Everyone who gathers the courage to decide to love those around them and begins comprehending the science of love and friendship will encounter new experiences in life. Although each of us has an individual perception of what is happening, we can confidently say that agape love contains something special and unearthly. It cannot be explained, but it can truly be experienced.
If someone decides that love is not a science, but merely a predictable pattern of certain events or the emotional experiences of people in love, that person will not spend time and life studying the teaching being offered. Why study something that comes and goes? But we understand that love is the science of God. It is an art. It is a subject that cannot be comprehensively understood and mastered in a short time. The theory of love does not remain theoretical; it always has a practical application in the life of each one of us.
When I understand that I am dealing with a science of heavenly origin that will reveal God’s mysteries to me, I approach the study of love and friendship more seriously than before. At some point in my life, I realize that I do not possess love, but that it is near and ready to become mine. Knowing God in the spirit of love gives me a special kind of life—eternal life—and gives this life exceptional quality.
If someone who has come to believe in God decides to wander the world and live on charity, that person will have the experience of a poor Christian. If someone else, while believing in God, desires to start and develop a business and then uses the profits to support fellow believers who lack enough money for basic living expenses, that person will have the experience of a believing business owner, and the quality of his life will differ from the lives of poor people. Yet he too is considered a man of God.
If someone decides to spend his Christian life in complete solitude, desperately struggling against his carnal desires and discovering biblical truths through this struggle, he will have the experience of a solitary Christian. If someone else decides to establish a Christian family with a consecrated person, carry out all their plans and tasks together, share mutual love, and bring new people into the world, they will have the experience of a Christian family.
If, while believing in Jesus, I choose not to study love or ask God for it, but instead allow it to come and go from my life on its own, I risk missing something extremely important and losing what is eternal. Although my biblical knowledge will improve the quality of my life and obedience to the law will preserve me from many troubles, the flavor and beauty of Eternity will remain unknown to me. But if I decide to possess love, understand its principles and laws, study its power, and learn how it operates within me and how it is revealed in God’s character, I will discover a new world of endless revelations and blessings that will truly enrich my life and make it better and more beautiful.
When I invite love into my life, I call upon the name of God. He comes at my request and dwells within me. Loving makes me feel good. It gladdens my heart, fills my life with light, and gives me an awareness of something extremely important.
There was a time when I asked God to reveal Himself to me in some unmistakable way and allow me to experience something supernatural. In essence, however, I wanted an emotionally thrilling experience so that I could later amaze everyone with my ‘wow.’ In His mercy, the Lord did not answer expectations like these. Instead, in a natural way, He filled my life with Himself through the knowledge of truth that I possessed. The study of love brought me enormous blessings that influenced every area of my life. A beautiful path opened before me—a path about which I had read a great deal, but never imagined that I myself would be able to walk.
I did not understand why I always felt well while other fellow believers suffered and lived in despair. Love brings God’s invisible presence into life. Through this gift of Heaven, the Lord touches my heart so tenderly and naturally that I accept all my discoveries as the normal course of life and the natural condition of the mind. Love cleanses the heart, brings order to my thoughts, reveals the true meaning of spiritual truths, and establishes the priorities in my life. ‘Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.’ Galatians 2:20.
In our love for one another, I not only have God within me, but also allow Him to enrich me through my friend’s love. It would be untrue to say that God is absent from our mutual love and that it consists merely of human feelings and experiences. It is God Himself Who teaches us to love one another, and it is He Who gives us genuine and unfeigned agape for one another, personally abiding within our relationship. In essence, through our love for one another, we share Jesus, Who lives within us and desires to reveal Himself precisely through a relationship like this.
When we decide to become friends, we bind ourselves through this agreement on Earth, and it is affirmed in Heaven. When we choose to love one another, we invite into our friendship the One Who is Love. God does not keep us waiting, but immediately begins sharing Himself within our relationship.
All the powers of the soul and mind participate in love for one another. With my mind, I understand what is happening; my will controls what is taking place; my feelings gladden my heart; and my body produces what should naturally be present and add beauty to our friendship. This relationship contains God’s plan for the last days: that we love one another.
To love one another is a heavenly science and the art of eternal life. If I understand it differently, I will approach it differently. Life with God is good, but the life of God within me and within my relationship with a friend is beautiful. This is what gives God the right to remain continually present in my life.
During one prayer service, a question was asked about the special experiences of God’s presence I had undergone during the previous year. I found it difficult to remember vivid moments and remarkable miracles. But the Lord drew my attention to the fact that every day spent in His love is the most fascinating miracle of my life. It has become so familiar that I have even stopped noticing it. Love, joy, peace, goodness, and all the other blessings of Heaven have become such a natural condition of my soul that I do not stop to consider what is actually happening. I simply love, and to me there is nothing unusual about it. How could it be otherwise? Without love, nothing has meaning.
Today, there is much discussion about how a person can hear God’s voice. I am very interested in learning about other people’s experiences, but I have my own. Love opens my spiritual ears to hear God in a special way. Within love, I learn to hear what the Lord is saying through a friend and what love desires to say through me. The voice of love has become so natural within my consciousness that I sometimes take it to be an expression of my own heart.
God’s presence within my love—and within our love for one another—has become so ordinary, and the joy it brings so constant, that I cannot even understand how anyone can live without it. What would life without love be like? It is frightening to imagine.
The Lord does not plan to amaze me continually. Yet He desires that, in my love for a friend, I not forget Him. After all, He too is worthy of my love.
Bible Verses for Reflection
John 14:18; Matthew 28:19–20; Genesis 28:15; 1 Kings 6:13; 1 John 4:7; John 13:34–35; 14:23, 27; 15:7–9; 17:6, 10, 22–26; Psalm 16:8; Galatians 2:20; 5:22–24; 1 Corinthians 13:1–3; Romans 8:9, 14.