Love, Yet Again

SUN., JAN. 11, 1987, 6:55 AM
FARM, STUDY

This title is adequate, for you knew I would be responding to this need. I do like to teach about love. Yet I also realize that it is far from simple or easy to take Teachings about love and put them directly into practice. So let’s see where We go with love, yet again.

Love is fundamental positive energy for human life. This says that love is an active rather than a passive force. Since love is of spirit, your capacity to love is directly related to the development of spirit. Hence, any act or discipline that abets the growth of spirit generally increases your capacity to love. In a parallel way, when you truly love, whatever the object or the situation, this encourages the growth of spirit.

I shall generally keep this positive, but you can see, surely, that the opposite also pertains – when spirit is not well-developed it is hard to feel and express love, and when love is withheld or overridden by negative feelings, spirit is not enhanced… may even regress. To him who has shall more be given…

The important point here is that the capacity to love can be increased by other spirit building means and not just by loving. It would be truly unfair if the only way one could increase the capacity to love was through loving. That is a catch-22 of which I do not approve and is not a part of My earth plan.

Conditional love is obviously the easiest to feel and to express. When another is overtly loving and obviously loveable, feeling and showing love for that one is “no problem”. The conditions for love have been met. Love flows quite easily. This is not to be discredited, for true expressions of love, even easy ones, are part of the building process. It is crucial to realize what you are doing, however, and know that this is helping to prepare for the more difficult times of loving.

Most loving situations, of course, are some mixture, with loving characteristics blended with unloveable ones. You will be strongly tempted to love what is loveable and dismiss or hate the other. The challenge of loving is to be able to let the positive feelings dominate, letting love overcome the fear that unloveable characteristics encourage. I have no simple, step-by-step recommendation as to how to accomplish this. As always, be aware… of yourself and of others. Appreciate love felt and expressed, when it does not seem to be merited.

Though love is not a rational process it need not be entirely unconscious. I urge you to become gently conscious of even moments when you feel love for one who is hard to love. Savor these. Don’t try hard, but just be conscious of your moments of success. (You may finish this later today).
7:44 AM / 3:34 PM
Yes, unconditional love is definitely tied in with grace. It is given when it is not merited and quite apart from actions. Yet, like grace, in order to be “activated” there must be some positive response from the object (or subject) of the unconditional love. I offer grace to many folk (including many Christians) who really do not accept it. Some are antagonistic to Me. Others feel that they must earn My favor and, deep inside, feel that grace is too cheap.