Last week, we focused on the Lord teaching that no one "putting hand to plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God."  What does it mean to keep looking (and moving forward in our spiritual life.  And how do we know we are on the right track.  As I was pondering these things I was delighted to discover an article by Bishop ND Pendleton on this very subject.

May it inspire in us a desire to "cultivate spiritual growth!"

Blessings All on the week ahead,

Ethan

Knowledge of spiritual things is as a step in the right direction - an inward looking of the mind. Yet it is clear that this, by itself, is not enough. The mind may regard "knowledges of interior truth" as mere sciences, and so treat them; in which case, there is no real inward turning of the thought whereby the mind is opened from within to heaven, no upward looking to the eternal stars as so many inlets of Divine light. 

These stars are indeed spiritual knowledges, but not so long as they are regarded as mere scientifics. And so, when it is said that advancement towards interior things is not an advancement into the knowledges of interior truth, it is added that these knowledges avail nothing unless man is affected by them, unless he conceives an affection for them.

The "interior things" [spoken of in the Teachings for the New Church] are neither "sciences" nor matters of "mature judgment," nor even the "knowledges of interior truth''; but they are spiritual affections.  [They are] those affections which are moved spontaneously and affirmatively by spiritual truths. 

These truly are the states of life to which the [one who is to be spiritually reborn] is advancing ever more fully, as, like Israel, they journey, and "spread their tent beyond the tower of Edar." 

"Advancement toward interior things is an advancement toward heaven and the Lord by means of the knowledges of truth implanted in the affection of them, thus by means of affections." (Swedenborg, Secrets of Heaven 4598).

These affections, and these only, are so many angels; they are at once human affections and angels of God; and, as such they go up and down upon the ladder of Jacob. This "ladder" is our mind, in that it stands upon the earth with its top reaching to heaven.

Jacob was he who afterwards became Israel; and the story of Israel, the change of name and all, is the story of the developing spiritual person; and a part of that development is contained in the words of the text, "And Israel journeyed, and spread his tent beyond the tower of Edar," which means an advancement towards interior things, not by sciences, nor yet by maturity of judgment, nor even by the knowledges of interior truth, but by the spiritual affections.  These alone advance us towards heaven and the Lord.

...Whence it comes that corresponding journeys from place to place in the world of nature have a like significance - that they are given to represent spiritual journeys.  These are changes of the state of the mind. And so, whenever it is said,-and it is a recurrent phrase,-that "Israel journeyed," the spiritual meaning can be none other than some mental advancement of the regenerating human being (or one that is being spiritually reborn). And in the case of one who is regenerating, such an advance can be none other than a progressive development of the affections which respond to spiritual truth - an ever continuous advancement in thought and affection toward heaven, and to the Lord who is there.