Readings
“Come unto Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-29)
“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as you, Father, are in Me, and I in you; that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent Me.” (John 17:20-21)
“The city [New Jerusalem] had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it. Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” (Revelation 21:23-27)
“Let one who hears say, Come! And let the one who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.” (Revelation 22:17)
“All heaven is differentiated into communities on the basis of differences in the quality of love, and every spirit who is raised up into heaven and becomes an angel is taken to the community where her or his love is. When we arrive there we feel as though we are in our own element, at home, back to our birthplace, so to speak. Angels sense this and associate there with kindred spirits. When they leave and go somewhere else, they feel a constant pull, a longing to go back to their kindred and therefore to their dominant love. This is how people gather together in heaven.” (Heaven and Hell 479)
“Some people believe it is hard to lead the heaven–bound life that is called "spiritual" because they have heard that we need to renounce the world and give up the desires attributed to the body and the flesh and "live spiritually." All they understand by this is spurning worldly interests, especially concerns for money and prestige, going around in constant devout meditation about God, salvation, and eternal life, devoting their lives to prayer, and reading the Word and religious literature. They think this is renouncing the world and living for the spirit and not for the flesh. However, the actual case is quite different, as I have learned from an abundance of experience and conversation with angels. In fact, people who renounce the world and live for the spirit in this fashion take on a mournful life for themselves, a life that is not open to heavenly joy, since our life does remain with us [after death]. No, if we would accept heaven’s life, we need by all means to live in the world and to participate in its duties and affairs. In this way, we accept a spiritual life by means of our moral and civic life; and there is no other way a spiritual life can be formed within us, no other way our spirits can be prepared for heaven. This is because living an inner life and not an outer life at the same time is like living in a house that has no foundation, that gradually either settles or develops gaping cracks or totters until it collapses.” (Heaven and Hell 528)
“People who are brought into virtue are brought into heaven; and people who are brought into heaven are brought to the Lord. So they are safe from any assault on their souls. In their souls, people devoted to virtue associate with angels. As a result, while they are still alive in their bodies they are also in heaven, even though they do not realize it at the time and cannot feel angelic joy.” (Secrets of Heaven 2379)
“We can now see that it is not so hard to lead the life of heaven as people think, because it is simply a matter of recognizing, when something attractive comes up that we know is dishonest or unfair, that this is not to be done because it is against the divine commandments. If we get used to thinking like this, and from this familiarity form a habit, then we are gradually united to heaven. To the extent that we are united to heaven, the higher levels of our minds are opened, and to the extent that they are opened, we see what is dishonest and unfair; and to the extent that we see this, these qualities can be dispelled. For no evil can be banished until it has been seen. This is a state we can enter because of our freedom, since everyone is free to think in this way. However, once the process has started, the Lord works His wonders within us, and causes us not only to see evils but to refuse them and eventually to turn away from them. This is the meaning of the Lord’s words, "My yoke is easy and My burden light" (Matthew 11:30). ” (Heaven and Hell 533)
“Anyone is a church in whom the Lord is present in the qualities of love and faith.” (Heaven and Hell 57)
“It is worth noting that the more members there are in a single community and the more united they are in action, the more perfect is their human form. This is because variety arranged in a heavenly form makes perfection, as explained above in 56; and variety occurs where there are many individuals. Every community in heaven is growing in numbers daily, and the more it grows, the more perfect it becomes. In this way, not only is the community perfected, but heaven in general is perfected as well, since the communities constitute heaven. Since heaven is perfected by its numerical growth, we can see how mistaken people are who believe that heaven will be closed to prevent overcrowding. Actually, it is just the reverse. It will never be closed, and its ever increasing fullness makes it more perfect. So angels long for nothing more than to have new angel guests arrive there.” (Heaven and Hell 71)
“Every unity is formed by a harmonious agreement of many constituents and that the nature of the unity depends on the nature of the agreement. This is how every community of heaven forms a unity and how all the communities form a single heaven, which is accomplished solely by the Lord, by means of love.” (Heaven and Hell 405)
“In heaven, empires and kingdoms are represented as a human being, the communities in them are represented as various parts of the body, and the monarch is represented as the head. The reason they are portrayed this way is that heaven in its entirety represents a single human being, and the communities in heaven represent various parts of the body, depending on the role they play. You can see, then, how beautiful and pleasing the portrayal of an empire, kingdom, or community would be in heaven if love and faith united the people there into a kind of body. Whenever the Lord can, He unites communities with each other this way, because divine truth itself, coming from the Lord, introduces the human pattern wherever it is accepted. It is therefore the pattern in heaven. The same pattern exists on earth, but the groups involved are scattered throughout the inhabited world. They are made up of people who love the Lord and show charity for their neighbor. Although they are separated from each other, the Lord gathers them together to represent a single human being as communities in heaven do. Such groups exist not only in the church but outside it as well. Taken together they are called the Lord’s church, widely scattered but gathered together out of the good people in all four corners of the world; and the Lord’s church is also called a communion. This communion or church is the Lord’s kingdom on earth, which is united with His kingdom in the heavens and consequently with the Lord Himself.” (Secrets of Heaven 7396)
“People outside the church who acknowledge one God and live by their religion, showing at least some love for their neighbor, are part of the same communion as people in the church, because no one who believes in God and lives a good life is damned. Clearly, then, the Lord’s church exists everywhere throughout the world, even though it exists in a more specific way in places where the Lord is acknowledged and the Word is present.” (Secrets of Heaven 10765)
“Everyone can be saved. There are people who think that the Lord’s church exists only in the Christian world because only there is the Lord known and only there is the Word found. Still, there are a good many people who believe that the church of God is wider, spread out and scattered through all regions of the world, even among people who do not know about the Lord and do not have the Word. They say that it is not these people’s fault and that they cannot help being ignorant. It would fly in the face of God’s love and mercy if anyone were born for hell when we are all equally human.
Since many Christians (though not all) have a belief that there is a wider church called "a communion," it follows that there must be some very general principles of this wider church that comprises all religions, so that they do make up one communion. We shall see that these most general principles are belief in God and living a good life, in the following sequence. (a) Belief in God brings about God’s union with us and our union with God; and denial of God brings about severance. (b) Our belief in God and union with Him depend on our living a good life. (c) A good life, or living rightly, is abstaining from evils because they are against our religion and therefore against God. (d) These are the general principles of all religions, through which everyone can be saved.” (Divine Providence 325)
“The Lordrsquo;s kingdom is the neighbor to which we are to give the highest level of our love, because the Lord’s kingdom means the church across the entire world, also known as "the communion of saints." It includes heaven as well. People who love the Lord’s kingdom love all in the whole world who acknowledge the Lord, have faith in Him, and have goodwill toward their neighbor; they also love all who are in heaven. People who love the Lord’s kingdom love the Lord above all else. They have more love for God than others do. This is because the church in the heavens and on earth is the Lord’s body. They are in the Lord and the Lord is in them.” (True Christianity 416)
“It is the nature of love to want to share with another, indeed, to confer joys upon another whom it loves from the heart, and to seek its own joys in return from doing so; and this being the case, infinitely more, therefore, does the divine love in the Lord will to confer joys upon humankind, whom He created to be recipients of both the love and the wisdom emanating from Him.” (Marriage Love 180)