Contemplation #64
We may talk and write about love for God, what true adoration is, and why we should center our affections on God. But loving God, the actual cherishing of our God deep within our hearts, this is something which cannot be arrived at by explanation, instruction, or direction. Telling me why I should love God will not lead to true love, even if the reasons are valid, when I have no will to love. Love for God is what God puts into our hearts by grace. May God give us a desire for love, and may we pray earnestly that God teach us to love as He loves.
Contemplation #65
When Jesus declares that love is the sum of all that the law and prophets taught, he is not telling us that the lesson of love is last we learn after having studied through the law and prophets, all of God’s other revelation, but that love is the first lesson. We begin with love and strive toward love. Love is not for those advanced in spirituality, but for the novice. Every word of God through the law and prophets is commentary on divine love, how we have received it, and how we are to embrace and live out our lives through it. We begin with love, a foreign love that comes to us from God, unknown and strange, because it is selfless. We begin and we strive toward love, from start to finish.
Contemplation #66
There is no spiritual progress in Christ that is apart from love. No righteousness, no holy actions, no morality, no faithfulness, no obedience, no correctness in doctrine or practice . . . is possible without love. All these without love are devoid of Divine Presence and empty. Love purifies our actions and connects every spiritual discipline to God. Though our love is not perfect, we dare not do anything without even the imperfect love which we might possess now. God will make up what is lacking in our love as we attempt to love.
We may talk and write about love for God, what true adoration is, and why we should center our affections on God. But loving God, the actual cherishing of our God deep within our hearts, this is something which cannot be arrived at by explanation, instruction, or direction. Telling me why I should love God will not lead to true love, even if the reasons are valid, when I have no will to love. Love for God is what God puts into our hearts by grace. May God give us a desire for love, and may we pray earnestly that God teach us to love as He loves.
Contemplation #65
When Jesus declares that love is the sum of all that the law and prophets taught, he is not telling us that the lesson of love is last we learn after having studied through the law and prophets, all of God’s other revelation, but that love is the first lesson. We begin with love and strive toward love. Love is not for those advanced in spirituality, but for the novice. Every word of God through the law and prophets is commentary on divine love, how we have received it, and how we are to embrace and live out our lives through it. We begin with love, a foreign love that comes to us from God, unknown and strange, because it is selfless. We begin and we strive toward love, from start to finish.
Contemplation #66
There is no spiritual progress in Christ that is apart from love. No righteousness, no holy actions, no morality, no faithfulness, no obedience, no correctness in doctrine or practice . . . is possible without love. All these without love are devoid of Divine Presence and empty. Love purifies our actions and connects every spiritual discipline to God. Though our love is not perfect, we dare not do anything without even the imperfect love which we might possess now. God will make up what is lacking in our love as we attempt to love.
posted by Greg at 12:36 PM
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