Post by Deleted on Mar 14, 2019 23:43:35 GMT
When someone loves, there is no need to tell him that he must honour his father and his mother or that
he must not kill. It would be offensive to tell anyone who loves his fellow man and woman that he must not steal – how could he steal from those he loves? And why urge him not to bear false witness? He would never do such a thing, just as he would be utterly incapable of coveting his neighbour’s wife.
Love, then, is ‘the fulfilling of the Law’.
Love is the rule that contains all the other rules.
Love is the commandment that justifies all the other commandments.
Love is the secret of life.
A man’s message of Faith lies in the way he lives his life and not in the words he says.
hen you speak about God and the world of the spirit, there can be no more eloquent subject. There is no point in talking about miracles, witnesses of Faith, fine prayers. If you do all that but have not Love, all your efforts will be in vain.
You may accomplish everything you set out to accomplish and be prepared to make any sacrifice, but if you give your body to be burned and have not Love, you will have achieved nothing for yourself or for God’s cause.
ove is made up of nine ingredients:
Patience: Love is patient…
Kindness: …and kind.
Generosity: Love does not envy…
Humility: …or boast; it is not arrogant...
Courtesy: …or rude.
Unselfishness: It does not insist on its own way.
Good temper: It is not irritable… or resentful.
Guilelessness: or resentful.
Sincerity: It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
anyone who takes joy in Love, takes joy in their existence as a human being, takes joy in God.
We are inclined to view bad temper as a family failing, a personality trait, a matter of temperament, when we should really see it as a character defect. That is why, in his analysis of Love, Paul makes a point of mentioning good temper. And there are many other Biblical passages that cite bad temper as the most destructive element in human nature.
What surprises me is that bad temper is often there in the lives of people who consider themselves to be virtuous, and can be a great blot on an otherwise noble, gentle nature. We know a lot of people who are almost perfect, but then, suddenly, they decide that they are right about something and lose their temper.
The supposed compatibility of virtue and bad temper is one of the saddest problems afflicting humanity and society
. No vice, be it desire, avarice, lust or drunkenness, is worse than an evil temper.
When it comes to embittering lives,
destroying communities,
breaking up relationships,
devastating homes,
withering up men and women,
taking the bloom off youth,
for sheer gratuitous, misery-producing power,
ill temper has no rival.
publicans and the harlots would enter the Kingdom of Heaven ahead of the scholars of the day?
There is no place in the Kingdom for the ill-tempered and intolerant. One such man would make Paradise unbearable for everyone else.
simply cannot, enter the Kingdom of Heaven, because in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, he must carry Paradise in his soul.
We have to seek out their hiding place, to change our innermost nature. Then all feelings of anger will die of their own accord. Then our souls will grow gentler, not because we took out aggression, but because we put in Love.
God is Love, a Love which, as it penetrates us, sweetens, purifies and transforms everything. It drives out all error, it renews, regenerates and rebuilds the inner man.
Will-power alone cannot transform you.
Love can.
And again, he who loves wins, even though he sought no reward. How marvellous to live always in the light! What a stimulus, what a blessing to spend an entire day without once thinking evil!
Love ‘does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth’. I called this ingredient sincerity.
He who loves will love Truth as much as he loves his fellow man. He will rejoice in the Truth, but not in what he was taught to believe.
Not in the truth of doctrines.
Not in the truth of churches.
Not in this ‘ism’ or that ‘ism’.
He will rejoice in the Truth. He will seek the Truth with a humble, unbiased mind and will be contented with what he finds.
Life is not a holiday, but an education.
And the most important lesson we can learn is how to love.
How to love better.
What makes someone a great artist, a great writer or a great musician?
Practice.
What makes someone a great man or woman?
Practice. Nothing else.
Spiritual growth applies the same laws used by body and soul. If you don’t exercise your arms, you will never develop your biceps. If you don’t exercise your soul, you will never develop strength of character or beauty of spiritual growth.
Love is not a brief moment of enthusiasm.
Love is the rich, strong, generous expression of our being – character in its fullest sense. And to build that requires constant practice.
Try to see the world as a great education in Love and do not quarrel with your lot in life. Do not complain because of your unending cares and anxieties, your mean surroundings, the small and sordid souls you are obliged to live with.
Light is more than the sum of its ingredients – it is something that glows and shines in space.
And Love is much more than the sum of all its ingredients – it is something living, pulsating, divine.
If we were to mix together all the colours of the rainbow, we would simply create the colour white - not light.
In the same way, if we put together all the virtues we have talked about, we might become virtuous, but that doesn’t mean we would have learned to love.
he must not kill. It would be offensive to tell anyone who loves his fellow man and woman that he must not steal – how could he steal from those he loves? And why urge him not to bear false witness? He would never do such a thing, just as he would be utterly incapable of coveting his neighbour’s wife.
Love, then, is ‘the fulfilling of the Law’.
Love is the rule that contains all the other rules.
Love is the commandment that justifies all the other commandments.
Love is the secret of life.
A man’s message of Faith lies in the way he lives his life and not in the words he says.
hen you speak about God and the world of the spirit, there can be no more eloquent subject. There is no point in talking about miracles, witnesses of Faith, fine prayers. If you do all that but have not Love, all your efforts will be in vain.
You may accomplish everything you set out to accomplish and be prepared to make any sacrifice, but if you give your body to be burned and have not Love, you will have achieved nothing for yourself or for God’s cause.
ove is made up of nine ingredients:
Patience: Love is patient…
Kindness: …and kind.
Generosity: Love does not envy…
Humility: …or boast; it is not arrogant...
Courtesy: …or rude.
Unselfishness: It does not insist on its own way.
Good temper: It is not irritable… or resentful.
Guilelessness: or resentful.
Sincerity: It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
anyone who takes joy in Love, takes joy in their existence as a human being, takes joy in God.
We are inclined to view bad temper as a family failing, a personality trait, a matter of temperament, when we should really see it as a character defect. That is why, in his analysis of Love, Paul makes a point of mentioning good temper. And there are many other Biblical passages that cite bad temper as the most destructive element in human nature.
What surprises me is that bad temper is often there in the lives of people who consider themselves to be virtuous, and can be a great blot on an otherwise noble, gentle nature. We know a lot of people who are almost perfect, but then, suddenly, they decide that they are right about something and lose their temper.
The supposed compatibility of virtue and bad temper is one of the saddest problems afflicting humanity and society
. No vice, be it desire, avarice, lust or drunkenness, is worse than an evil temper.
When it comes to embittering lives,
destroying communities,
breaking up relationships,
devastating homes,
withering up men and women,
taking the bloom off youth,
for sheer gratuitous, misery-producing power,
ill temper has no rival.
publicans and the harlots would enter the Kingdom of Heaven ahead of the scholars of the day?
There is no place in the Kingdom for the ill-tempered and intolerant. One such man would make Paradise unbearable for everyone else.
simply cannot, enter the Kingdom of Heaven, because in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, he must carry Paradise in his soul.
We have to seek out their hiding place, to change our innermost nature. Then all feelings of anger will die of their own accord. Then our souls will grow gentler, not because we took out aggression, but because we put in Love.
God is Love, a Love which, as it penetrates us, sweetens, purifies and transforms everything. It drives out all error, it renews, regenerates and rebuilds the inner man.
Will-power alone cannot transform you.
Love can.
And again, he who loves wins, even though he sought no reward. How marvellous to live always in the light! What a stimulus, what a blessing to spend an entire day without once thinking evil!
Love ‘does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth’. I called this ingredient sincerity.
He who loves will love Truth as much as he loves his fellow man. He will rejoice in the Truth, but not in what he was taught to believe.
Not in the truth of doctrines.
Not in the truth of churches.
Not in this ‘ism’ or that ‘ism’.
He will rejoice in the Truth. He will seek the Truth with a humble, unbiased mind and will be contented with what he finds.
Life is not a holiday, but an education.
And the most important lesson we can learn is how to love.
How to love better.
What makes someone a great artist, a great writer or a great musician?
Practice.
What makes someone a great man or woman?
Practice. Nothing else.
Spiritual growth applies the same laws used by body and soul. If you don’t exercise your arms, you will never develop your biceps. If you don’t exercise your soul, you will never develop strength of character or beauty of spiritual growth.
Love is not a brief moment of enthusiasm.
Love is the rich, strong, generous expression of our being – character in its fullest sense. And to build that requires constant practice.
Try to see the world as a great education in Love and do not quarrel with your lot in life. Do not complain because of your unending cares and anxieties, your mean surroundings, the small and sordid souls you are obliged to live with.
Light is more than the sum of its ingredients – it is something that glows and shines in space.
And Love is much more than the sum of all its ingredients – it is something living, pulsating, divine.
If we were to mix together all the colours of the rainbow, we would simply create the colour white - not light.
In the same way, if we put together all the virtues we have talked about, we might become virtuous, but that doesn’t mean we would have learned to love.