Heaven Ministries 

Volume 2 Issue 13
July 2004

Marriage Alive Newsletter

Loving Yourself - Loving Others

Contents

Listening To the Heart

Loving In The Devine

Dear Readers,

     I would like to share with you a new book we are writing for Heaven Ministries. It is all about love and how to receive "real love" for yourself. 
     The source work for this comes from the Holy Word and my own heart. 
      The wisdom you find in between the lines and the fantastic reward you can receive for yourself can make a substantial difference in your life. The hard part is accepting it and then CARRYING IT OUT. 
     While many marriages and families are struggling to bring harmony into their chaotic lives, God has a simple solution. A solution that has been staring us in the face for centuries. 
    The first two chapters of this book on love is below.

Real love, which is also called unconditional love, complete love, and whole love is obtained from the Spiritual aspect of who we are. If we are not in tune with the Holy Spirit, then we are obviously loving through our own understanding of what we think love is. In other words, If we do not utilize the love that Jesus left us, how can we love others properly? 

Many people say they love, but do not do anything to show that love or when they do show love, feel resentful about it. You cannot love in its completeness and to its fullest if you have not accepted the Spirit of Christ for yourself.  

Complete love does not have time for negative feelings. Complete love overrides bitter thoughts, angry outbursts, and rebelliousness to the truth.  This same love does not have obligations and conditions placed upon it for the receiver to meet.  It is, to its fullest extent all you need to live a happy and peaceful life. It is so full with its goodness that it somehow takes away all worry, frustration, sorrow, strife and contention. God is that love.

We all have some degree of love to give others; its how we give it that matters. Love, and how we express it is a personal feeling and act that we carry within our heart and generate back out to those around us. Love comes from the heart, and our actions eventually speak for that love.  

Wow! God lives in us, and His love has been perfected in us!  What a beautiful testimony. We have been given the opportunity of a lifetime. All we need to do is allow God into our heart, mind and soul; God will then give us the ability to give unconditional love to others. It sounds too grandiose to believe. And all we need to do is accept Christ as our personal Savior and complete love will be ours!
     
And so here lies the answer to all the heartache, unhappiness, contention, misery and strife burdening the world.  But most of us already know this. It’s been right here in our face all along. So what’s the problem? Maybe some of us don’t truly believe that such a magnificent thing could actually be so.

St. John wrote, God will give us of His Spirit, if we would all just love one another. Let me understand this better, if we have been given the Holy Spirit and we utilize the power of it within ourselves, we will feel real love and can provide real love to others? This is getting better all the time!  But this sounds too easy.  Why then is there not more love in the world?

Acknowledging Jesus Christ

Many of you, I’m sure, love God. You certainly love your families. You go to Church every Sunday, give your tithes and donate things to those in need. Isn’t that being loving? What else is there?  

All of these things are being loving. But how do you feel about it? Do you feel the need to second-guess your actions? Do you feel good about yourself when loving others? 

To be the perfect loving person God wants you to be, you need to seek out the proper foundation that is already built from love, which is Jesus Christ. Your complete trust and acceptance of Him must be established first within your heart. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re at in life, complete acceptance of Him must be attained before you can understand and utilize the power of real love.  

The character and nature of Jesus does not make use of any religious or political connotations; Jesus was neither of these things. He was sent to the world from God to receive and save the world. That is all about it! To confuse and diminish the love of Jesus into politics and certain religions actually confuses folks even more, and carries with it, bitterness, hatred and egotism. This is contrary to all that Jesus is. You either believe in Jesus Christ or you don't. It's that simple!

Whoever you are, you can receive eternal life through Jesus Christ.

Receiving Christ usually happens while alone and in the privacy of your own home. It has been shown that the participation in Church in front of a crowd of gazing onlookers impedes true humbleness. The act of revealing your failings to Christ is not only a very personal one, but one that takes determination and humbleness on your part to accomplish it correctly. Therefore any distractions could very well spoil your true intentions. Coming to Jesus is a personal commitment that should not be made into a public performance.

With the realization that Jesus Christ is your personal savior, Christ will guide you in your growth process. This involves effort on your part. Read the bible, study it,  and learn. Be prepared to meet challenges in your life and to deal with them according to what you read, studied and learned.

This is your new life.

Before you know it, the tiny seed that was planted when God created you will sprout and finally blossom into a magnificent flower, full of the beautiful character and nature of Jesus Christ. This spiritual experience is the fulfillment and purpose of your life. Because you have a real purpose to attain, you will always be growing spiritually and learning to be the whole and complete person you were intended to be.

As you grow out from within your old self, you will lose the old thought patterns, and way of life, while consuming the love of the Holy Spirit. Remember, anything that is not of or is against the nature and character of Christ while in the growth process will hinder your potential to learn and to love. 

If you are unsure of how to allow Christ to guide your life, you may find that thousands of temptations will get in your way. Some of these temptations will be hard to deter, but God knows your heart, even more then you do, and if you truly want to follow Him, temptations will be taken from you.   

If you do not have the full understanding of how all this works, know this, thoughts and actions need to stay consistent with what you truly believe in. Jesus Christ’s life is your life and your life is His. He has given you of His Spirit and you must allow it to guide your path as much as you possibly can. You cannot do one thing and say another. Go with what you believe in and do not falter.
     
A fallacy that many people believe is when they are reborn into the life of Christ they don’t have to do anything else and they are saved. “Okay. I’m saved, I’m good and I’m goin to heaven!”  But this is not so. They just don’t get it. If they did, they wouldn’t react with such overconfidence. It's really all about love, and what you can do to bring love into the lives of those who are thirsting. And the first thing you got to do is to love God. You cannot do anything without that. 

God does not want you to stay dormant with your new way of life and beliefs in Him. What is that anyway? It’s downright selfish. God wants you to always consume His goodness, glory and power and never stop gaining more and more wisdom for yourself. 

It is through your life, and what you do with it that shows others there is more to life than the doldrums they now have and hopefully they will come to Christ as well. They want what you have. Give it to them. Go ahead, give them all the love that Christ has given you, and you will be living your purpose.

Once you have reached the level of spiritual growth that God sees appropriate, He will make use of your services for His purpose. So you best be available when the time comes. He will make known to you, which some call a “calling from God” what you are to do and how to go about it. Basically, all of the goodness and wisdom you have received from Christ will be given onto others who are thirsting for knowledge, just like you were when you first came to know and accept Christ. This is where real love comes in.

God’s intentions for you is that you become all that you can be. You cannot do this without God’s assistant. He is in the sidelines cheering you on and giving you infallible moral support and comfort whenever you need it. This guarantees a watertight solution to all the weight that has been added upon your shoulders. God has given you a purpose in life. Your purpose in life will be to show others that you have been made into a complete and whole purpose through Jesus Christ. This is shown by how you live on a day-to-day basis. Your life will proclaim a personal, walking, talking message and it will be backed up by real love, the love of Jesus Christ.

The new person you will become will not behave proud in spirit, or filled with self-righteous indignation, as if you already know it all; because honestly, no one knows all of the great plan that God has set out for us and all that He has to offer, and never will. The reason behind that is so you will always be hungry for more of His wonderful wisdom filled words.  If you don’t eat, you won’t grow.

Being a newbie in the life of Christ means you have to give up selfish ways, which is the old unhappy way of life and become all that you can be. God wants you to follow His will and learn to be a new giving and loving person without wanting anything in return. And if you want to gain the benefits of eternal life, you will always need to put Him first in your life. Loving Him with all your heart, mind and soul. Anything else just isn’t good enough. You cannot love God with all your heart and mind if you do not put Him first in everything that you do.  But this does not need to be a problem; take Jesus with you wherever you go.  If you want to take a vacation out of the country, take Jesus with you. If you want to go camping, take Jesus with you. Take Jesus to work with you to help you get through the long day. Take Jesus to bed with you at night and say a prayer together before falling to sleep. 

Think of your life like this. You are on an exploratory journey with Jesus. And in everything that you do while on your journey will help you in the understanding of your connection with Him. You have a bond with Jesus Christ that cannot be severed unless you do something to sever it.  On this journey you will grow spiritually into the loving character of Him, and you will feel what real love is within yourself so you can finally give that same love back to those around you.

It’s like this. When you were saved from the clutches of bondage, you believed in Him with all your strength, all your might and all your soul because you allowed Him to come into your world and organize it for you. You fully trusted in Him to take care of everything for you. 
All you had to do was accept Him as your Savior because He gave His life for your life by suffering and dying. But Jesus came back. And what did He do? He weeded out the bad ingredients and explained to you Through His mighty word what needs to be done to keep out other bad ingredients from entering. 

The tricky thing is, you need to continue to believe with that same gusto that you were saved with in the first place. After that everything else falls into place. So what’s so hard about that? The greatest commandment of all is to love God with all you heart and mind and then to love others. If you have done that then everything else falls right into place because it has already been met!

So now you have gained the knowledge to know that choosing to base "how you will love" from your own understanding of what you think love is and should be, is not utilizing the full potential of what love really is. Your own thoughts and feelings on love must be perfected through the Love of Christ before you can give real love to others. The suffering and physical death of Jesus Christ should be all you need to know to acknowledge and comprehend what real love is. Right?

I told a good friend of mine that I had this inspiration to write this book on love. She stammered back to me with, “wow! What a big project. I guess you’ll have to define love first.” But for me defining love has not been the hardest part on writing this book. The hard part has been in how I will relate the message of love to my readers so they will understand it and want to go after it.  It is like pursuing a dream and yet this is reality and it is so real, but you have to break those old thought patterns before it becomes real for you in your mind.

The cycle or pattern of the world pretty much works like this: If you do not accept the perfect LOVE of Jesus Christ into your mind, you reject love for yourself. Because you do not FEEL love yourself, you cannot love others. You might become so in need for love yourself that you will not know how to provide love to others.  The only real way to free your self from this negative pattern is to accept the Love of Jesus into your own life by utilizing the greatness of the Holy Spirit.  

If you want to give real love then you will need to build a foundation of love within your self first. You must decide on what you will base your feelings of love on?  You can choose to love the way you have been conditioned to love, which is through your own understanding of what you think love is, or you can base your love on the character of Jesus Christ, who loved you so much that he suffered and died for you!

Leighton Ford had this little tidbit to say about love, “God loves us the way we are, but he loves us too much to leave us that way.” This is so true! God wants you to be all that you can be!  But your potential for happiness and spiritual growth is stunted because you have not yet realized the full capacity of real love for others and yourself. God wants you to employ the full potential of yourself by loving Him, loving yourself and finally giving love to others.

Manifest Myself to him! That means you will know when Christ spirit is within you.  Wouldn’t that be great to feel the presence of Christ within you? He will show you His love and somehow make known His presence to you.       
     
When you take in the loving nature of Christ into your own heart, which will eventually replace old thought patterns with new ones, you will definitely see a great improvement in your life, marriage and other relationships.

Why is that? When you understand the love of Christ and why He loves you so dearly, the old ties that once bound you to certain things and circumstances will also be released from within your mindset. Old negative harbored feelings get washed away too. You will not feel the need to go out looking for love within the standards of society because you have found it within your heart. In other words what you had found, and felt you needed before to fulfill your purpose just won’t matter anymore. When you release the bond that controlled your behavior before you will understand how to find love, cherish love and preserve it in a way God wants you to. 

If you do not choose love for yourself or if you do not choose to love the way God wants you to love, what will you do? Where will you receive love? 

What you believe in has a lot to do with how you will love. What you think creates what you believe and what you believe will create your thoughts. If these thoughts are negative ones, unpleasant feelings get in the way of loving properly. This is why conditions are placed upon love when loving yourself and others. 

Love conditions are based upon how you are feeling at the moment, how you have been treated, and overall outlook on life. But conditions miss the whole idea of what real love is. Basing love on negative feelings closes the heart to experiencing genuine love.  

Love conditioned feelings such as, bad attitude, anger, fear, guilt, selfishness, bitterness, rebelliousness and addiction, etc, change love into hate. Sometimes you don't even realize that you are basing love on your feelings, because you're so used to feeling a certain way. But they are used as weapons. 

Here's how it works. Your thoughts make you feel a certain way and those feelings control you. Basically, you are seeking an improper source to heal emotional burdens. That improper source is your self. You rely upon those feelings so much, they control how you love yourself and how you love others. Eventually you create ideas and believe certain things that help you to justify negative behavior that is generated from those feelings. 

Everyone needs something to base his or her actions upon. If you can’t find someone or something to take the blame for your actions, eventually you will create your own basis for justification, which is not real. Without a basis for your feelings, you couldn’t justify your actions. Certain ways you might behave towards your spouse, for instant don’t pop up out of nowhere.  Some people rely on their feelings so heavily that eventually those same feelings come out in a rage like manner and possibly violent outbursts. Other people may resort to an addiction to make it all go away. And then others hold everything inside while it endlessly mounts up into more and more grief for themselves and those around them. 

These things are only temporary fixes and in the long run end up hurting you and your loved ones in the process. Realize that if you conduct your life through negative feelings, which is by your own understanding, your mental and spiritual outlook will become distorted and hazy; never really seeing clear enough to discern from right or wrong; what’s false and what’s true.

I would like to share with you a great and wise proverb. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5 


That’s the whole idea here on love. When your feelings dictate how you will love, you are relying on your own understanding. When pride stands in the way of your heart, you are relying on your own understanding. I know because I allowed both to stand in my way on many occasions. Pride and selfishness is what keeps us from coming to Jesus. It keeps us from wanting to accept that we can change the way we think and feel.
     
About twelve years, a  friend of mine gave me this proverb on a bookmarker, and I didn’t think anything of it. I read it, stuck it in my book and forgot about it. A couple of years later, my husband gave me this very same proverb, and it struck a chord with me. I read it, and read it, thought about it, went to the bible and studied it, and eventually forgot about it. About a year ago, I was clearing out some old books in my attic; low and behold the first book I opened had that bookmarker in it. For some reason I couldn't get this verse out of my life. At this time in my life I had already come to Christ, but I believe this was not in coincidence that this same proverb kept coming back to me. I now keep the proverb framed on my computer desk where I can read it and remember it everyday. Obviously that was [is] an area in my life that I needed to improve on  and God made it known to me by His personal messengers and finally by my own acknowledgement that I was relying to heavily upon myself. 

I still, at times, rely upon my way of thinking and am usually in error. So what do I do? I open the bible and find circumstances that are close to the issue at hand and see where I should have used the wisdom of God instead of my own understanding. This is a hard habit to break, but just with the realization that there is other ways of dealing with life’s moments is the protection and security I need to continue loving in the way I am supposed to love. The burdens and frustration go away so I can love! I  don’t have to worry about anything because I let God take over. It changes everything! If God says it, then that is the way it should be.

The whole burden of unhealthy attitudes and bad feelings derive from how people direct their lives and through what they know, have experienced, and have been taught and conditioned to know – Which in essence is generated from their own understanding of the way they feel they should live their life. Most people just do not know of a different approach for dealing with emotions and everyday living experiences. 

I know married couples that are just down right bitter people, they are unhappy about everything. Consequently, this kind of marriage ends in divorce where often times the couples remain unhappy, lonely and heartbroken. Couples are literally trapped within their own feelings, unable to climb out because they don’t know how to get out. Their own understanding can’t get them out. And of course couples like this do not love themselves. How could they with feelings of bitterness controlling them? 

There is a way out for folks like this, but they don’t go after it. It’s as if they enjoy living in their feelings. Their own stubbornness and pride actually keep them from seeking out any other alternatives. What they know is what they believe and so they believe their way is the right way to deal with their marriage. What are the alternatives? 

On the opposite end of the stick, you might find the happy-go-lucky marriage where both couples seem to have a smile on their face; everything in their life seems to get done with great smoothness, and organization. They maintain a consistent and structured family life; each of the children knows what their duties and responsibilities are. This family is one to write home about and is overall very happy. And they still have so much to give away to others. What are they doing that’s so different? I personally know this family, and what they have is a rock solid foundation built upon trust, love, respect and faith. Its leader is Jesus Christ. In everything that they do for the marriage, Christ comes first. 

By recognizing that you might be using negative feelings when dealing with marital issues, or when giving love to others will help you to stop trying to justify a bad behavioral outcome. It is realizing when you are doing it that you can stop and say, "hey this is not how I should be loving my spouse/family." At this point you might want to pray, get your bible out and find out what Jesus would like you to do. This is the Holy Spirit working for you. 

This is acceptance. This is giving up that part of self that wants to rule your heart, mind and soul. It is so easy to think that we already know it all, it is a condition of life that we are used to. But, there is a better way. Let Christ direct your actions by asking yourself how would He like you to deal with life's issues. Always remember to ask yourself, “Am I basing how I will love on my emotions? This is the spiritual effort I talked about earlier. You do have a choice. The choice is up to you

When you choose to love this way, you will feel your spiritual self open up and understand the concept of loving with Jesus Christ. You will feel closer to Jesus in your heart and more open to humbling yourself to others. Christ will direct your heart, not your emotions or feelings, but the love of Jesus Christ. 

Loving someone is the most important thing you can give to another. Always remember that it is your purpose in life to love others with real love, even if it takes much effort on your part. The greatest thing about it is you have chosen to love.

God created you and He is your source!

The life of Jesus Christ flows from God in you. Jesus is in the Father, you in Him, and He also in you, according to the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit. This most precious and blessed gift from God must be accepted by you as a REAL before you can receive love in its completeness.  continue

Almost everyone says they love God. But I don’t think He believes them. 
     
To what degree do folks love God? On a scale from one to ten, ten being the most you can love, look at the world and ask yourself to what degree does the world love God?  Rebelliousness runs rampant in this society and the American way of life has gone to the dogs.
     
Are people doing the will of God? Are they utilizing the power of the Holy Spirit? Have they accepted Jesus Christ?
     
Did you know that God can liberate your ability to love in its fullest? God loves you despite your failings.  No matter who you are or what you are doing God loves you. God will give you the power to love people with absolute love. 
     
However, nothing worthwhile comes without effort. It takes spiritual resolve to tap into God’s boundless love, when it comes, you will feel nourished like never before. On the same level you cannot neglect the source of where real love comes from or you will lose the ability to love unconditionally.
          
To love God means to accept His Son, Jesus Christ into your life by utilizing the power of the Holy Spirit in your life. Meaning, giving up the ways of rebellion, and doing His will instead of your own and allowing the Spirit to do the tasks it is intended to do. Ironically when you truly accept this concept with all your heart, mind and soul and it finally becomes real for you, then of course your main objective in life will be to go after it with gusto. It's not hard to acknowledge what God did for you, what is hard is carrying out the purpose for yourself of why He did this for you. 
     
So why aren’t more people drawing closer to God? Why is it so hard to love God?

Many of us think we have already received Christ. The misnomer here is that many of us have acknowledged what Jesus Christ did for us, but then go on our merry way living our life the way we want. People do not live their lives according to the will of God but according to their own will. Acknowledging is the first step, but there is more to it then that. It is a process that carries with it effort on our part. 
     
The work of the Spirit of Christ is to help free you heart and mind from the negativities of this world by opening up your heart to following Him and His design, and above all to love yourself so you can give that same love onto others. The whole process of pursuing Jesus Christ is never-ending!

     
God wants you to lose your life for Him and then He will save it. What does that mean?  It means to “give up” yourself, and (what you are in bondage to) in the world and follow Him. Jesus Christ did that for you!  He gave up His physical life on earth to eradicate sinful behavior from those who believe in Him.
     
Jesus prayed to God, asking Him why He had forsaken Him, which means " to leave" or to " desert Him".  At that time God was a physical man. He was [is] Jesus Christ, and was not in Spirit.  Jesus knew His death was already planned when he made that prayer to God, but none the less, it was a moving moment for Him I'm sure. The whole idea behind His death was designed that way for us! God wants to give us a purpose for living, and that purpose revolves totally around Him. 

God’s love for you is that magnificent and great!  Real love is defined from this act and this act alone. Christ demonstrated to us what real love is! For real love to come into your own life, you only need to perfect it through Jesus Christ by giving up yourself (selfish love) to Him. God wants to make a new life for you; free of burdens and sinful ways. But you have to show yourself to Him by letting the old self go, picking up your own cross and following Him.
     
So the second step is perfecting your life through the Life of Jesus Christ. This is why having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is so important. It gives you the connectivity and attachment to Him that allows you to feel His power within you so that you will surrender yourself to him. Without that, you are only in acknowledgment. 
     
You have to let go of the beliefs (unbelieving self) you now carry with you and deny who you are if you really want to follow Christ. You cannot continue believing certain things and behaving in ways that are contrary to God’s will. The Holy Spirit will not be made known to you when you do not give up the old self and accept Christ As your personal Savior.
     
Jesus is The Spirit that resides within you, and if you allow His will to work through you, you will return His goodness unto others-if you allow it to be so.  This means you must believe in Him and accept Him to understand your spiritual self. He gives you perfect love and when you accept that love from Him, you release that love onto those around you. 

 
Scripture tell us that, “God’s love is truly made complete in him, to those who obey His words." So that means you cannot go around doing whatever you want, living your life through your own understanding, and carrying around negative feelings and such, if you want complete love.  I guess you would want to strive to do God’s will at all times, and that means to have full trust and belief in the fact that He is your God. Once your faith has shown through, and you have given up your old beliefs, God will give you His complete love. This is where your purpose for living comes in.
     
A little bit of faith goes along way, especially when all you have to do is believe in Him and love Him with all your heart, mind and soul. What’s so hard about that?
      
Another scenario goes something like this. If you do not trust in Him, who or what do you trust?  What do you believe in? You got to believe in something to help facilitate who you are.
     
I know that without God directing and organizing my own life, the sinful nature will take over and create a purpose for me, which consequently becomes sin. Without belief in my Creator and utilizing the Holy Spirit, I would remain confused and unhappy, carrying around a bad attitude and rebellious nature to the Truth. But I don’t like to feel like this. I like to know that I have the security and protection of Christ to fall back on when trouble comes my way. With Christ protecting and directing my life, it doesn’t matter when circumstances do not go my way – It just doesn’t matter!
     
Do you want to bring clarity and truth into your life? Do you want to be able to understand your purpose in life? Do you want to feel complete love within yourself? Do you want to provide real love to others?
     
Love comes from the Father who in Spirit is the Son who manifests Himself to you through your acceptance of Him. You will then be filled up in heart, mind, and soul with His love. The Holy Spirit of Christ is what gives you the life you need to give your life to others. That’s love!
     
The spiritual elements of who you are is Jesus Christ power working through you. It is through the spiritual self that your actions speak, and is how you show others the reality of God and His Truth for the whole world.  Your belief in God will begin to manifest itself to those around you by what you do, and by how you think. All of these things project who you are to others. When Christ directs your life,  you will be more in control of your feelings, beliefs and actions more then ever. Your own love will supersede all that is negative in your life.

Nothing else can speak closer to the hearts and minds of those in need, and who are lost and thirsty then the actions you make from the spiritual level towards what is not seen, but what you believe and feel in your heart. Jesus said to St. Peter, “Feed my sheep.” John 21:17 
     
Are you a lost sheep that needs spiritual feeding? Do you feel insecure and empty inside? Do you feel real love missing in your life?
     
Ultimately, it is your faith in Him that facilitates humbleness so you can let go of the old self and grip the Holy Spirit unseen, and to feel His love and power from within.  Undoubtedly, there are not many people who can feel this complete greatness within them, but they are out there and God has chosen you to fulfill the next position.
     
Barry Neil Kaufman said, “In order to love others, we must first give ourselves the experience of love inside.” Jesus Christ is that experience! Without accepting the reality of this planned way of life from God for yourself, real love will be beyond your reach. Complete love from Christ is what we’re after here. It’s the only way to go!
     
Maybe some of you have a hard time following Christ. And so you halfheartedly pursue Him when going to Church on Saturday, Wednesday or Sunday. Maybe you don’t want to give up your own ideas of what you think love is. Maybe you are swollen with pride and you don’t think you need spiritual direction for your life. Or, maybe you don’t want to give up your worldly beliefs. I could go on and on here, but what for? It doesn’t matter why you don’t want to give up your stubborn way of life and walk in love with Christ. What matters are the consequences of those actions? What matters is that the reasons behind stubbornness and rebellion are self-directed thoughts that have turned into beliefs. As long as people continue justifying reasons of why they do things their own way by cleaving onto self-made beliefs they will not see what is truth. 
     
Lack of spirituality helps us not see clearly. We become so wrapped up in self that we actually think we are doing the will of God. 
     
God’s design for man is intentional, predetermined, and is the real thing. Christ’s love for you, if consumed with full acceptance of Him has a bounce-off effect that can become even greater in its influence with each individual. What beautiful purpose can touch your soul and then be given to some one else? Love. 
     
Jesus Christ gave you that love. But you have to accept Him before that love becomes real for you in your life.
     
It can also work on the opposite side of the coin. When you have not accepted Christ into your heart, over time, bitterness and hardened hearts develop. Morals and values get washed away with the tide. 
     
Basically, the world constantly feeds off of itself to fulfill the empty heart and to replenish the mind with new ideas and way of living. It is through this feeding that people look for love. Individuals feed off a disguised sweet nectar from each other to seek out acceptance, happiness and love. But they do not know that this sweet nectar is poisonous. After eating, their full stomachs are justified through a belief system that looked good and tasted sweet, but actually turned sour in the heart and mind.  After awhile they come back for more and more because they are never satisfied and full with what they got, all the while becoming more and more poisoned. 
     
This deception makes them believe they are justified in eating of this tantalizing sweet nectar because of the evolving belief system and social changes of society.  Besides that, they don’t know what it is like to get their daily bread from another source because they have never really attempted it. 
     
Some folks don’t know they can choose to not eat of the poisonous nectar. Eating from this flawed source creates in the heart, rebelliousness to the truth, which creates a selfish way of thinking.  
     
Love cannot sustain itself through wrong thinking.  In essence, society is slowly poisoning itself through the diseased hearts of others and most folks don’t even realize it is happening. 
     
Think of it like a colony of fire acts. The little devils start to invade your home scavenging for something sweet to eat. You apply borax mixed with sugar or some other ant killing method all along their path and the perimeter of your home. The ants keep coming back to eat off this sweet concoction because it tastes good. But really it’s poisonous, and before you know it, they bring the poison back to the nest and eventually kill off the whole colony. 
     
Just like fire ants, people scavenge around to be fed. They have needs and desires and they are hungry. So hungry that they feel, unhappy, angry, guilt filled, abused, lonely, addicted, resentful, unloved, empty and needy. They might feel haughty and proud, self-righteous, and ready to go conquer the world. The sweet nectar is right in their path, right in front of their face. They could turn around and not accept it, but it smells and looks good, so they eat. Why look for anything else? What else is there?
     
Acceptance of God and His Son, Jesus Christ is the first step in becoming all that you can be, a loving and whole person. Once you have the freedom within yourself to receive love from Christ, you can experience the giving of real love to others. You will find there is absolutely no other way to live or to love.
     
Fire ants do not have any sense. They follow each other, not realizing that if they just turned around they would find good wholesome food in the pantry that wouldn’t poison them. Are you following the way of the ants?
     
To comprehend why Jesus Christ suffered and died for you is the first step in recognizing and acknowledging the Truth.  
     
God put Himself forth onto the earth in physical form so the people could see Him and hear Him speak of His plans for us. Some of us listened, some of us didn’t. Those that listened separated themselves from those who denied Him. More people denied Him then those who obeyed Him and soon enough hatred and hardened hearts abound on the earth. Because there were so many that didn’t believe, God created a plan to reach out to the people and give them a second chance. (By the way, that is your chance too.) God came to earth as Jesus Christ and walked amongst the people, teaching about a new way of life that could free them from the burdens of the world. 
     
All that Jesus said to the people boiled down to one formula, but a great one, that if understood and utilized could give you everlasting life. That teaching was on love!
     
Jesus walked the earth with parables of love. He gave love in many forms to all people from different walks of life. Still, many did not love. They could not love because they denied who Jesus was. They could not accept him. The lack of spirituality was so great that something else had to be done.   
     
And so to provide evidence on His position on what love is, and how much He loved us, He planned His own suffering and death for our sins, which is the Passion of Christ.
     
Your second chance is here now to proclaim in private, not in a social setting, but alone, without people watching you, that Jesus Christ did what He did for your sins to give you everlasting eternal life in His Kingdom with Him. He wants you to feed off Him for your life support. He wants you to go to Him when you are in need of hope, happiness and love.  Christ will fill you up with His complete and perfect love.
     
And so to love properly, you will need to accept His love for you. His love becomes your love. There cannot be anything better then this. Your life is in that one small paragraph above. God works through others, and they are His messengers. He has angels in disguise working for Him in all areas of the world. You are not alone; God is with you at this very moment. Open your heart up to Jesus Christ and free yourself, Accept Him into your heart.