THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE

"It is the law of divine providence that we should not be compelled by outward means to believe and love things that belong to religion, but that we should bring ourselves to believe and love, and sometimes compel ourselves."- Emanuel Swedenborg

WHAT IS PRAYER?

"Prayer is truth coming from the heart, and we are continually at prayer when we live according to that truth."- Emanuel Swedenborg

LIVING PRAYER

"When we pray from the heart, there comes an answer in he form of a gentle perception of some truth. When we live by that truth, our lives become a LIVING PRAYER." Emanuel Swedenborg

WHAT IS LOVE IN MARRIAGE?

"The love in marriage of one man to one woman is the precious jewel of human life . This love produces states of innocence, peace, tranquility, inmost friendship, complete trust, and a mutual desire of the mind and heart to do everything good for each other. Because of these qualities, this love also produces bliss, rapture, delight, pleasure, and owing to an eternal enjoyment of states like these, the happiness of heaven." - Emanuel Swedenborg

WHAT IS WISDOM?

"Wisdom is a quality of the heart and life. When we attain wisdom, the issue is no longer a struggle to understand what is good and true, because what is good and true has become so incorporated into daily life that we become an embodiment of those values and loves."- Emanuel Swedenborg

ARE YOU QUALIFIED TO BE IN HEAVEN?

"Heaven consists of heartfelt desire for the good of others rather than our own good. It is serving others from love to promote their happiness, not for the sake of any selfish hope of reward." - Emanuel Swedenborg

GOD AND NATURE

"The ancients learned much about God and spirituality through nature. It was their Bible, so to speak. However, through the process of time, people began to focus more on the material aspects of nature rather than the spiritual life that is reflected within it. People ceased to see the reflection of God in nature and so lost a connection with him. This connection can be reestablished, and the Creator can be seen once again, through al of creation."- Emanuel Swedenborg

GOODNESS & TRUTH

"If we wish to receive a heavenly selfhood, we must do what is good and think what is true as if we were doing and thinking by our own powers, but still believe that all goodness and truth come from God."- Emanuel Swedenborg

EXPRESSION OF LOVE

"Love comes into being through useful service to others. In fact, the real joy of love is in its expression. Love that does not find expression soon dies."-Emanuel Swedenborg

WHAT IS GENUINE WISDOM?

"Genuine wisdom involves humility. The wiser we become, the greater the realisation that there is so much more to learn and understand."- Emanuel Swedenborg

WHAT IS FREEDOM?

"There is nothing more important to most people than their own freedom, especially freedom to think, feel, and live the way they choose. Forcing people to believe certain religious principles takes away that freedom and actually closes the mind to deeper insight. Freedom and spirituality goes hand in hand.:- Emanuel Swedenborg

GOD'S LOVE

" God's love goes forth not only to good people but to evil people. God loves not only those who are in heaven, but also those who choose hell for God is everywhere and forever the same. - Emanuel Swedenborg

TO A KIND DEPARTED SOUL & FRIEND

"In memory of Albin Korem, my special friend with a kind soul, heart of gold and a person who helped many people in his lifetime. You always had and forever will have a place in my heart." Viera E.

WHAT IS TRUE POWER?

"We might think of true power as the ability to move people or objects in the direction of our choosing. But this is not true spiritual power, the kind that brings happiness, healing, and life. Real power is from God. The power of life itself and all its healing qualities come from love."- Emanuel Swedenborg

WHO IS AN EARTH-BOUND PERSON?

"Earth-bound people experience bliss when they are richer than others and possess the world's wealth. But when they become spiritual, they are in their bliss when they have knowledge of what is true and good, which is their treasure." - Emanuel Swedenborg

THE FOOD FOR THE MIND

"We need to provide food and clothing for our bodies. This is a first and primary goal. But we do this so that we may have sound minds in sound bodies. We need to provide food for the mind as well. Our minds need to be in a state to serve God." - Emanuel Swedenborg

WHAT IS THE LORD'S CHURCH

"The Lord's church is spread over the whole globe, and so is universal. All who live a good life according to their own religious belief are members of it." - Emanuel Swedenborg

THE TRUTH

"Even though truth is timeless, when it is understood by the mind and felt by the human heart, it makes all things new. The human spirit is lifted up to a new awareness of reality and of the spiritual possibilities in life." - Emanuel Swedenborg

HEAVEN & HELL

"Our spirits are a microcosm of our greater connection with either heaven or hell. Heaven and hell are not only places we go to after death, but are also states that exist within our spirit right now." - Emanuel Swedenborg

THE DIVINE PROVIDENCE

"As far as we enter into the stream of providence, we come into a state of peace. As far as we are in a state of peace, we are in divine providence. Then we will know and believe the divine providence of God is in everything, both in general and in particular." - Emanuel Swedinborg

"When you have a humble heart, you will know that wisdom is perceiving that the things in which you are wise are scarcely anything compared with the things in which you are not wise. -Emanuel Swedenborg

WHAT IS GOOD INTENTIONS?

"There is an old familiar saying, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." This is because to intend a good deed but never to act upon it is actually a failure of goodwill. When we fail to act on our good intentions, we lose the intention itself. Love needs a home in action or will die." - Emanuel Swedenborg

HOW TO BECOME ONE WITH THE LORD

"The more nearly you become one with the Lord, the more distinctly you appear to yourself to be your own master, any yet the more clearly you recognise that you belong to the Lord."- Emanuel Swedenborg

HELL OR HEAVE - WHICH WAY?

"After death everyone enters into the hell or the heaven in which he or she had predominantly chosen to live while in the world." -Emanuel Swedenborg

DRAWING NEAR TO GOD

"So far as you approach and draw near to God, doing so entirely as if of your own accord, so far does God approach and draw near to you, and becomes one with you in your inmost being." - Emanuel Swedenborg

WHAT IS MODERN LIFE?

"Modern life places too much emphasis on the here and now. Though it is important not to focus full attention on a particular time in the distant future, raising our thoughts above time and space toward what is infinite and eternal raises our mind above the whirlwind of temporal life."-Emanuel Swedenborg

WHERE IS HEAVEN & HELL?

"Hell and Heaven are near to people, in fact, within people. Hell exists within people who are in a state of evil. Heaven exists within people who are in a state of goodness. Even more than this, to the extent that people are receptive of the goodness of heaven, they are in heaven right now."- Emanuel Swedenborg

HOW DOES THE TRUTH SHINE?

"Truth does not shine from itself, because there is nothing flaming in it alone. It shines from goodness, for goodness is like a flame that gives forth light."-Emanual Swedenborg

HEAVENLY ANGELS

"Since the angels in heaven receive goodness from the Lord, they long for nothing more than to perform useful services.

These services are the very delight of their lives, and it is from them that they enjoy bliss and happiness." - Emanuel Swedenbborg

WHAT IS SPIRITUAL POWER?

"Spiritual power is to desire the well-being of another and to desire to give to another as far as possible what is within us." - Emanuel Swedenborg

DOING GOOD

"Unless we do the good that we intend, there is within us a failure to will that eventually becomes lack of desire to act." - Emanuel Swedenborg

WHAT LOVE IN MARRIAGE?

"In its essence, true love in marriage is nothing else than the willing of two to be one, that is, their desire that the two shall become one life." - Emanuel Swedenborg

THE DIVINE CONNECTION

"We have a connection with the Divine, and our inmost being is such that we can receive the Divine and not only receive it, but also make it our own by acknowledgment and love, thus by reciprocating.

Since we are implanted in the Divine, we can never die. For we are in what is eternal and infinite, not only because it flows into us, but because we receive it."- Emanuel Swedengorg

African Proverb

"If you light a lantern in the night, you don't hide it under your cloth." African Prover

WHAT IS TRUE LOVE?

"Our love for ourselves and our love for the world are, by creation, heavenly loves. They are loves of the natural part of us, which serves spiritual loves as a foundation serves a house. When we have no love of serving God and other people, then, from being heavenly, those loves become hellish."-Emanuel Swedenborg

TO BECOME ONE WITH THE LORD

" The more nearly you become one with the Lord, the more distinctly you appear to yourself to be your own master, and yet the more clearly you recognize that you belong to the Lord." -Emanuel Swedenborg

WHAT IS WISDOM?

"WISDOM IS LIKE A BAOBAB TREE, NO ONE PERSON CAN EMBRACE IT." - Ghanaian proverb

BEING ONE WITH GOD

"We become one with GOD only through love and loving actions, love being the essence of spiritual connection." -- Emanuel Swedenborg

LOOKING UP TO HEAVEN

"To look upward to heaven is not merely to think about the things that belongs
to heaven, but to have these thinks as the goal and to love them more than all other things."--Emanuel Swedenborg

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MAN & ANIMAL

"Humans, unlike animals, can rise above their nature. A lion, for instance, cannot say, "I think I'll stop killing and become a vegetarian." A human can rise above wants and desires, and change to something more noble and more spiritual than what he or she started out to be." Emanuel Swedenborg

ABOUT FAITH

"Faith is not blind, as some would say. Faith is seeing the truth and having confidence in it. Real faith is not just a matter of the mind, but of the heart as well."-- Emanuel Swedengorg

WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE?

"It is no mark of intelligence to prove whatever one pleases.
But to be able to discern what is true as true and what is false as false --
this is the mark and character of intelligence."- Emanuel Swedenbord

WHAT IS WISDOM?

"True wisdom is seeing what is beneficial to our eternal life and managing our present life according to that knowledge."- Emanuel Swedenborg

HOW DOES THE LORD HELP US?

"THE LORD DOES NOT WITHDRAW US FROM OUR PERSONAL HELL UNLESS WE SEE THAT WE ARE IN HELL AND WISH TO BE LED OUT" - Emanual Swedengorg

WHAT IS LOVE?

"Love of a woman and a man is precious because it embodies the union of love and wisdom in God and also in creation. Wisdom and love desire to be one and have no greater delight than when they are one." - Emanuel Swedenborg

THE FACE OF GOD

"EVERY IDEA IS IMPRINTED WITH THE FACE OF GOD" - Emanuel Swedenborg

TELLING THE TRUTH

"A person can say something 'truthful' that is literally correct but not necessarily right. Similarly, a person can express something true that isn't necessarily good. To speak the truth alone without love is to speak from judgment without mercy. Love gives truth its light ans its healing power. Any real truth has love within it and leads to good actions."- Emanuel Swedenborg

HOW TO ATTAIN ENLIGHTENMENT

"We attain enlightenment when we love truth for the sake of truth, and not for the sake of self-promotion or worldly gain." - Emanuel Swedenborg

WHAT IS HEAVEN and HELL?

"Heaven and Hell are actual spiritual abodes, but they are also states of life and of mind. We create our own Heaven and Hell by the free choices we make in life. For those of us who are trying to escape the hell we have created for ourselves, the Lord is always ready to offer a hand and draw us up to higher ground. But this cannot be accomplished unless we see the state we are in, desire to be set free, and take his hand." - Emmanuel Swedenborg