Mid-century illustration of a calm sea at dawn

Matthew 12:18 · World English Bible

Matthew 12:18 Meaning Behold

Behold, my servant whom I have chosen; my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my Spirit on him. He will proclaim justice to the nations.

What does Matthew 12:18 mean?

The one pointed to here is beloved before he has done anything, chosen not for achievement but simply as he is. Worth arrives first.

From the Ego v. Being reading below.

Matthew 12:18 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

EGO & BEING

Ego v. Being

The one pointed to here is beloved before he has done anything, chosen not for achievement but simply as he is. Worth arrives first. A person stands the same way before the ground of being underneath all thought: already accepted, already whole, with nothing left to prove.

When someone rests in that acceptance, no longer straining to earn his place, a spirit settles on the life and moves through it quietly. What such a person shows others is not a set of rules but the peace of being at home in what is. That ease goes with him into every room he enters.

Ego v. Being lensGo deeper in the app

Ego v. Being lens

Live Matthew 12:18 today

  1. Get through one morning without checking whether anyone liked, replied, or approved. Let your sense of being fine come from somewhere other than the count.
  2. Tell one person something good about them that has nothing to do with what they produced. Not thanks for a task, just who they are to you.
  3. When you are being evaluated at work, feel your feet on the floor and remember that the outcome will not change what you are. Answer from that steadiness instead of from the wanting.

Who am I when nobody is keeping score?

The same truth in other traditions

Chandogya Upanishad

The teaching says that you are already that, the ground of being itself. Nothing is pending, nothing has to be achieved first.

Zen

You are already what you are looking for, and practice is less a climb than the ending of the search. There is no version of you waiting to be approved.

Sufism · Rumi

He writes of being loved before the seeking began, the longing itself a sign you were already held. Worth comes first and the walking follows.

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

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