The Blessing of God be with you all, ladies and gentlemen of this beautiful community of Steemchurch.
It is easy to talk about the need to love your neighbor, but it is not easy to do it. But the way we learn the difficult lessons of killing ourselves to serve the needs of others is determined by our obedience to the Holy Spirit.
We love as much as we have learned from the Spirit of Christ. The extent to which we have considered God's love in our lives also determines how much we have learned to love.
One of the first fruits on the list that Paul tells us is love. Perhaps the best hymn of love written by the apostles is 1 Corinthians chapter 13.
"Love is suffered, merciful ... does not think badly ... does not rejoice in injustice, but rejoices in truth; it covers everything, believes everything, expects everything, transfers everything. Love never ceases" (1 Cor. 13: 4-8).
The definition of love is the first step, the manifestation of love is the following. We must be careful not to say our love eloquently, but try to obtain this gift.
Imagine what our churches would become if, by the grace of God, we constantly practice these qualities of true love.
What a blessing it is to live in an environment in which members of the entire community are always positive and support each other!
We may not be able to achieve this from others, but if we apply these principles ourselves, we will see how much influence they can have on others. It is impossible to argue with love, it is the most powerful force in the entire universe.
The word "love", which is widely used in the modern world, does not correspond to the correct understanding of God's love.
A scientist directed a beam of light to a box. But he did it so that the light would not be reflected from its internal surfaces (until it was reflected from something, the light would be invisible). Then he took the wand and put it in a dark box.
The wand itself was illuminated from the side where the light came from. It seemed as if a thin beam of light fell only on a wand and nowhere else, although the light was in the whole box. The light became visible only when reflected from an object (wand).
So it is on Earth, the sunlight that spreads across the sky turns blue, gray or red, depending on the weather and the time of day. On the Moon, regardless of the amount of sunlight, if you looked at the sky, then, as in a box, you would see absolute darkness, the darkness of empty space.
This is because on the Moon there is no atmosphere, no air, no humidity, no gases, no smoke, which, reflecting sunlight, makes it a wealth of colors that we see on Earth. What is the point? If the light does not bounce off something, it seems total darkness.
Love is divine love, with which the Christian loves all people as God loves them. It means indestructible benevolence. This means that regardless of the relationship of the people, the believer will only wish them the best.
It is important to keep in mind that in man himself there is no capacity to love those who hate him, to persecute him, and neither to pray for those who offend. Having received the love that the Holy Spirit spills in the heart (Rom. 5: 5), the Christian resembles Jesus Christ in his character and loves those around him, just as Christ loved them.
"If we love each other, then God remains in us, and his love is perfect in us" (1 John 4:12). Let the way you understand perfect love make you different from everyone in this world.