TRUE LOVE

There are two kinds of love: love for its own pleasure, or love for the sake of another; the first is carnal love, the second is spiritual. Carnal love knows the other person only in a biological moment. Spiritual love knows the other person at all moments. In erotic love, the burdens of the other are regarded as impairing one's own happiness; in spiritual love, the burdens of others are opportunities for service.
  Somewhere along the line, the modern world has been duped and fooled into giving the name of love to some vague obsession which parades itself in every billboard advertisement, reigns in the film industry, puzzles dramatists who must solve triangles short of suicide, makes novels best-sellers, perfumes so exotic as to be unfit for tyro's concupiscence, and humor more spicy. Love has become so vulgarized, that those who really love are almost afraid to use the word. It is used now almost exclusively to describe one of the opposite sex, rather than a person; it is made to revolve around glands, rather than a will, and is centered in biology instead of personality. Even when it disguises itself as infatuation for another, it is nothing else than desire to intensify its own self-centerdness.
      Purely human love is the embryo of the love of the DIVINE. One finds some suggestions of this in Plato, who argues that the purpose of love is to make the first step toward religion. He pictures love for beautiful persons being transformed into love for beautiful souls, then into a love of justice, goodness and finally GOD Who is their source. Erotic love is, therefore, a bridge which one crosses, not a buttress where one sits and rests; it is not an airport but an airplane; it is always going somewhere else, upwards and onwards. All carnal love presupposes incompleteness, deficiency, yearning for completion and an attraction for enrichment, for all love is a flight for immortality. There is a suggestion of DIVINE love in every form of erotic love, as the lake reflects the moon. The only reason there is love for creatures in human hearts, is that it may lead to the love of the Creator. As food is for the body, as the body is for the soul, as the material is for the spiritual, so the flesh is for the eternal. That is why in the language of human love, there can often be detected the language of Divinity, such as "worship", "angel", "adore".
TO BE CONTD..

WHEN COUPLES FAIL THERE IS LOVE

Marriages fail when love is regarded not as something transparent like a window pane which looks out on heavens, but as something opaque like a curtain which sees nothing beyond the human. When couples do not see that love of the flesh is the preface to the love of the spirit, one of the partners is often made the object of idolatry, the worship of the image of the reality; the mistaking of the copy for the original, and the frame for the picture.
Human love promises something only GOD can give. When GOD is ignored in love, the one who was worshiped as a deity is discovered not to be a god or even an angel. Because he or she did not give all that was promised, being incapable of giving it,because he is not DIVINE, the other feels betrayed, deceived, disappointed and cheated. The stem of the rose is blamed for not bearing what it could not bear, the marble bust of deity. This result is that erotic love turns to hate when the other is discovered to have feet of clay-to be a woman instead of an angel, to be a man instead of Apollo. When the ecstasy does not continue, and the band stops playing, and the champagne of life loses its sparkle, the other partner is called a cheat and a robber-and then finally called to a divorce court on the grounds of incompatibility.
TO BE CONTD...

Living In GOD

1 John 3:23
His commandments are these: that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and that we love one another as he told us to. Whoever keeps his commandments lives in God and God lives in him. We know that he lives in us by the Spirit that he has given us.

Vengeance

omans 12:17
Never repay evil with evil. As scripture says: Vengeance is mine – I will pay them back, says the Lord. But there is more: If your enemy is hungry, you should give him food, and if he is thirsty, let him drink. Resist evil and conquer it with good.

DIFFERENT GIFTS FROM ONE GOD

1 Corinthians 12:4
There is a variety of gifts but always the same Spirit; there are all sorts of service to be done, but always to the same Lord; working in all sorts of different ways in different people, it is the same God who is working in all of them.

JUSTICE

Deuteronomy 1:16
At that time I told your judges: You must give your brothers a fair hearing and see justice done between a man and his brother or the stranger who lives with him. You must be impartial in judgement and give an equal hearing to small and great alike. Do not be afraid of any man, for the judgement is God’s.

LIBERTY

Galatians 5:13
My brothers, you were called, as you know, to liberty; but be careful, or this liberty will provide an opening for self-indulgence. Serve one another, rather, in works of love, since the whole of the Law is summarised in a single command: Love your neighbour as yourself.

THE TRAINING

Deuteronomy 8:5
The Lord your God was training you as a man trains his child. Keep the commandments of the Lord your God, and so follow his ways and reverence him.

GET RID OF FEAR

Romans 8:15
The spirit you received is not the spirit of slaves bringing fear into your lives again; it is the spirit of sons, and it makes us cry out, ’Abba, Father!’ The Spirit himself and our spirit bear united witness that we are children of God.

HOPE OF THE FAITHFUL

Isaiah 65:18
Be glad and rejoice for ever and ever for what I am creating, because I now create Jerusalem ‘Joy’ and her people ‘Gladness.’ I shall rejoice over Jerusalem and exult in my people. No more will the sound of weeping or the sound of cries be heard in her.

THIS I KNOW

Job 19:25
This I know: that my Avenger lives, and he, the Last, will take his stand on earth. After my awaking, he will set me close to him, and from my flesh I shall look on God.

FAITH

Romans 1:16
The power of God saves all who have faith – Jews first, but Greeks as well – since this is what reveals the justice of God to us: it shows how faith leads to faith, or as scripture says: The upright man finds life through faith.

OBEDIENCE

1 Samuel 15:22
Is the pleasure of the Lord in holocausts and sacrifices or in obedience to the voice of the Lord? Obedience is better than sacrifice, submissiveness better than the fat of rams.

DEBT

Romans 13:8,10
Avoid getting into debt, except the debt of mutual love. If you love your fellow men you have carried out your obligations. Love is the one thing that cannot hurt your neighbour; that is why it is the answer to every one of the commandments.

The Neighbor

1 John 3:17
If a man who was rich enough in this world’s goods saw that one of his brothers was in need, but closed his heart to him, how could the love of God be living in him? Brethren, our love is not to be just words or mere talk, but something real and active.