We try to copy those who have learned to love.
We forget all the rules telling us what Love is, including everything I have said here.
We pray.
We watch.
None of that, however, will make us love, because Love is an effect. And only when we know the cause will the effect be produced.
Shall I tell you what that cause is?
When we read the Revised Version of the First Epistle of John, we find these words:
‘We love because He first loved us.’
That is what is written: ‘we love’ not ‘we love Him’, as it appeared in the earlier King James version.
‘We love because He first loved us.’ Notice that word because.
That is the cause I mentioned.
Because He first loved us, the effect – the consequence – is that we love too.
We are all manifestations of Love.
We love Him, we love ou
rselves, we love everyone.
That is how it is. Our heart is slowly transformed. Consider the Love that is given to you and you will know how to love.
You cannot force yourself – or anyone else – to love. All you can do is look at Love, fall in love with it and copy it.
Love love. Remember the great sacrifice He made and, by loving Him, you will become like Him.
Love begets Love.
If you place a piece of iron close to a source of electricity it will, by a process of induction, become electrified. If you place it close to a magnet, it will become a magnet for as long as the other magnet is there.
Remain close to Him who loved us and you will be magnetised by that Love.
Anyone who seeks the cause will feel the effect.
Try to free yourself from the idea that the spiritual search exists purely by chance or by caprice or because of our liking for mystery. It is there because of a natural or, rather, spiritual law, because it is a divine law.
Edward Irving went to visit a dying boy. When he entered the room, he placed his hand on the boy’s head and said: ‘My boy, God loves you.’
And he said nothing more. He just went away.
The boy got out of bed and called to all the people in the house: ‘God loves me! God loves me!’ The change was extraordinary; the certainty that God loved him gave him strength and destroyed whatever was wrong with him and began his transformation.
In the same way, Love melts any ill or evil in a man’s heart and transforms him into a new creature, patient, humble, generous, gentle, unselfish and sincere.
There is no other way of loving, nor is there any mystery to it. We love others, we love ourselves, we love our enemies, because He first loved us.
There is little more to add about Paul’s reasons for considering Love to be the Greatest Gift, except to analyse the most important reason, which can be summed up very briefly:
Love never ends.