What cannot Love do?
August 16, 2015
Love is another name for God that comes straight from the Bible (1 John 4:8). It’s not just a facet of His being or something that He does. It’s who He is. And I could just as easily say it’s who She is too, since Love is no more a gender based idea than God is. God is all and includes all, but not in a pantheistic way. God, Love, simply is.
What does that mean to you and me? We can expect to be comforted by Love, tenderly and persistently. We can hope for and have consistent protection and direction, right from Love. We can receive and be blessed by an unending abundance of helpful ideas leading to useful solutions, poured forth by Love. We can even reflect that infinite Love in caring for each other in meaningful and harmonious ways.
The Apostle Paul talked about that kind of caring in his magnificent first letter to the Corinthians (13th chapter). He explained that we could be totally awesome, but if it was without love it would be hollow and ultimately in vain. His portrayal of love included these qualities: steadfast, unselfish, untiring, faithful, true, perpetual, fair, unyielding, immediate, continual, quiet, and so on.
Jesus knew how to love so deeply that it healed. But the Master’s love wasn’t just human goodness amplified. It was God’s love made manifest in him as the Christ. And that Christ-love is still active today. Didn’t Jesus remind his followers, and therefore us, that “the works I am doing you will do too. And even greater works will you do…” (John 14:12) He was making plain that the infinite love of Love is as active and powerful and ever present today as it was then.
Divine Love is loving us and saving us and giving to us and helping us and guarding us and sustaining us and delivering us and lifting us and whatever else we need whenever else we need it. This is how Love operates.
We don’t have to earn this love, but we do have to expect it. We don’t have to deserve it, but we do have to make room for it. We don’t have to wait for it, but we do have to watch for it. And more and more as we attune our thoughts to infinite Love filling all space, will our space be filled with love too. We will find it because Love will have already found us.
The Apostle Paul asked his readers to let this profound observation – this mind of Christ – be in them. (Phil 2:5) In other words, let this understanding of divine Love that Christ Jesus lived and taught be what you live and teach through your example. What better way is there to do the works he did, than to start with love?
Love is loving you. Let yourself be loved.
Melissa Hayden is a Christian Science practitioner in Salem, OR. You can find more information and additional articles at this link. If you like what you’re reading, click the “add me” button.
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August 16, 2015 at 6:47 PM
Wonderful. This was truly a great statement from you. It is so pertinent to our lives today. The world needs love so much. There is so much strife, contention, pompous boasting by politicians, disregard for others, and what a wonderful opportunity we have to express love and to heal the divisions among us. Thanks dear friend for your always wonderful expressions of healing.
August 16, 2015 at 7:01 PM
Thank you too, Pat, for being such a shining example. Love always wins.
August 17, 2015 at 5:13 PM
Melissa, this is lovely. And it reminds me of this poem:
If thou could’st empty all thyself of self,
Like to a shell dishabited,
Then might He find thee on the ocean shelf,
And say, “This is not dead,”
And fill thee with Himself instead.
But thou are all replete with very thou
And hast such shrewd activity,
That when He comes He says, “This is enow
Unto itself – ’twere better let it be,
It is so small and full, there is no room for me.”
Elizabeth Curry
August 17, 2015 at 5:18 PM
Thank you Sarah. To make room for God is truly to love, isn’t it.