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John 8:38 · World English Bible

John 8:38 Meaning I Say the Things Which I Have

I say the things which I have seen with my Father; and you also do the things which you have seen with your father.

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What does John 8:38 mean?

Every mind speaks from the teacher it has chosen to look upon. One has kept its gaze on love, and so it can only offer what love shows; another has fixed its eyes on fear, and so it repeats what fear has taught.

From the Christian Psychology reading below.

John 8:38 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY

Christian Psychology

Every mind speaks from the teacher it has chosen to look upon. One has kept its gaze on love, and so it can only offer what love shows; another has fixed its eyes on fear, and so it repeats what fear has taught. There are always two fathers, two sources of thought, and what a mind does is nothing but the faithful echo of the one it has been watching.

This is why nothing changes until the looking changes. A mind will keep repeating its father's works as long as that father is the one it beholds, and it is free the moment it turns its sight to the other.

Father: the source of thought a mind has chosen to look upon, either love that shows its innocence or fear that shows its guilt.

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Christian Psychology lens

Live John 8:38 today

  1. Check what you have been feeding yourself this week, the accounts you read, the arguments you replay. Whatever you have been staring at is what is coming out of your mouth.
  2. The next time a group chat turns sour, do not add to it. You will find how much of what you were about to type was just an echo of the tone you were reading.
  3. When you feel yourself about to speak sharply at home after a bad day, pause and ask who taught you that line. Then choose what you actually want to pass on.

What have you been looking at long enough that it has started speaking through you?

The same truth in other traditions

Buddhism · Dhammapada

What we are today came out of what we thought yesterday, and tomorrow comes out of today. The stream runs from the source you keep drinking from.

Stoicism · Marcus Aurelius

Marcus wrote that the soul takes on the color of its thoughts. Keep looking at bitterness and you will speak in that color without choosing to.

Zen · Dogen

Dogen taught that practice is not a ladder to awakening but awakening itself. The way you are looking right now is already the life, not a preparation for it.

Mid-century illustration of Jesus teaching the crowd on a hillside above the sea

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