The Meaning of Divine Love-Two
Greetings and good morning, brothers and sisters. This is Dr. James Perry continuing with our series where we seek to explore the deeper meanings of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Over the years, the heavenly Father has revealed many revelations of spiritual truth to me, and I want to share them with you. This morning we seek to understand the meanings of divine love.
And now, sit back and listen to today's message.
The Meanings of Divine Love
““A new commandment I give unto you: That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.”” John, Chapter 13, Verse 34
Brothers and sisters, in today’’s broadcast we share some additional insights into the meanings of love. We know that our material experiences bring about different meanings. Divine values also yield different meanings as we experience them. Now this may not be apparent upon initial examination, but just because the meanings of love are not apparent does not mean they are not real. Divine things have to be loved in order to be known. In order to know the divine meanings of love, we must love them. In short, we must experience them. We must divinely love.
This divine value, love, in an analogous way can be compared to a material job. And even though we are referring to a spiritual quality and a spiritual meaning the analogy still holds. All of the factors that go into making the meanings of a job different for each individual also operate in extracting the meanings from the value of divine love. Now we know that divine love is the greatest spiritual reality in existence, for God is love. So there being no greater reality than divine love, it also follows that there are no greater spiritual meanings than those that are extracted from divine love.
As we enter the fray of learning to love our brothers and sisters, whom we don’’t know, or making a sincere effort to love those who are difficult to love, whom we do know, the exquisite meanings of divine love comes forth from our efforts. But again, we should be reminded that in order for the meanings to be appreciated, we must truly love them. We must truly love the heavenly Father, who is love. These meanings can only be known as they are extracted from the value of love. It may be impossible for us to know and learn to love all the people in the world, but we can know and love those who are in our circle.
"In physical life the senses tell of the existence of things; mind discovers the reality of meanings; but the spiritual experience reveals to the individual the true values of life. These high levels of human living are attained in the supreme love of God and in the unselfish love of man. If you love your fellow men, you must have discovered their values. Jesus loved men so much because he placed such a high value upon them. You can best discover values in your associates by discovering their motivation. If some one irritates you, causes feelings of resentment, you should sympathetically seek to discern his viewpoint, his reasons for such objectionable conduct. If once you understand your neighbor, you will become tolerant, and this tolerance will grow into friendship and ripen into love."
And while it is very easy to love those whom we are accustomed to loving, those meanings have grown familiar and are satisfying. But there are the impulses of growth within our souls urging us to learn to love those who are not so easy to love. These are the those who crave divine affection, those who sit in spiritual darkness. The only way this darkness can be expelled is with the light of the Father’’s love. Initially some of us resist the light, since the darkness we dwell in is so deep we think we’’re in the light. And what a darkness this is, a darkness so deep that it appears as light. But beneath all of the layers of mistrust, hurt, and consequently a callousness of attitude towards the divine affection, there is a soul that is literally starving due to its lack. These are those who do not know who they are because of a misinterpretation of their life experiences and a lack of spiritual insight. They are those sons and daughters of the heavenly Father--all that is needed to make this truth real in their personal experiences is for them to divinely love.
"You cannot truly love your fellows by a mere act of the will. Love is only born of thoroughgoing understanding of your neighbor's motives and sentiments. It is not so important to love all men today as it is that each day you learn to love one more human being. If each day or each week you achieve an understanding of one more of your fellows, and if this is the limit of your ability, then you are certainly socializing and truly spiritualizing your personality. Love is infectious, and when human devotion is intelligent and wise, love is more catching than hate. But only genuine and unselfish love is truly contagious. If each mortal could only become a focus of this dynamic affection, this benign virus of love would soon pervade the sentimental emotion-stream of humanity to such an extent that all civilization would be encompassed by love, and that would be the realization of the brotherhood of man."
And we must never forget this great truth: The revelation of divine love to our brothers and sisters is both the consciousness of the heavenly Father and our experience with him, for God is love. As we love others, we become more and more conscious of the various aspects of the heavenly Father, and experience him more and more. And this consciousness is faithfully recorded in our souls as we become Godlike, become more and more like the image of His Son, Jesus. Our material minds become spiritualized as continuous divine meanings are faithfully revealed and comprehended. The comprehension of divine values and their meanings constitute God-consciousness.
This concludes today's message on understanding the meanings of divine love. We hope you find something in this message to ponder and pray about as you go about your day.
Until next time, this is Dr. James Perry.
Your Kingdom Come; Your Will Be Done!
Inspirational Messages of Light
By Dr. James Perry
The Meaning of Divine Love-Two
