there’s the same call to allow Him to “reign universally” within us, but now the
reason for doing so is not based on fear, not only borne out of a sense of His
awesome power. It also comes from an awareness that this is a God who knows
our personal struggles, and is with us in the daily events that come before us.
Which brings us to the third image of the Lord. It comes in True Christian
Religion, interestingly in the context of explaining the First Commandment
given on Mount Sinai. It talks of a man, in this case a husband and father,
“seeing a picture of one Divine Person whose head was surrounded with
rays of heavenly light,” with the inscription: “This is our God – our Creator,
Redeemer, and Regenerator in one, and therefore our Savior.” (No. 296)
It ends with a telling question: “Would not a wise man kiss such a picture
and take it home next to his heart, so that his own mind, and those of his wife,
children and household, might be uplifted by looking at it?” (Ibid.)
The vision of the Lord presented in the teachings of the New Church is
truly ins