Uses are Heaven

From Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

"to serve the Lord" denotes to perform uses, is because true worship consists in the performance of uses, thus in the exercises of charity. He who believes that serving the Lord consists solely in frequenting a place of worship, in hearing preaching there, and in praying, and that this is sufficient, is much mistaken. The very worship of the Lord consists in performing uses; and during man's life in the world uses consist in everyone's discharging aright his duty in his station, thus from the heart being of service to his country, to societies, and to the neighbor, in dealing sincerely with his fellow, and in performing kind offices with prudence in accordance with each person's character. These uses are chiefly the works of charity, and are those whereby the Lord is chiefly worshiped. Frequenting a place of worship, hearing sermons, and saying prayers, are also necessary; but without the above uses they avail nothing, because they are not of the life, but teach what the life must be.

The angels in heaven have all happiness from uses, and according to uses, so that to them uses are heaven.

(Arcana Coelestia 7037)

A Spiritual Moral Man is An Inwardly Moral Man

From Doctrine of Life ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

1. Christian charity, with everyone, consists in faithfully performing what belongs to his calling, for by this, if he shuns evils as sins, he every day is doing goods, and is himself his own use in the general body. In this way also the common good is cared for, and the good of each person in particular.

2. All other things that he does are not the proper works of charity, but are either its signs, its benefactions, or its obligations.

(Doctrine of Life 114)

The Existence of Faith From Charity - Which is Before and Which is After

From Apocalypse Explained ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Charity produces faith as good produces truth, and as affection produces thought, likewise as fire produces light.

It is speaking wholly contrary to order and inversely, to say that faith produces charity or its goods, which are called good works. But it is to be known that charity (which in its essence is the affection of knowing, understanding, willing, and doing truth), does not come into any perception of man until it has formed itself in the thought, which is from the understanding; for it then presents itself under some form or image by which it appears before the interior sight, for the thought that a thing is so in truth is called faith. From this it is clear that charity is actually prior and faith posterior, as good is actually prior and truth posterior, or as that which produces is essentially prior to the product, and as the esse is prior to the existere, for charity is from the Lord, and is also formed first in the spiritual mind; but because charity does not appear to man before it becomes faith therefore it may be said that faith does not exist with man until it becomes charity in form. So it may be said of the existence of charity and faith with man, that they both come into existence at the same moment; for although charity produces faith, yet as they make one neither of them in respect to man's perception can exist separate from the other in regard either to degree or to quality. Thence it is evident that the conjunction of the Lord with man is like the conjunction of good with truth. Good is from the Lord, and truths are with man, but they are truths that are not yet living. But as man receives good in truths so he receives the Lord into himself and lives; and he receives in the measure in which he abstains from evils, and from the Word shuns and turns away from them, for thus he shuns and turns away from them from the Lord and not from self.

(Apocalypse Explained 795)