras and the like as forms of prayer but we need to recognise that although we may use many different forms and constructions of words in our prayers, we are often repeatedly asking for basically the same thing. This is useless work or what are termed here vain repetitions that arise from a misunderstanding of the true use of prayer, due to a misunderstanding of who the Lord is, where He is to be found and how He operates in our lives.

What the teachings of Spiritual Christianity draw our attention to is that we are to think of the Lord from essence first and from that essence to His person. If we are to understand what this means we need to know what the Lord as essence refers to. When we understand this, then how best to think of the Lord as to person can be grasped more clearly. Essence refers to the Lord’s essential nature which is Divine love and Divine wisdom. Now both love and wisdom are psycho-spiritual qualities for love is of the affections and wisdom belongs to the understanding which finds its place there as truth. Love as affection and wisdom as true ideas don’t exist outside human minds, they are what generate mental or psychological states of life. So if the Divine is love and wisdom Itself then the Divine must be a Divine Human. We also know that a person is not their body and that to truly know a person is to know the quality of their affections and the ideas, beliefs, values and aspirations which they hold. The quality of these inner things are what define and make a person a human being and it is the kind of connection that we are able to make with these aspects with a person, that constitutes a relationship with them. Having a body enables these inner aspects to come forth to view and, if good and true, they find their form in the infinite variety of useful services which support human beings to live and so creates opportunities for their spiritual awakening or salvation. So anything that takes its form from love and wisdom must contain love and wisdom and as love and wisdom is only attributable to the human form, any genuine manifestation of these things through uses that support spiritual ends is a manifestation of the Lord as to His Human or His person.

So, wherever uses are performed that support the spiritual life of others, what is genuinely human takes form and it is this that is the Lord in our midst. Now the quality of the love and wisdom that manifests itself through any particular use and so the degree of clarity with which we can see the Lord in our midst, has a direct relationship to the degree to which our own minds have been recreated in the Lord’s image. How are our minds recreated? They are recreated through taking spiritual ideas from the Lord and looking to sincerely live from them. Where do we find these ideas? We find them in the Word and in the principles of Spiritual Christianity that are drawn forth from it. For if the Word is the source of love and wisdom accommodated for finite human minds, then the ideas found there must be Divine because the Lord alone is the source of all love and wisdom. The ideas that the Word conveys are love and wisdom in a human form and so must, and can only be, the Lord Himself for this is what the Lord is. This then is the Lord as to His person; the Word is the Divine Human of the Lord. This shifts us out from seeing the Lord as to person in terms of a historical character and allows us to get hold of the message of Spiritual Christianity that He is now present in all His fullness in the Word.

So what are implications the in this for our understanding of prayer and the Lord’s Prayer in particular? Getting a handle on the actual word translated prayer can help us here. It literally means to speak a wish or desire or intention. To speak is to give expression to the thought and so carries the idea of bringing something into being, giving it expression and so spiritually speaking, prayer means to give expression to a wish, desire or intention. Now these words don’t have a lot of force in them, a wish is something vague that more often than not applies to an outside possibility. We use it in the phrase wishful thinking and mean whatever is thought of is unlikely to come about. The term desire is also something largely regarded in terms of ‘maybe’ – I might have a desire but that’s as far as it goes. And finally the word intention, we often associate with the idea of intending to do something but just not managing to get around to it.

The weak meaning associated with these words in our culture is unfortunate, for from a spiritual perspective there is nothing vague or weak in these terms, they carry force. Spiritually they relate to the will and so to pray is to give expression to the desires of the heart, not in terms of speech but in terms of one’s life. There is no distinction in the Lord between what is said and what is done, what the Lord speaks comes into being; neither is there a distinction drawn in the spiritual world where no one is permitted to say one thing and live another. Similarly, in the Word, to pray means to live. So when the Lord says to pray after this manner in regard to the Lord’s Prayer He is laying down how our lives are to be lived, He is not giving us a formula of what we are to say, as stated in Arcana Coelestia 7884;

The worship of the lips without the worship of the life avails nothing…

What is essential is what is internal, which is living the life of prayer as it is this which gives meaning to what is spoken or external. To take the Lord’s Prayer as something to be recited repetitively reduces it to the very practice of vain repetitions that the Lord warns against. This prayer is a blueprint for living a genuine spiritual life and we need to approach it fresh every time we contemplate it by looking to the Lord for new meanings and applications of it for our life.

Sincere prayer is an acknowledgement that all good is from the Lord, and that the Lord alone knows what we need, and that we desire to have this done in and for us. (Divine Providence 119)

So then, if we look to live the prayer so that our lives embody it, our lives will become a living prayer and then will these final words have their fulfilment in us…

…for Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. (Matthew 6:13)

…think of God from His essence, and from that of His Person, and not from His Person, and from this of His essence, for to think of His essence from Person, is to think materially of His essence also; but to think of His Person from essence, is to think spiritually even of His Person. The ancient Gentiles, because as they thought materially of God, and also of the attributes of God, not only imagined three gods, but many even to the number of a hundred. Know then that the material does not flow into the spiritual, but the spiritual into the material. It is similar when the neighbour is thought about from how they appear externally, rather than from their inner qualities, and when heaven is thought as a place first, and not from the love and wisdom which heaven is. It is similar with each and everything in the Word. Therefore, he who cherishes a material idea of God, and likewise of the neighbour and of heaven, cannot understand anything in it. The Word is to a person who thinks materially a dead letter…(Apocalypse Revealed 611)

“For thine is the kingdom” signifies that the Divine Truth is from the Lord alone; it is also said “power” and “glory” because to the Divine Truth belong all power and glory. (Apocalypse Explained 48)

Let no one being tempted say, I am tempted from God. For God is not tempted by evil, and He tempts no one. But each one is tempted by his own lusts, being drawn out and being seduced by them. Then having conceived lust brings forth sin. And sin being fully formed brings forth death. Do not go astray, my beloved brothers, every act of good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom is no change or shadow of turning. Having purposed, He brought us forth by the Word of truth, for us to be a certain firstfruit of His creatures. So that, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. For the wrath of man does not work out the righteousness of God. On account of this, putting away all filthiness and overflowing of evil, in meekness receive the implanted Word being able to save your souls. But become doers of the Word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. Because if anyone is a hearer of the Word, and not a doer, this one is like a man studying his natural face in a mirror; for he studied himself, and has gone away, and immediately he forgot of what kind he was. But the one looking into the perfect Law of liberty, and continuing in it, this one not having become a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in his doing. (James 1:13-25)

No temptation has taken you except what is human; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able. But with the temptation, He will also make the way out, so that you may be able to bear it. (1Corinthians 10:13)

And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil… (Matthew 6:13)

We come now to one of the most difficult passages in the Lord’s Prayer which states in its literal sense, ..and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil… Its difficulty lies in the implication, if it is taken literally, that the Lord is somehow involved in leading people into temptation, which is an idea in direct conflict with other statements in the Bible which state that God tempts no one. How are we to reconcile these seemingly opposed ideas concerning the Lord and His activity in states of temptation? To do this we need to look beyond the mere literal meaning of the words of Scripture towards its inner or spiritual sense and to do so from our understanding of the Lord, of who He is and His nature, which we are given insight into from doctrines for Spiritual Christianity. Now it is certainly true that the Lord governs all things by means of His Divine providence and given that this is the case, it must be also true that He allows or permits temptation, but as we shall see it is not the case that He is the initiator or instigator of it.

When we say He allows us to be tempted we need to take care what it is we understand by the Lord allowing or permitting temptation. When we allow something it implies that if we choose to, we could have just as easily not allow it. Permission where that Lord is concerned isn’t like this. Everything permitted by the Lord that is not of the Lord, that is evil, must occur for the sake of the end in view that the Lord holds, which is the salvation of the human race. In fact, such permission is absolutely vital given the state of the human race and the Lord’s desire for the best possible outcome for each and every member of it. If the Lord were to prevent us acting out everything that was from a self-centred approach to life because it was against His will, we would feel like we were slaves to the will of another without a will of our own. So whilst we might we comply with the laws of life externally our obedience would be forced, for within we would still desire what was not in keeping with the Lord’s will.

Having the freedom to act from our desires, even when those desires are evil and opposed to a genuine spiritual life, is permitted because this freedom to act is vital to maintaining our sense of being an independent autonomous self. For the Lord to step in and prevent anyone from exercising their freedom would be to undermine their ability to freely choose their life path. Our salvation rests on this freedom for from it we can freely choose good over evil and truth over falsity both of which are acts of love. So whilst evils are permitted by the Lord they are not willed by Him, rather they are permitted for the sake of maintaining our ability to exercise our will in free choices, which is essential if the way for our salvation is to be kept open.

Temptation, with its struggles and suffering, is not something willed by the Lord. The Lord desires all to be happy, fulfilled and joyful. The doctrines for Spiritual Christianity teach that He desires all to be in the highest heaven. But for this to happen we have to exercise our freedom to bring our faculties into obedience to the Lord’s Word. And this involves having to make choices that our natural man is opposed to and resists. But they are choices freely made and one of the outcomes of this process of separation from what is lower in us in order to pursue what is higher, is the onset of temptations which are accompanied by anxieties and doubts of the mind.

Undergoing temptation is the experience of moving from being natural to becoming spiritual. It is not something the Lord brings upon us but rather is the simply result of our attachments to self and the world being weakened. This is why the Lord permits it. If He didn’t allow temptations we wouldn’t be able to become spiritual and so would remain in our evils. Temptation arises because we are attached to states of life which separate us from the Lord. So if anyone wants to be regenerated or saved then they must be prepared for the fact that the spiritual life involves confronting things within ourselves that are painful. And that if we are to follow the Lord we do so by choosing to resist those states of life that are rooted in destructive selfish attitudes so that more loving states might have the opportunity to fill our minds. This choice is a continued life long commitment.

So given all of this, why does this statement seem to imply that the Lord leads us into temptation? The Word is written so that it can convey an understanding or awareness of spiritual things to all people, whatever their level of ability to receive and work with spiritual ideas and concepts. So when we are in more external states of understanding concerning spiritual things and cannot, for whatever reason, think too much more deeply about spiritual matters than what the Word says on the surface, the statement as it stands in its literal meaning is perfectly accommodated to preserving a sense of the Lord’s authority and governance over all things in our life.

And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil…

When someone reads reads this on a more external surface level and prays this part of the Lord’s Prayer from this perspective, they are affirmed in the truth that the Lord is the one who is in control and governs all things in relation to their life and spiritual walk. The statement taken at face value affirms the important truth that the Lord leads and directs all things. It also teaches us that we are to turn to the Lord when difficulties in life arise, that we are to look to Him as our saviour, as the one who can deliver us from temptation and evil. This is important for people who hold to a simple trust in the Lord, for in turning their thoughts towards the Lord in times of difficulty, the way is opened for heavenly influences to penetrate their minds and to strengthen their will in the face of the doubts that are arising. In this way, a person is held in hope and through their understanding that the Lord’s power governs all things, is able to find comfort knowing that He will deliver them from whatever difficulties they face.

The apparent contradictory statements in Scripture regarding the Lord’s role in temptation can be confronting but the principles of Spiritual Christianity remind us that the Lord tempts no one and that idea that He leads people into temptation is an appearance which people hold to when they lack the understanding that temptation is the by-product of the process of regeneration. It is not the Lord who leads us into temptation, but every person is tempted when their own evils are stirred up in opposition to the truths they have taken into their life from the Lord’s Word. It appears as if it is the Lord who causes temptation because spiritual temptations become more acute as more truths are received into a person’s life. Truths give us the ability not only to see our evils, but to also feel when our selfish tendencies are becoming more active within us. Such feelings most often manifest as forms of anxiety and fear when we incline toward some selfish affections or unloving thoughts towards ourselves or others whilst knowing that such attitudes are opposed to what the Lord wants for us and others.

Before we set ourselves the spiritual aim of working on our inner life many of these selfish elements in us went unnoticed. But as we become more committed to the spiritual path through a willingness to examine ourselves and take the truths the Lord offers us, it seems as if He is leading us into greater and greater difficulties. However, what’s really happening is that we are coming to see more and more clearly those things that exist within us that are in opposed to the Lord’s love and that until now, we have been asleep to. For it is not until we begin the work of examining ourselves and from that work, engage in repentance, do we come to see how much in the dark we have been. Due to a lack of willingness to work with truths from the Word we have been oblivious to the operation of the hellish influences that tied into our self interest. So, it is truths from the Word, which is the Lord, that are now able to shine their light on the true state of our life and show us what we are when we live without acknowledging the Lord as the only real authority.

So while the Lord never leads anyone into temptation, He is certainly the one who leads and guides people through it. As selfish loves and false thoughts get stirred up within us and seek to draw us away from the principles of love to the Lord and our neighbour, our ability to recognise this occurring and the power to resist and fight against these comes from Lord as the Word alone. It feels as if we are doing the fighting, but this too is an appearance that the Lord grants to us so that we maintain our sense of self in it all. But it is as we acknowledge the Lord in the struggle that we are strengthened by heavenly influences which flow into those truths of the Word that we have made part of our lives. These truths are the Lord’s presence with us and it is from these that we are able to resist our own evils and selfish tendencies and are able to be guided by the Lord through the process of dealing with the particular issues that have come to the fore in our life.

These issues that need dealing with and that hold us back spiritually are always grounded in valuing the delights of the love of self and the world over love to the Lord and our neighbour. And they only come into view at a point in our spiritual development or regeneration when we have acquired enough good and truth from the Word to resist them and so have their hold over us weakened or broken, which is our salvation being outworked in our life. This is a very useful principle to get hold of; evils and falsities only come into focus when the Lord has built into us what is needed for our regeneration to progress into its next phase of development. Thus, despite how things may appear we are never, ever abandoned in the temptation, the Lord is fully present with us urging things on toward their fulfilment so we can be more complete as an expression of His image and likeness.

So when in a state of temptation it is useful to hold onto the idea that it must run its course to its completion if we are to enter into the next state or phase of our spiritual development. The Lord won’t extract us prematurely once this process begins. Hence the statement, lead us not into temptation… is immediately qualified with ..but deliver us from evil. This captures the desire of all who are committed to a path of spiritual growth and development. Once we have a better understanding of the use of temptation we are better able to accept the process and all that it brings with it. The same attitude is represented in the words of Jesus is the garden of Gethsemane where He uttered…

If it be possible take this cup from me, however not my will but thine be done…(Luke 22:42)

It is only natural to want deliverance from the unpleasantness and hardships of the struggles involved in living a spiritual life. But as we have seen, there can be no deliverance from our evils or self interest without temptations. That temptations are the only means by which the Lord can break our attachments to these lower destructive elements within us. If we are able to truly see this then we will also be better able to accept the truth that temptations don’t arise from the Lord but are a product of our own evils, and they are permitted for the sake of our salvation.

I was allowed to see the angelic ideas surrounding these words in the Lord’s Prayer, ‘Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil’. Good spirits nearest to me began to remove ‘temptation’ and ‘evil’ by a certain idea that was perceptible within me, and this they continued to do until that which was purely angelic, that is, good, remained, and no idea of temptation or evil was there – the literal sense thereby perishing altogether. Of that good countless ideas were being formed when that removal first began – ideas of how good may come out of a person’s affliction when yet the affliction originates in that person and in his evil, which holds punishment within it. And coupled with these ideas there was a kind of indignation that people should suppose that temptation and the evil going with it should come from any other source, and that there should be any thought of evil when they thought about the Lord. These ideas were being purified every time they rose up higher. These risings were represented by removals, also described in 1393, which were carried out with a rapidity and in a manner that were indescribable, until they passed into the shadowy side of my thought. At that point they were in heaven where angelic ideas beyond words exist regarding that good which is the Lord’s. (Arcana Coelestia 1875)

Then coming up to Him, Peter said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Until seven times? Jesus said to him, I do not say to you, Until seven times, but, Until seventy times seven. Because of this the kingdom of Heaven has been compared to a man, a king, who desired to take account with his slaves. And he having begun to reckon, one debtor of ten thousand talents was brought near to him. But he not having any to repay, the lord commanded him to be sold, also his wife and children, and all things, as much as he had, even to pay back. Then having fallen down, the slave bowed the knee to him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay all to you. And being filled with pity, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the loan. But having gone out, that slave found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii. And seizing him, he choked him, saying, Pay me whatever you owe. Then having fallen down at his feet, his fellow slave begged him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay all to you. But he would not, but having gone away he threw him into prison until he should pay back the amount owing. But his fellow slaves, seeing the things happening, they were greatly grieved. And having come they reported to their lord all the things happening. Then having called him near, his lord said to him, Wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt, since you begged me. Ought you not also to have mercy on your fellow slave, as I also had mercy? And being angry, his lord delivered him up to the tormentors until he pay back all that debt to him. So also My heavenly Father will do to you unless each of you from your hearts forgive his brother their deviations. (Matthew 18:21-35)

…and forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors. (Matthew 6:12)

Today we come to the section of the Lord’s Prayer that deals with the idea of debt and more specifically of our being released or forgiven from our debts. This is a very important spiritual principle, one that we need a clear understanding of because it cuts right to the core of our quality of life. If we don’t understand what this concept of debt is about from a spiritual perspective, we can’t really understand what we are asking for when we pray this part of the prayer. And if we don’t understand what we are asking for, how can we actually do our part to see that we are brought into a right relationship as far as our lives are concerned with this idea of being in debt?

The first thing we need to keep firmly in mind in dealing with this statement is that the Lord holds nothing against anyone. Any sense of a need for forgiveness that we feel doesn’t arise from the Lord separating Himself from us, but rather is the result of our need to keep a distance between what we want for ourselves and what the Lord desires for us. In and of ourselves we seek only that which is able to gratify our love of self and the love of the world. The Lord, on the other hand, is constantly seeking what is best for us and He works to see that we are released from the bondage which these lower desires place upon us so that we can find our delight in a life in which we are bonded to His Word and the genuine spiritual teachings found within it instead. If the Lord holds nothing against anyone then it follows that we do not need to ask Him for forgiveness to gain a release from our sins, for He has in fact released us before we even ask.

Our lower selfish desires hold us to account and seek to extract and destroy every last ounce of our spiritual inheritance. So if we are to experience the benefits of the Lord as forgiveness or freedom from these desires, then we need to understand that until we release others from the obligations we place on them, all our asking and praying for forgiveness will have very little, if any, spiritual benefit. The kind of debt spoken about here often manifests as an unhealthy sense of unworthiness that is grounded in feelings of self-pity, or it may come into our consciousness as feelings of guilt, or an obsessive compulsion to be overly critical of ourselves or of others, or perhaps an overbearing sense of perfectionism. It is these kinds of inner things that are often tied to a false or what is termed in the teachings of Spiritual Christianity as a spurious conscience.

This kind of conscience can be identified in a person’s need to control their environment or others and when this gets beyond their ability to cope then this false conscience goes into overdrive lifting their levels of anxiety and fear. We all experience or have experienced these kinds of things to some degree or another and what we need to come to see is that these kinds of things are in fact the effects of being in spiritual debt and that they arise from a lack of trust in the Lord and a tendency to attribute what is from Him to ourselves. To be forgiven is to be released from such things, and it can only come about by handing our life over to the leading of the Lord’s Word. The law of forgiveness that is found in this statement from the Lord’s Prayer says we are forgiven our debts, only as we forgive our debtors…

Notice that there is a requirement or obligation on us if we want to be free of what is represented by the spiritual idea of debt. Forgiveness is a living experience marked by a kind of lightness of being or freedom that comes from knowing and trusting implicitly in the Lord as the Word. The inference is that without a connection to the Lord as the Word, we are prone to living under a burden of a mounting spiritual debt. We become more and more bound up in obsessions and compulsions as the self-imposed standards for ourselves and others becomes more and more demanding. How might such a release be found…? Well think of it in this way, it is a spiritual truth that all things are from the Lord and that these are given freely for our use in the promotion of spiritual and heavenly purposes. But because we have a free will we are able to take what the Lord has provided for higher purposes and use it to serve lower self-centred and worldly ends. This process where we justify selfish behaviours and deny what the Word requires of us in acknowledging the Lord, is what is described in the following parable…

And He began to speak this parable to the people: A certain man planted a vineyard and let it out to vinedressers. And he left the country for long periods of time. And in season, he sent a slave to the vinedressers, that they might give him the fruit of the vineyard. But the vinedressers sent him away empty, beating him. And he again sent another slave. But they also sent that one away empty, beating and insulting him. And he again sent a third. But they also threw this one out, wounding him. And the lord of the vineyard said, What shall I do? I will send my beloved son. Perhaps, having seen this one, they will respect him. And having seen him, the vinedressers reasoned with themselves, saying, This is the heir. Come let us kill him so that the inheritance may become ours. And throwing him out of the vineyard, they killed him. (Luke 20:9-15)

We can only understand the nature of the debt that we incur spiritually when we take stock and consider our obligations in the light of a spiritual understanding. For if we want to experience a life that is spiritually fulfilling and meaningful then we must utilise our mental faculties in accordance with the purposes for which the Lord created them. All that we have is from the Lord, so in this sense, we don’t actually own anything but everything we have belongs to the Lord. We are merely custodians who are given charge of managing spiritual things on behalf of the Lord God our Creator. This also means that everything everyone else has is also the Lord’s as is everything we are able to pass on to others, as well as all that we receive from them.

But when we fail to acknowledge the Lord in this we are then prone to thinking that what we have is ours to do with as we like. Not only that but without looking to the Lord as the source of all that we possess, we come to see ourselves as little god’s who are able to dispense and withhold whatever we like as far as others are concerned. This places us under the law of the debtor, a law that separates us from the Lord and the freedom to be found in having our life in its proper and right relationship to spiritual things. When the Lord remains unacknowledged then life becomes a series of tit-for-tat petty transactions in which person A does one thing with the expectation that person B will repay them in kind.

Now it is true that the golden rule is to do to others as you would have them do to you – but it doesn’t say, do to others so that they will return in kind. Without acknowledging the Lord as the source of all we have, we actually live with an attitude that says that we are owed something by life and other people. This leads to a large amount of our mental energy being sapped through negative feelings towards those we feel owe us. This is particularly true of those we feel haven’t repaid us in accordance with our expectations and so in this sense, we end up functioning like a kind of spiritual debt collector. Internalised self-talk takes its forms in feeling we deserve to be treated better and while we might not voice our feelings to those we feel owe us, we run all sorts of scenario’s in our mind that do nothing but give place in our life to hellish influences. These ultimately manifest in subtle ways in our interactions with those we are holding to account and impact on the quality of our relationships.

The other side to this, and it stems from the same root of not acknowledging the Lord as the true owner of all that we have, is that we become subject to the expectations, or rather our perceived expectations, that others hold as far as we are concerned. This is the debt we incur when we seek to live our lives without acknowledging the Lord.

Without an understanding of the principles involved in being in spiritual debt, we are very likely to become increasingly bound by obligations that we feel have been put upon us and that we hence seek to fulfil under duress, which of course produces various degrees of resentment. This creates significant amounts of stress in our lives as we come under what are often self-imposed pressures to fulfil our obligations in order to fulfil the perceived expectations of others. This is where it is so important for each of us to have a clear sense of our values because until we do, we will struggle to place the obligations that life seems to place upon us into their proper order and perspective.

Without a clear sense of our values coupled with a supporting knowledge of spiritual principles, we end up living mentally in a world that is made up of countless numbers of petty laws and regulations which continuously nag and eat away at the fabric of our very being. We end up doing more and more because we feel we have to, not because we want to. As to our inner world, our lives consist of a whole series of little transactions in which we are seeking to balance our inner ledger by meeting demands, fulfilling obligations, anticipating our sense of what other’s expect from us and what we feel others owe us. It’s like we are in a constant state of tension that can only be released as we fulfil our perceived obligations to others and in turn receive back what we feel we are owed. But it’s a never-ending cycle that so easily takes hold of our thoughts and feelings allowing little space to find a new healthier perspective on things.

Until we are able to see what kind of burden living like this really is, we will have no desire to do what is required of us to be rid of all these petty unimportant debts so that we can attend to the real obligation that life places on each and every one of us. We have a wrong idea of life when we believe it owes us something. We certainly have the wrong idea of our relationships to others if they are based on what we feel they owe us. This kind of attitude is grounded in self-interest and belongs to what is lower in us. It encourages an energy that is destructive of the spiritual bonds that healthy relationships need to grow and develop.

To get a real sense of what this living in debt is like we need to take time to reflect on the kinds of accounts we hold over others. How much time in our day is caught up in thoughts and feelings about what others should or shouldn’t be doing? How much energy do we put into feeling resentful about the demands life places on us? I don’t doubt that if we made an effort for just one day to identify such states of life active in us that we would be very surprised to see just how much of our energy is wasted dwelling on such things. What we need to realise is that when our energy is in this sort of stuff it is drawing from what is of the hells and when these dominate our faculties, we shut ourselves out from being able to receive heavenly influences.

The idea of debt, spiritually speaking, has to do with the idea of being bound in a sense of obligation, whether it’s to someone, something or some power. When we begin to make sincere efforts to examine the inner world of our thoughts and feelings from our understanding of the principles of Spiritual Christianity we will come to see that a large amount of our energy is actually spent on things that have little, if any, lasting spiritual value. But it is in the seeing of this that opportunities for transformation are created. If we could truly see that all things are from the Lord and acknowledge Him as the source of all then we will see that life and others don’t owe us at all. We can begin to let go of the expectations we hold others to. This is what it is to forgive our debtors and as we allow others to find freedom from our debt so we will find this grace of forgiveness for ourselves too as we open our hearts to that extraordinary lightness of being that is heaven’s influence within our minds.

The Lord forgives sins to everyone but they are not on that account remitted unless a person performs serious repentance, and desists from evils, and then lives a life of faith and charity to the end of their life. When a person does this they receive spiritual life from the Lord and when, from this life, they regard the evils of their former life, and feels aversion and horror for them, then, evils are remitted; for the person is then kept in truths and goods by the Lord, and is withheld from evils. (Arcana Coelestia 9014)

And they pulled up stakes from Elim. And all the congregation of the sons of Israel came into the Wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their going out from the land of Egypt. And all the congregation of the sons of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron in the wilderness. And the sons of Israel said to them, Would that we had died by the hand of Jehovah in the land of Egypt, in our sitting by the fleshpots, in our eating bread to satisfaction. For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill all this assembly with hunger. And Jehovah said to Moses, Behold, I AM! Bread will rain from the heavens for you. And the people shall go out and gather the matter of a day in its day, so that I may test them, whether they will walk in My Law or not. (Exodus 16:1-4)

So, then, you should pray this way: Our Father who is in Heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come; Your will be done, as it is in Heaven, also on the earth. Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil, for Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory to the ages. Amen. (Matthew 6:9-13)

To be admonished, as we are in this prayer, to request something from the Lord is for our benefit. The Lord actually never withholds anything from anyone and this is captured in a wonderful statement drawn from the teachings of Spiritual Christianity where we are told that love is desiring that all one has to be another’s and further in another statement where we are told that love is feeling the joy of another as one’s own. The Lord is love itself and so His own desire is to give all that He is to us for our happiness and His joy is to feel our joy as His own. The Lord is constantly giving all that is needed to support the spiritual life and wellbeing of all people. Where there is a lack, be it material or spiritual, has nothing to do with any unwillingness on the Lord’s part to provide but rather is the result of the operation of evil, which is the human tendency towards self interest. The Lord cannot withhold His blessings from us but we can refuse to receive them into our life through being unwilling to work on our inner motivations, preferring to live from our ego or proprium as the dominant ruling principle of our life.

Give us today our daily bread

This statement captures an acknowledgement that is so central to a healthy outlook as far as the way in which we experience our life is concerned. It is an acknowledgement of the Lord as the provider and source of all that is good. Bread, in the Word, spiritually understood, means the goodness that flows from the Lord and so is that Divine spiritual nourishment which is provided to build, nurture and sustain our inner life. To acknowledge the Lord as the source of this kind of bread or goodness is to acknowledge the Word as Divine, for the Word is the source of every form of goodness that is able to build up our spiritual life. So this statement, Give us this day our daily bread…”reminds us that we are to look to the Word as the Lord, who is our Father as the source of all things.

The Greek root, from which comes the word translated here as bread, means to lift up or raise, which suggests the spiritual nature of the kind of bread being spoken about. This just isn’t any bread, it’s bread of a higher order, super-substantial bread, or the bread of heaven, which is given so that our thoughts and affections might be lifted from their focus on earthly things to behold heavenly things. This bread is the bread that serves as the means by which the previous statement of the prayer can be realised – it is the bread through which the will of the Lord can come to be done as in heaven so upon the earth.

The Lord in speaking of Himself in the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel makes it clear that He is the bread which comes down from heaven and gives life; that He is the bread of life and as that bread, He declares that He comes to do the will of the Father…we pick up His teaching in verse 38…

For I have come down out of Heaven, not that I should do My will, but the will of Him who sent Me. And this is the will of the Father sending Me, that of all that He has given Me, I shall not lose any of it, but shall raise it up in the last day. And this is the will of the One sending Me, that everyone seeing the Son and believing into Him should have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day… (John 6:38-40)

This is the Bread coming down out of Heaven, that anyone may eat of it and not die. I am the Living Bread that came down from Heaven. If anyone eats of this Bread, he will live forever. And indeed the bread which I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world…(John 6:50-51)

For My flesh is truly food, and My blood is truly drink. The one partaking of My flesh and drinking of My blood abides in Me, and I in him. Even as the living Father sent Me, and I live through the Father; also the one partaking Me, even that one will live through Me. This is the Bread which came down out of Heaven, not as your fathers ate the manna and died; the one partaking of this Bread will live forever. (John 6:55-58)

These words of John’s Gospel need to be understood within the context of his opening statement in chapter one, that the Lord is the Word who comes down out of heaven. John’s overall purpose is to show us how it is that the Lord is the Word, so that in coming to statements like this, and there are many of them in John, we don’t get lost in some kind of mystical fog. When the Lord talks about Himself being bread and so our eating His flesh He is speaking spiritually, in fact this is exactly the point He makes to His disciples in the context of this very chapter, in verse 63 He says…

It is the Spirit that gives life. The flesh profits nothing! The Words I speak to you are spirit and life.

Peter, one of the disciples, gets it, for a little later in verses 68 and 69 he says in response to the Lord…

…Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the Words of everlasting life.

The Lord is talking about Himself as the Word. The flesh or body of the Lord is that which contains Him and to which we have access. We know that the Lord fulfilled all things of the Word and so became the Word. If we think of the Lord as that goodness or bread that comes down from heaven then its container is the Word or the Divine Truth for goodness is contained within truths in the sense that truths teach what is good. Divine Goodness is contained in Divine Truths for Divine Truths teach what Divine Goodness is. Divine Truths are presented to us in the form of the Word, for this is where the Lord is to be found for those who follow the teachings of Spiritual Christianity. To eat his flesh then, is to take into ourselves the truths of the Word and to seek to have them govern our lives. When these truths are lived from, they become goodness for then the Lord is in them. This is what is meant by the Lord’s Divine Human. If we will do this then we will be living out this statement of the prayer; our lives will be a living acknowledgement of the words,

Give us this day our daily bread…

The Lord has provided all things for our life in His Word. He has given us an understanding with which we can come to the Word and learn from Him there, He has given us a will to do what it instructs us to do and He has ensured our freedom to approach Him in the Word or not. What we need to understand is that the natural man will resist us making any effort to connect with the Lord in His Word. There will be little motivation for us to do this, in fact we may be like the children of Israel and find that the manna doesn’t have the same attraction as the ideas and concepts that the world has to offer as represented by the flesh pots of Egypt. This is because the food of Egypt is presented in a way which appeals to the loves of self and the world. It’s designed to awaken the delights of these lower loves, to make us feel good about ourselves from all the wrong motivations. This food promotes a sense of ‘good’ and offers delightful feelings that are connected with a spirit of self interest like of having feelings of superiority, dominance, arrogance or justifying vengeful responses when our egos are bruised or we feel hurt. To be caught up in the delight of feeling good from this basis is of course being immersed in pleasures that are the very opposite of any genuine forms of goodness.

True bread from heaven, which is from the Word alone, looks to lift us out of these false delights so that we can find our sense of delight in loving the Lord and our neighbour. This is what we are asking for when we pray, Give us this day our daily bread… It’s a prayer lived when we are in the effort of actively seeking the means to do this through being engaged with the truths of the Lord’s Word. This is our life task, to seek the Lord where He may be found so that the perpetual bread that is his life might be revealed to us in each and every moment of our lives.

There is a wonderful teaching found in the doctrines for Spiritual Christianity in regards to the angelic state of life that is connected to this statement of the Lord’s Prayer.

I spoke with angels, and at the time I saw in a spiritual mental image that the more inwardly perfect angels are, the less memory they have of things past, and that therein consists their happiness. For at every moment, the Lord gives them what is pleasant to them, and causes them both to think and to feel-so it is the Lord’s doing, not theirs. This is the meaning of the passage, “Give us this day our daily bread” [Matt. 6:11, Luke 11:3], and that they should take no thought for the future, what they should eat and drink [Matt. 6: 25, 31], and that they gathered the manna daily [Exod. 16:14-21].

And since angels have no memory of things past, neither do they have any foresight of the future, which is a result of that same memory. Yet they seem to themselves to have a memory and to know all kinds of things beyond number, because this is granted to them by the Lord from moment to moment. Therefore they may indeed suppose that it is their memory, when yet it is not. In short, their happiness consists in this, and in being in the Lord. (Spiritual Experiences 2188)

We seen then how a true acknowledgement of the Lord as the source of all things, as the bread which sustains us, is able to bring peace and delight into our lives.

That ‘daily’ and ‘today’ mean that which is perpetual is clear also from the sacrifice that was offered each day. This sacrifice, because of what is meant by day, daily, and today, was called the continual, or perpetual, sacrifice, Num. 28: 3, 23; Dan. 8: 13; 11: 31; 12: 11. This may be even more plainly evident from the manna which rained from heaven, spoken of in Moses as follows,

Behold, I am causing bread to rain from heaven, and the people shall go out and gather a portion day by day. And they shall not leave any of it until the morning. That which they did leave until the morning bred worms and went rotten, except that gathered on the day before the Sabbath. Exod. 16: 4, 19, 20, 23.

This happened because ‘the manna’ meant the Lord’s Divine Human, John 6: 31, 32, 49, 50, 58, and because the Lord’s Divine Human meant heavenly food, which is nothing other than love and charity, together with the goods and truths of faith. In heaven the Lord imparts this food to angels moment by moment, thus perpetually and eternally, see 2193. This is also what is meant in the Lord’s Prayer by the petition, Give us today our daily bread, Matt. 6: 11; Luke 11: 3, that is, in every moment for evermore. (Arcana Coelestia 2838{4})

And when you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the open streets so that they may be seen of men. Truly I say to you, They have their reward. But you, when you pray, enter into your room and shutting your door, pray to your Father in secret. And your Father seeing in secret will repay you in the open. But when you pray, do not be babbling vain words, as the nations; for they think that they shall be heard in their much speaking. Then do not be like them, for your Father knows what things you have need of before you ask Him. So, then, you should pray this way: Our Father who is in Heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come; Your will be done, as it is in Heaven, also on the earth. Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil, for Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory to the ages. Amen. (Matthew 6:5-13)

We come now to the second statement of instruction for spiritual life found in the Lord’s Prayer. The first statement, as we’ve seen, instructs as to where we are to focus our energies and faculties – on the Father, who is the Divine Goodness.

Our Father who is in Heaven, Hallowed be Your name.

And we are to do this within the context of our connection and support of others who share also this journey, for the opening statement is not My Father but Our Father. This emphasises the need for others in the our spiritual life; that it is essentially a life of engagement with others with the Word as the Lord as the common centre.

We are told, in that first statement, that the goodness we are to focus our attention on is found in the heavens…Our Father… the Scripture reads, …who is in the heavens… And we have seen that these heavens are not far off, somewhere ‘out there’, but that the term heaven refers to an understanding of spiritual things which are built upon our understanding of the Word. For the Word is the Divine Truth and so, as truths from the Word enter into the human mind, that mind begins to become structured according to a heavenly pattern. This involves the instilling of true beliefs and good affections which begin to flow in as we take truths and look to live from them. As this happens so the human mind becomes a dwelling place for the Lord who is goodness itself. Truths are needed for this to happen because He can only dwell in us in that which is from Himself, which is why He has made Himself known through the truths found in the Word and in the teachings for Spiritual Christianity that flow forth from it.

So we are instructed in the first statement of the Lord’s Prayer that we are to dedicate our lives to seeking the goodness of love, which is what is meant here, spiritually, by the term Father, for love is the source of all things. The opening statement says we will find this love in the heavens or the Word, for heaven is where the Lord is and we are taught that the Lord is the Word. To look to Our Father in the Heavens… as a prayer for our life is to be actively seeking to live from our understanding of truth as an acknowledgement that this is the Lord with us. And because He is the source of every good and loving thing then to the degree that we have worked these truths into our life so that they fill our minds, so to that degree we have heaven within us. We see then that the Lord alone is our Father, and that because of this we can see that our Father who is in the heavens is the Word as John declares in His Gospel when He says,

All came into to being through the Word and without the Word not one came into being that has come into being…

The second statement of instruction from the Lord’s Prayer follows on in logical sequence. For it beautifully captures the desire that arises within those who have orientated their lives around the Word, in order to learn what it is within them that they must separate from so that they might become greater vessels of His love for others. If we recognise the authority of the Word as the Lord with us in His Divine Human then we open the way for it to take a more active role in our life. To uncover our tendencies towards selfishness so that we can see them, acknowledge them, and purpose within our hearts to change our responses through resisting our evils and so have the loves of heaven flow more freely into our lives.

Your kingdom come; Your will be done, as it is in Heaven, also on the earth.

The desire is captured in these words of the Lord’s Prayer, for the Lord’s kingdom to come is nothing less than a desire for the laws of love to rule in our life. If we are looking to have our lives organised around what we understand is genuinely good from a spiritual perspective, which is Our Father in heaven, then the practical means by which this takes place is intimately linked to our willingness to act from our understanding of truth. The desire that fills the spiritual man is for the rule and order brought about by spiritual principles to govern all things within us, from the highest or most internal part of us to the lowest or most external part.

Heaven and earth when referred to in Scripture are not locations in time and space outside of us; they are to be understood as levels of the mind. Heaven here refers to the deeper aspects of the human mind that exists within a person who is committed to spiritual growth through using the truths of the Word as their foundation for spiritual life. That this is what heaven refers to is clearly the case for it is within the spiritual man that the will of the Lord is done, Your kingdom come; Your will be done… The will of the Lord is done in a mind that has undergone a re-formation in accordance with truths from the Word and into which what is of heaven can flow and so then bring its influence into a person’s lower level of consciousness which is called earth.

The term earth here refers to our psychological earth or the lower natural part of the mind, not the earth around us. Prior to our receiving truths from the Word, this inner earth part of us is a disorganised mass. In the Genesis account of creation, which is a story about the creation of the spiritual man within us all, such an earth is described as being formless and void. Spiritual Christianity teaches that the internal man is regenerated first and that the external man is then regenerated from the internal man. This is an important teaching to get hold of because it explains why, even though our desire may be to be more loving, understanding and useful from a spiritual perspective, we often find that despite our efforts the very things we don’t want to don- we end up doing, and the things we want to do – we seem powerless to achieve. The Apostle Paul speaks of this in his own experience in his letter to the Roman Christians where he says…

For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then the law, that when I desire to do what is right, that evil is present with me, that is, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members or external man. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God – through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then with the mind I serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 7:19 – 8:2)

This is an incredibly poignant description of the experience of all those who are in engaged in the spiritual life. From it we can see that Paul recognises that there are two levels of being in himself – one that looks to the Lord and another that looks to the flesh or hell. He has learnt that in this battle it is vital that he identify his sense of self with the higher part of his mind, his inward man, so that he can separate himself from what is going on in the natural or earth level of his being which he calls the flesh. Paul is able to recognise that he is safe in his inner man and that the external or natural man has a life of its own and is constantly fighting against the good that he truly wants or wills. His ability to separate from what is lower in himself comes from seeing he is not what he doesn’t will. This self distancing is such an important tool or supporting element in the spiritual life for it enables us to avoid being dragged down by those things we see that stand opposed to the law of the Spirit and life. It is an ability that is given by the Lord to each and every person. Who will deliver him? Paul asks, thanks be to God for Jesus Christ! From the perspective of Spiritual Christianity, which recognises and acknowledges that the Lord is the Word, we can understand this to mean that truths from the Word enable us to draw a distinction from what is lower in us from what is higher. Hence, as a result of these truths we find that we are empowered to choose to identify with what is good and true and reject what is evil and false.

As long as we are looking to walk according to the Spirit, by making spiritual principles the rule of our life, or if you like, are in that mode of life that is looking to have the kingdom come through the practise of self examination and repentance, then our life becomes a living prayer that is constantly asking or looking to have the will of the Lord as it is done in our inner heaven to govern our inner earth as well. This means that regardless of how resistant our earth or natural man may appear to be, despite how much it presses to make its negativity felt, despite all its self centred protests – we can have confidence that there is no condemnation for those who are making sincere efforts to walk in the truths that the Lord has given them. For the Spirit of life that is the goodness which is found in those truths, has freed us from the law of sin and death that seeks to drag us down and draw us away from our true place in heaven.

If we believed the way things really are, that everything good comes from God and everything evil from hell, then we would not take credit for the good within us or blame for the evil. Whenever we thought or did anything good, we would focus on the Lord, and any evil that flowed in we would throw back into the hell it came from. But since we do not believe in any inflow from heaven or from hell and therefore believe everything we think and intend is in us and from us, we make evil our own and defile the good with our feeling we deserve it. (Heaven and Hell 302)

As we look to have the kingdom come more fully into our experience of life, let us make a conscious work task to look to the Lord whenever we think and do anything good to give Him the credit. And when evil arises, to not be tempted to condemn ourselves but to reject it recognising that it is of the hells and from the hells and while it may appear to have the better of our natural man, we, that is our true self which is the spiritual being, is firmly held and protected by the Lord.

By ‘kingdom’ here is meant the reception of the Divine Good and the Divine Truth which proceed from the Lord, and in which the Lord is with the angels of heaven and with the men of the Church. (Apocalypse Explained 683)

His Divine Human is the Father’s name, and the Father’s kingdom is come when the Lord is approached immediately, and by no means when God the Father is approached immediately. (Apocalypse Revealed 839)

The will of God is done when the Divine Good and the Divine Truth are received in heart and soul, that is, in love and faith. (Apocalypse Explained 683)

By name is not meant name, but all things of love and faith, for these are the Lord’s and are from Him; and as these are holy, the Lord’s kingdom comes and His will is done on earth as in the heavens, when they are held to be so. (Arcana Coelestia 2009)

And when you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the open streets so that they may be seen of men. Truly I say to you, They have their reward. But you, when you pray, enter into your room and shutting your door, pray to your Father in secret. And your Father seeing in secret will repay you in the open. But when you pray, do not be babbling vain words, as the nations; for they think that they shall be heard in their much speaking. Then do not be like them, for your Father knows what things you have need of before you ask Him. So, then, you should pray this way: Our Father who is in Heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come; Your will be done, as it is in Heaven, also on the earth. Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil, for Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory to the ages. Amen. (Matthew 6:5-13)

Today we are going to consider the first verse of the Lord’s Prayer which is, Our Father, who is in Heaven, Hallowed be Your name… Last time we looked at the idea that heaven is within us and describes a state of mind. So we can think of it firstly, as a state of mind and secondly, as a place that then appears in the perception of our senses because of our state of mind. Thinking in this way brings our focus onto the quality of our thoughts and feelings as the area where spiritual work has to be done and of the need to be in the practice of the spiritual disciplines of self examination and repentance, with the Word as the foundation for our life. For heaven arises as the result of the Lord being able to be received into the human mind and the more we work with Him to have the principles of His Word woven into the fabric of our being, so the greater our capacity to receive His love and wisdom into our life. It is His presence in us in this way that constitutes heaven.

Natural thought however, tends to think of heaven the other way around – that is, as a place first and a state of mind second. In other words, it mistakenly thinks that if it can be let into this imaginary place called heaven and that just by being there, this will bring states of happiness, joy, peace and love. But we have seen that this is is not the way that heaven can be experienced because without an internal reorganisation of our minds into a heavenly form, we remain closed to receiving the Lord into the depths of our being. So without His presence in us, it is impossible for us to know or experience heaven as an external world in which we live and move and have our being. The criteria therefore, for gaining entrance into the experience of heaven as a place or reality external to ourselves, has nothing to do with going to a location after we die. It has instead to do with how our minds are structured internally. For all those, without exception, who experience heaven as a place that is without or outside of them in their external surroundings, have had heaven built up within them through their love for the Word and the useful application of its truths to life in the service of the Lord and others.

Another important concept which we have looked at previously, is the idea of heaven and earth referring to the internal and external levels of the mind, also called the spiritual and natural man respectively. These two ideas are keys to understanding what is contained here in the Lord’s Prayer for as we have already said, this prayer is a summary of the spiritual life and of the processes involved in the transformation that the Word as the Lord offers us. Reciting this prayer with the lips unthinkingly will have very little impact on our lives; but learning this prayer as instruction for how to live life will certainly bring us into an experience of the Lord’s power to transform our minds into the heavenly pattern.

So how does this transformation occur? Conceptually we think of the mind as a container for ideas and affections, but on a more fundamental level our mind is inseparable from the ideas and affections that make it up. We can see this in that without concepts or ideas we have no basis for our thoughts and without thoughts, we don’t have the consciousness that could be said to constitute a human mind. A human mind which feels nothing or thinks nothing isn’t actually a mind at all; it’s something that, for all intensive purposes doesn’t actually exist from a human perspective. So while it can be useful to think of the human mind as a container for ideas and affections, we need to understand that the mind is the actual ideas and affections that make it up. Why is this important? It’s important because once we realise this, then we can begin to see that what are referred to as the spiritual and natural man, or the internal and external mind, are actually made up of all the ideas we hold and believe to be true. It also means that our minds can be transformed by new ideas and affections.

The ideas that make up the natural man are all the ideas that are connected to the senses of the body and have to do with living a natural life in the natural world. The ideas that make up the spiritual man are all the ideas that have to do with living a spiritual life and, for us, these are found in the Word. They are allocated on a higher or more internal plane within the mind than natural ideas. So the natural ideas sit below and form the ground or land or earth of our inner psychological life, whilst those ideas that are more spiritual form a psychological sky or firmament or heaven. In fact, the outer creation around us is a theatre that represents this inner world of man. The earth which we walk and live on corresponds to the natural man and the heavens which we see above us, correspond to the heavens within us. The teachings of Spiritual Christianity provide us with the tools to appreciate this more and more if we are willing to give time and effort to using them in our lives.

So from the perspective of Spiritual Christianity, the internal mind or spiritual man is made up of spiritual ideas drawn from the Word. The process works like this. As we read or hear the Word and the principles and concepts of Spiritual Christianity, this information becomes part of our natural mind and is stored in the memory as factual knowledge. At this point it forms part of that psychological inner ground or earth that makes up our natural ideas. But these elements of the earth have their origin from the realm of the spirit because the Word is from the Lord. In a sense, these ideas from the Word are like precious minerals in the earth through which what is spiritual can have an influence in the dark earthiness of the lower natural mind. As we begin to work from our elementary understanding of what the Word teaches us in regard to our life, new finer ideas begin to unfold. These come as principles for our life which have been extracted from the letter of the Word and they begin to form something higher within us. We start to think and self-examine from these spiritual principles.

And so they form an inner heavenly mind through which the Lord can influence our life. For as we live from the truths which we understand, this inner heavenly mind grows and develops more and more into the image of the Lord. From this inner heaven we are given the ability to look down into our earth to see what is there which stands opposed to the loves of heaven ruling more fully within us and so we can begin to work consciously with the Lord to have the influence of these things reduced in our life. So it is that the Lord’s Prayer opens with;

Our Father who is in the heavens…

This opening statement makes it very clear as to who we are to pray to, and where He is to be found. Firstly, we are to address the prayer to, Our Father, for in addressing the prayer to Our Father we are instructed as to what our life is to be focussed upon. Remember, by prayer spiritually understood we mean how we live in response to the Word, not what we say with our lips. In this sense, our life, our psychological faculties and energies, are to be focussed on Our Father… This very simple phrase, a mere two words, offers us the vertical and horizontal dimensions of spiritual life.  

Literally, this phrase from the Greek should be translated, Father of us… which gives us the proper order for these words. The first term Father draws our attention to the primary vertical dimension of spiritual life which is love to the Lord, and the second word of us or Our draws in the collective, communal or horizontal dimension of spiritual life which is found in loving our neighbour. In this way we see that in these two opening words, is contained the very foundational truths upon which the whole of Word and the spiritual life is built.

But we see that it is not Our Father just anywhere, that it is Our Father who is in the heavens…“There are a couple of things I want to draw out of this. First, is what the term Father actually refers to spiritually and why it is that Our Father in the heavens… is to be the object of our focus. The term Father spiritually refers to the originator, from which what is has come into being. It is a term that refers to the source from which all that is comes and to which all that is returns. For the origin and source of all things of substance is love or goodness, so the opening phrase instructs us that the focus of the spiritual life is Our Father…, or love or goodness.

We now come to this term, Heaven. For it is not just, Our Father but Our Father who is in the heavens…This word heaven directs us to where the Father is to be found. Heaven we have seen, is found within. It is the inner or spiritual man which, as we have also seen, is made up of those principles, concepts and ideas drawn from the Word and that sit in the higher part of the human mind. Our spiritual ideas or beliefs make up our heaven, or internal mind and to the degree that these are founded on the Word through our obedience to it, so to that degree is the Lord present within these ideas, concepts and beliefs. The Lord is present then in our minds in the truths of the Word because it is truths which teaches us what goodness or love is, through showing us how we are to live. The statement then, Our Father who is in the Heavens… teaches us that we are to look to the Word to find what is genuinely loving and good.

We can see from this that it is one thing to pray with the lips, Our Father who is in Heaven… and something completely different to be in the spiritual discipline of going to the Word to seek out what is good and just and right, where the truths that form heaven in the human mind are found in which the Father or love can dwell. Anyone can see that it is the latter act, the activity of living from the Word, that is the real meaning of prayer. Prayer is a matter of the life or of the heart and the desire to seek the Lord in His Word is the true meaning of this opening statement of the Lord’s Prayer.

When we have an appreciation of the spiritual meaning of this opening statement it can add to our sense of the Lord being the Word. An idea that is further reinforced in the second part of the verse, hallowed be Your name or more literally let Your name be being made holy… This is a profound statement providing us insight into the desire that initiates all spiritual progress within the human spirit. The very fact that these words are expressed through the Lord’s own mouth teaches us that this is the essence of the desire which flows from the very heart of God – that His name should be being made holy. In Scripture names describe the qualities of things or the character of people. When the Lord’s name is referred to it denotes all that He is, and from the perspective of Spiritual Christianity all that the Lord is, is found in His Word. Thus the Word in this sense is in essence the name of God. The Word contains all that can be known of the Lord God, it is infinite in its depths having many levels and what is available to us is merely the very surface features.

Now the Lord’s love, His core motivation, is His desire for the salvation of the human race. This is His sole concern – to see that every member of the human race is saved from the destructive influences of being self absorbed which if not addressed, sees the mind crystallise into a form of hell, as a state of mind where the love of self and the world reign and love to the Lord and of the neighbour are completely rejected as a mode of life. The process through which the Lord achieves this in us is described by this idea of the Lord’s name being made holy or purified. The Lord’s name becomes holy in those who are in an effort to live from the Word. This statement speaks of how we regard the Word, again not in terms of our lips but in terms of our actions and responses to the challenges that it makes in our lives. So the name of the Lord becomes hallowed in us through our living from the Word. We can not only speak this first part of the Lord’s Prayer but we can do so with understanding. Thus the understanding which Spiritual Christianity provides us with is such that we can actually begin to live it so that our lives become a living prayer.

So as a work task consider taking the time to meditate daily on this first statement from the Lord’s Prayer. Purpose within your heart to have your life focussed on seeking what is good by making an effort to live from you understanding of the Word, which is where Your Father in Heaven is to be found. In doing this you enter into a spiritual process that will see His name begin to become holy…

“Our Father in the Heavens” signifies the Divine in Heaven, thus the good from which heaven is. Regarded in itself the Divine is above the heavens, but the Divine which is in the heavens is the good which is in the truth that proceeds from the Divine.

“Our Father in the Heavens” means the Lord as to the Divine Human, and also in one complex all things whereby He is worshipped.

In heaven, by “God the Father” is meant none other than the Lord, …. (Arcana Coelestia 8328; 6887; Apocalypse Revealed 613)

By the name of God is signified His quality, which, in the first sense, is the Word, Doctrine from the Word, and the worship of mouth and life from the Doctrine. In the second sense, it is the Lord’s kingdom on earth and the Lord’s kingdom in the heavens, and in the third sense, it is the Divine Human of the Lord, for this is the Divine itself. “Hollowed be thy name” signifies that the Divine Human of the Lord is to be held holy and is to be worshipped. (Apocalypse Explained 1025{4}; 102)

And when you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the open streets so that they may be seen of men. Truly I say to you, They have their reward. But you, when you pray, enter into your room and shutting your door, pray to your Father in secret. And your Father seeing in secret will repay you in the open. But when you pray, do not be babbling vain words, as the nations; for they think that they shall be heard in their much speaking. Then do not be like them, for your Father knows what things you have need of before you ask Him. So, then, you should pray this way: Our Father who is in Heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come; Your will be done, as it is in Heaven, also on the earth. Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil, for Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory to the ages. Amen. (Matthew 6:5-13)

Last time it was pointed out that when we talk about heaven, we are to understand that the term refers to the internal or spiritual man, and that the term earth refers to the external or natural man. Heaven and earth refer to levels within our mind, to a more inner level of thought that is concerned with spiritual matters and to a more external level of thought that is concerned with worldly matters. When we are caught up in the anxieties and cares belonging to the world, our state of mind is earthly and when we are engaged with thoughts about spiritual things, our state of mind is tending toward what is more heavenly.

This idea of heaven being a state of mind, and not a place, seems to the natural man to be something vague and unreal. This is because the natural level of our thought is so caught up in ideas of space and time that we have real difficulty in seeing – how real – states of mind are, in influencing how we take all that life presents to us. But if we give things a little thought we can actually get some idea of heaven as a state of life. In day to day life, if we ask someone how their night out went and they respond by saying that they were in heaven, we don’t take what they are saying literally. We know that they are referring to how they experienced something at the level of their feelings, which is an experience of an internal state.

The work, Conjugial Love, opens with an experience that Swedenborg had of a number of different groups of people entering into eternal life. These were people who had fixed ideas that heaven was a place where they would be able to continuously take part in those same kinds of activities that had brought them joy and pleasure in the world. So they had a very sensual idea of what heavenly joy and pleasure consisted of. Each group was allowed into what they imagined heaven would be when they were in the world. So for example, the first group imagined that heaven for them would have to be stimulating conversation with those who held similar interests. Another group felt that it was feasting with Abraham and other significant dignitaries for eternity, and another that it was a place of singing songs of praise without ceasing. The first group were taken to a large house with many rooms each with people in them having stimulating conversations…and their experience of this was described by Swedenborg as follows…Swedenborg is speaking…

I was able to investigate this house, and I saw them wandering from room to room looking for others who shared their interests and therefore their joys. And among the clusters of people I noticed three types – some catching their breath to speak, some eager to find out something, and some listening insatiably.

The house had doors, one for each direction. I notice that many detached themselves from the company, in a hurry to go. I followed some of them to the east door and saw several sitting by it with sad faces. I approached and asked why they were sitting so depressed.

“The doors of this house are kept shut against escapees,” they answered. “It is now the third day since we came, and we have tried living out our expectations of company and conversation, and we are so tired of the ceaseless yammering that we can hardly stand to hear the drone of its sound. So we came to this door in disgust and knocked, but the response was, ‘The doors of this house are not exits but entrances. Stay and reap the joys of heaven.’ From this response we gather that we have to stay here forever, so gloom has invaded our minds, and now our chests are starting to tighten up, and we are getting desperate.”

Then the angel spoke to them. “Your condition is that your joys are dying,” he said. “You thought they were the only heavenly joys, when really they only accompany heavenly joys [or the means through with inner joy can be expressed outwardly].”

“So what is heavenly joy?” They asked the angel.

The angel answered in these few words. “It is the pleasure of doing something that is useful to yourself and to others. And the pleasure of usefulness gets its essence from love, and its outward expression from wisdom. The pleasure of usefulness that grows out of love through wisdom is the soul and life of all heavenly joys. In the heavens there are very happy parties that cheer the minds of angels, raise their spirits, delight their hearts, and refresh their bodies, but they have them after they have done useful things in their occupations or whatever they do. This is how all their outward joys and pleasures gain soul and life. But if that soul and life are missing, then the accompanying external joys become not joyful but incidental at first, then trivial, and finally dreary and troublesome.”

Once he had said these words the door opened. The people sitting there escaped from the house and ran home, each to his occupation and work, and they recovered. (Conjugial Love 5)

The process is described in this way in Conjugial Love 4;

“Every person…who wants heaven and has some particular idea of the joys there, is brought, after death, into the joys he imagined, and after finding out what those joys are like – that they are based on their groundless mental notions and confused fantasies – they are brought out again and instructed”

There is an important principle in all this that we need to get hold of if we are to understand what heaven actually is. I think we can all agree that if we are in heaven then our experience will be one that consists of states of genuine love, joy, peace, pleasure and fulfilment. The question this experience of Swedenborg’s addresses is where the states of heavenly experience come from or are produced in a person’s experience. In the natural world we tend to see external things as the cause of our internal states but it is clear from this story that in the spiritual world, the principle is that it is our inner attitude that gives the quality to what we experience externally. The heavenly joy that angels experience when they come together to converse is not produced by their conversation, the joy of the experience of conversing with others comes from a deeper source within them and arises from an attitude towards being useful towards oneself and others. Without this deeper attitude existing in a person all external activities that seemed to have brought happiness and joy in the world actually loose their ability to affect a person in this way in the spiritual world.

But when this inner attitude, which looks to being useful for its own sake, rules in our life then we are in the flow of heaven’s life. Why? Because this is what heaven is in its essence, this atmosphere of use is the love that fills angels and gives rise to their heavenly experience. It’s this spirit that forms the soul and life of all that is done in heaven. But if the inner attitude is focused on seeking pleasures for pleasures sake then the joy felt in external activities is a selfish kind of joy, not a heavenly joy. Angels feel joy in being able to help others through useful activities. It is this attitude that forms the soul or life of the external activities through which this inner joy finds its expression. Without this inner attitude, external pleasures eventually loose their attraction. Then a person aimlessly seeks more and more pleasure as an escape from the real issues of life. We can see how this lack of love for usefulness can lead to destructive addictive behaviours in which people seek the pleasure of a short term fix to escape the more pressing spiritual issues that need addressing in their lives, and why occupational therapies have a healing effect on peoples lives.

Heaven is an inner state of life, or if you like, it arises when our minds are organised in such a way that we are able to receive into them the Lord’s love and wisdom. Our ability to receive love and wisdom from the Lord is directly linked to the degree that we remove from our thoughts and affections those things that flow out of our ego or proprium which have ourselves as their central concern. Attitudes of self centredness and self interest can’t receive the life of heaven into themselves, because they are actively opposed to it. This is why the Lord instructs us that the kingdom of heaven is within. He is pointing out that the attitudes that make up our inner life, here and now, determine what our experience will be when we put the body off. So the statement in the Lord’s Prayer, thy kingdom come, they will be done, as in heaven so upon the earth… is not talking about something out in the future, its pointing to what must take place now and in every moment of our life.

If our life is tied up in self interest and self centredness and we don’t make any effort to allow the Lord into our life through responding to truths to counter these tendencies, the effect is that we strengthen our proprium’s resistance to the power of truth to influence our life. The result is that our mind becomes organised around beliefs and affections that don’t allow heaven to flow into it. It remains in a state that is open to selfish hellish influences and so is closed to heavenly ones. When a mind is organised in this way then any contact with what is heavenly is actually something unpleasant, while the things that are hellish and tied to self-centredness become more and more delightful. So if our life finds its delight in the things of self love, then we gravitate towards those who are in similar states of life. If our life is one of working spiritually to be more useful from an attitude grounded in love to the Lord and our neighbour, then we will gravitate towards those who are in similar states of life.This law of attraction is a spiritual law.

The only way that our minds can become reorganised into a form open to receiving the life of heaven is if we willingly and freely take the truths we are learning, examine our lives, and do what we need to do to change those things we see need changing. The Lord gives us the ability to see truths for this purpose and He also has given every person of a sound mind the ability to respond. He has provided all that we need to change, right now, today, nothing is lacking. Hopefully we can see now that to enter into heavenly states of life requires that our spirit or mind be in the process of being organised into a heavenly form. For once we begin to respond to truth, the Lord’s life enters into this attitude and so the foundation is laid for the ongoing increase in our capacity to receive love and wisdom from the Lord, which is what heaven is.

So to experience heaven, is to experience something that is being formed within us, this is why we are told that the kingdom of heaven is within. When love and wisdom from the Lord infills our minds we experience a peace, joy and happiness that is angelic. In this way, we come into the experience of heaven as a world perceptible to our spiritual senses and thus angelic consciousness is a potential for us all.

Before moving on to the next article in this series, consider setting yourself a work task to remind yourself often that the kingdom of heaven is within you and so is tied to the loving attitudes that you can freely bring to each situation you enter into, as you make the effort to let love rule. In doing so, you will bring a little more of the will done in heaven upon the earth.

…There are more things in the contents of the Lord’s prayer than the universal heaven is capable of comprehending. And with man there are more things in it, in the proportion that is thought is more open towards heaven; but, on the other hand, there are fewer things, in the proportion that his thought is more closed; for with those with whom the thought is closed, nothing more appears therein than the sense of the letter… (Arcana Coelestia 6619)

And when you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the open streets so that they may be seen of men. Truly I say to you, They have their reward. But you, when you pray, enter into your closet and shutting your door, pray to your Father in secret. And your Father seeing in secret will repay you in the open. But when you pray, do not be babbling vain words, as the nations; for they think that they shall be heard in their much speaking. Then do not be like them, for your Father knows what things you have need of before you ask Him. So, then, you should pray this way: Our Father who is in Heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come; Your will be done, as it is in Heaven, also on the earth. Give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil, for Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory to the ages. Amen. (Matthew 6:5-13)

Today I want us to give some thought to the idea of prayer as an introduction into looking at the inner meaning of the Lord’s Prayer. This prayer should be prayed with understanding and with intention, and not just recited repetitiously like some sort of mantra that is spoken without thought to the meaning or implications for what is being said. What these words capture is so much more than a mere rote formula for communicating with God. The words of this prayer are a summary of the whole of the spiritual life and should be meditated on with this in mind.

Prayer is not found in the words spoken, anyone can utter any words they like for any reason they like. True prayer, like true worship, is a matter of the life. In other words think of your life as your prayer. It is a useful exercise to reflect on what our lives are saying, what is it we are inviting into our life, what messages are we giving out. Is my life a prayer in support of self and worldly interest? Or is my life a prayer that is asking the Lord for His love to fill me for the sake of others and is looking to be useful in this regard? This kind of reflection takes us away from seeing prayer merely as the words that we speak, and brings our focus onto the need to ensure that energy is being put into co-ordinating as much of our lives as we can under spiritual truths or principles.

The Lord’s Prayer contains all that we can ask of God, because once understood we shall see that it contains all that the Lord can possibly give us. This is an amazing thought! The Lord’s Prayer is the archetypal prayer, it contains everything a person can ask of the Lord because it contains everything that the Lord is able to give to us. But for this intercommunication to occur we have to learn how to live the prayer because it is only in living it that we can become receivers of its benefits. Saying the prayer will effect nothing if it is not lived and it is the prayer understood as something to be lived which will guide us in our examination of it over this series.

We can’t understand what this prayer is about until we realise that the human mind is structured in levels. Many spiritual traditions teach this, so in that sense it’s nothing new. Spiritual Christianity also teaches this and uses specific terms to identify these levels. In the doctrines for Spiritual Christianity these levels are often referred to as discrete degrees of the mind. There are three general levels of the mind which have the same name as the three heavens; these are called the celestial, spiritual and natural levels. In terms of our own mind, the celestial level corresponds to what belongs to our affections, the spiritual level what belongs to our thoughts and the natural level is where these two come together in producing our behaviour, or actions and speech. Now each of these levels have their own divisions as well but for the sake of what we are dealing with today, we are only going to be referring to the internal and external mind or man.

The internal man, which is the higher part of us, is made up of the celestial and spiritual levels. Taken together they are what are referred to in the prayer by the term heaven, which corresponds to the internal man. The kingdom of heaven, Jesus said, is….within you. This idea of heaven being within us is such an important idea for setting the frame for which all discussions about the heavens in the Scriptures can be more fully understood. We have to get away from thinking of heaven as being out there somewhere if we are to make any real practical sense of what the Lord is teaching us through the prayer He gives us in the Gospels.

So if heaven refers to what is more internal within us then of course the term earth must refer to what is more external in us, and it does, for the term earth is a term that points us to the natural or external part of man. Everything in Scripture refers to the inner workings of the human mind, because it is here that the real issues of life exist for us. So we come to the first part of Jesus’s words in the verses that made up our reading from Matthew’s Gospel. Here, He is trying to point out something about the attitudes that exist within us in how we live out our spirituality. There is a spirituality that is natural and is of the external man, and there is a spirituality that is spiritual and is of the spiritual man. If what is lower in us, or the natural man is dominant over the spiritual man then what is genuinely spiritual lies pretty much dormant, or is unable to have any real or significant influence in our lives. A person may appear to be spiritual from an external stand point but their religious or spiritual life is all based in externals and when it is based in the natural man, its motivations are clouded by worldly and selfish interests.

This focus on how things look, or giving the impression of being spiritual is what is referred to in Jesus’s statement as the hypocrites. This word could be translated as actor, or more accurately as a dissembler. Whenever what is external dominates what is internal, then there is a separation between the internal man and the external man – they stand disassembled in terms of their relationship to each other. This is because the created order for man is that what is spiritual rules over what is natural. If an employee was unwilling to carry out the tasks set for him by his employer, there would be tension in the relationship that would eventually lead to a separation. Similarly if a private disregarded the orders of his superior in the army, this would constitute a separation in the proper order of things. It is this kind of break in order or the separation of what is lower in us from what is higher that constitutes the problem within the human condition. It is this condition that the Lord seeks to save us from for when the natural man is separated from the spiritual man, we are at the mercy of lower motivations that have our sense of ourselves bound up in selfishness. So when the Word speaks of hypocrites don’t think of people out there, it’s referring to a condition within our minds – when we allow what is natural to rule over what is spiritual.

A truly spiritual practice or life is focused on what is internal – on what lies within. It is not concerned with appearances for appearances sake. It understands that what presents externally isn’t always going to appear very spiritual because some things have to be exposed in this way before we are prepared to deal with them. The main focus of a life where what is spiritual is beginning to take a hold, is on the inner affectional and thought life. Getting our thinking faculty into order so that our lower, self centred affections and emotions are not dominating our sense of who we are. This is a life that involves a lot of inner soul searching, and making subtle adjustments to our life which is not open to the scrutiny of the outside world. There is no praise of others, its simply, humbly, peacefully going about one’s work with the Lord to have the things that arise within us that stand opposed to what is of heaven, dealt with. This kind of life is described by Jesus as a living prayer, not of the lips, but of the life and involves going into our closet and praying to the Father in secret where upon we shall be rewarded openly.

The reward spoken of here has nothing to do with the praise of others, nor is the reference to it being given openly have anything to do with others seeing how spiritual we are. If it did then it wouldn’t be much different to that which a lower state of hypocrisy seeks through our ego or proprium. Spiritual work and progress happens in secret as far as others are concerned but is something very real and rewarding for the person engaged in this kind of work. The practice of the spiritual life becomes its own reward, which is something the external or natural man can never understand. The Greek word translated closet refers to a hidden area or room in an oriental house where stores are kept. So this closet is closer to the Western idea of a pantry, it’s a place where goods are stored and are distributed for the needs of the household.

Spiritual goods are stored up in the inner parts of the mind. This occurs over a person’s life as they come into contact with spiritual teachings, ideas and concepts, where they enter the memory via our senses which the Lord then takes and stores up in our internal man. From the perspective of Logopraxis, these spiritual goods are found in the Bible and the doctrines for Spiritual Christianity . As they are taken into our minds they are stored up for when we are open to receiving spiritual life from the Lord. So going into the closet or storehouse to pray means seeking out the good and true things of the Word. To look to the spiritual well being of others by being more conscious of our own states with the Word in our dealings with them and with the conditions of our life in general.

The Father we are to pray to once having entered our closet is, in the Lord’s Prayer, Our Father who is in the heavens. The heavens are within us, and as we have already seen are in fact what make up our internal man. The Father of all that is good and true, must and can only be the Word for it is the Word as it is taken into our life that gives birth to, or produces within us, new heavenly affections and ideas. To pray to the Father is to listen to and live from the Word by taking on the responsibility to make it the centre around which our life is built and governed. As we consciously look to the Word to direct our life and relationships with others we are in the act of going into the store house to find what is needed for the situations and people that we meet. The reward that comes openly is seeing what the appropriate response is for a situation, and knowing that this is from the Lord, or from what is truly good and loving. The Greek word translated, openly means literally to shine forth. How wonderful a description of the process of receiving insight or enlightenment this is!

When we enter the inner secret place, looking to find what is good from a spiritual perspective, from a genuine concern for the spiritual well being of another, then the Lord is able to enter into our minds and shine the light of His Word there – revealing to us what is required for the situation. This is the reward spoken of here and it is the delight of the spiritual or internal man. So we see that the kind of prayer being spoken of in the Text is not of the lips, it is of the life – it is living the prayer. It is not concerned with material and bodily things for prayer on this level becomes what is described as vain repetitions. The teachings for Spiritual Christianity instruct us that prayer is living from the Word. This is the only kind of prayer that can bring any lasting, permanent, or positive change in our lives. It is the means by which our lives are able to be brought into alignment with the will of God, for the Word is His will and when lived, we enter into the stream of the Lord’s will for our life.

When we begin to live from spiritual principles we begin a journey that reorganises our minds with new affections and thoughts. This is a process that takes time as we consider truths and their impact on our lives and then respond to them affirmatively. This is the kind of prayer that effects changes in us, that leads to new perceptions of the world and those around us. Asking God to change our attitudes or situation in verbal prayer without being in the effort to stop negative thoughts and feelings from dominating, will achieve nothing. Asking God to change our situation, without attending to those behaviours which we know are detrimental to spiritual goals will have no effect. It’s simply wishful thinking – vain repetition, as we keep asking God to make our lot better yet do nothing to build what is genuinely spiritual into our life. True prayer is found not in what we say, but in our response to the teachings we have. It is something that comes from the will. And it is this understanding that we need to keep in mind if we are to understand the inner meaning of the Lord’s Prayer, which we will look into a little further next time.

In the meantime, as a work task, try meditating on the idea that your life is a prayer, and observe what your life is asking for in your responses to the situations that make up your daily life…

By prayers, in the internal sense, are meant all things of worship:…Worship does not consist in prayers and in external devotion, but in a life of charity: prayers are only the externals thereof, for they proceed from the man by his mouth, therefore, according to the quality of the man as to his life, such are his prayers. It does not matter that a man bears himself humbly, that he kneels and sighs when he prays; these are external things, and unless the externals proceed from internals, they are only postures and sounds without life. In everything that a man gives utterance to there is affection, and every man, spirit, and angel is his own affection, for their affection is their life: it is the affection itself that speaks, and not the man without it: therefore, such as is the affection, such is the prayer. Spiritual affection is what is called charity towards the neighbour; to be in that affection is truly worship; prayer is the proceeding therefrom. Hence it is evident that the essential of worship is a life of charity, and the instrumental of it is posture and prayer; or, that the primary of worship is a life of charity, and its secondary is praying; from which it is evident that those who place all Divine worship in oral piety, and not in real piety, err greatly. …[6] As essential Divine worship primarily consists in the life, and not in prayers, therefore, the Lord taught that, in praying, they were not to be given to much speaking and repetition, in the following words:

“When ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do; for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Do not therefore make yourselves like them” (Matt. vi. 7, 8).

Now because essential Divine worship consists primarily in a life of charity, and secondarily in prayers, therefore, by prayers, in the spiritual sense of the Word, is meant worship from spiritual good, that is, from the life of charity, for that which is primary is meant, in the spiritual sense, whereas the sense of the letter consists of things secondary, which are effects, and correspond.

(Apocalypse Explained 325{5&6})