Publisher's Synopsis
I received this revelation: Love is enduring pain, heartaches and wrongs visited on you by people you care about. Forgiveness is actually an expression of love. You need love to forgive. When people you love do wrong to you, in their irrational state, it hurts. It makes you recoil and want to distance yourself from them. But love dictates that you continue to give even when it no longer feels right to give. That is why Jesus Christ said: "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13). Love is being ready to offer yourself for someone you love, not only when they are good to you, but also when they are not. So bear unfair treatments from loved ones and remain committed to the relationship, while at the same time, committing yourself into God's hand for the saving power of His grace. No other relationship calls for that commitment more than marriage. The Bible says: "For it had been granted you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him." (Philippians 1:29). Jesus Christ also washed the feet of Judas Iscariot at the Last Supper. Love knows no boundaries. Whether it is the love of God for us, or our love for God, or any other --- love is love and operates the same way all the time. There is nothing like 'different kinds of love'. All we have is different kinds of relationships involving love. Whether it is love between a husband and a wife, or between a mother and a son, or between a man and God, or between friends, or among a congregation, or between neighbors, and son on; it is the same love, unaltered and indivisible. Only God gives love; and love is a spirit so its level can fluctuate. And love can be tarnished and minimized by us through the power of our minds. Evil crops up in the heart and fills whatever vacuum is created when love dissipates from our hearts. And when evil comes in, sin happens. And the Bible tells us that all wrongdoing is sin. When love is at the highest level in your heart, you have no room in your heart for the evil spirit; therefore you have no capacity for wrongdoing, hence the Scripture: "We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the one who was born of God keeps him safe, and the evil one cannot harm him." (1 John 5:18). Love puts you in a state of goodness that endears your heart to people you are in relationship with --- all your relationships. The nature of your relationship with someone then determines what acts and activities you perform in the relationship. And various acts and activities lead to various emotions which can be mistaken as love or lack thereof. Love is perfection, but human emotions are imperfect and all over the place. One minute, we feel one way and the next we feel another way. Some of our emotions may tarnish love and minimize it; sometimes to the point of extinction. Love is simply love! And love is the purest of all things --- there is nothing else that God created which compares to the purity and potency of love! Love shines with God's glorious splendor and puts life into all things. Love is perfection! Love is so pure and so potent that it ionizes and refines all things: Love dissipates all wrongs and imperfections, wears down all resistance and removes all obstacles. Love renews and revives things, and restores luster to them. Love makes everything attractive. That is why the Bible says: "Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears" (1 Corinthians 13:8-10). Love makes prophecies cease; love causes tongues to be stilled; and love makes knowledge to pass away --- because love is the best attribute of God: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16).
