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Lesson Twelve
1. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are.
2. He that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him.
3. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself unto him.
4. Love, in Divine Mind, is the idea of universal unity. In expression, love is the power that joins and binds in divine harmony the universe and everything in it.
5. Among the faculties of the mind, love is pivotal. Its center of mentation in the body is the cardiac plexus. The physical representative of love is the heart, the office of which is to equalize the circulation of the blood in the body. As the heart equalizes the life flow in the body, so love harmonizes the thoughts of the mind.
6. We have found that the twelve sons of Jacob represent the twelve faculties of mind. When Levi (love) was brought forth by the human soul (Leah), his mother said: "Now this time will my husband be joined unto me." We connect our soul forces with whatever we center our love upon. If we love the things of sense or materiality, we are joined or attached to them through a fixed law of being. In
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the divine order of being, the soul, or thinking part, of man is joined to its spiritual ego. If it allows itself to become joined to the outer or sense consciousness, it makes personal images that are limitations. The Lord commanded Moses to "make all things according to the pattern that was showed thee in the mount." This "mount" is the place of high understanding, or spiritual consciousness, whose center of action is in the very apex of the brain.
7. In the regeneration, our love goes through a transformation, which broadens, strengthens, and deepens it. We no longer confine love to family, friends, and personal relations, but expand it to include all things. The denial of human relationships seems at first glance to be a repudiation of the family group, but it is merely a cleansing of the mind from limited ideas of love when this faculty would satisfy itself solely by means of human kinship. If God is the Father of all, then men and women are brothers and sisters in a universal family, and he who sees spiritually should open his heart and cultivate that inclusive love which God has given as the unifying element in the human family. Just to the extent that we separate ourselves into families, cliques, and religious factions we put away God's love. Unless there is specific denial along every line of human-thought bondage, one will still be under the law of sense. Direct affirmation of spiritual unity, based upon obedience, should be made by everyone who desires to realize this true relation. Jesus said: "Who
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is my mother? and who are my brethren? And he stretched forth his hand towards his disciples, and said, Behold, my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother."
8. Among the apostles of Jesus, John represents love -- he laid his head on the Master's bosom. When this apostle is "called," love is quickened in consciousness. The calling of this apostle consists in bringing into one's consciousness a right understanding of the true character of love, also in exercising love in all the relations of life. One should make it a practice to meditate regularly on the love idea in universal Mind, with the prayer, Divine love, manifest thyself in me. Then there should be periods of mental concentration on the love center in the cardiac plexus, near the heart. It is not necessary to know the exact location of this aggregation of love cells. Think about love with the attention drawn within the breast, and a quickening will follow; all the ideas that go to make up love will be set into motion. This produces a positive love current, which, when sent forth with power, will break up opposing thoughts of hate, and render them null and void. The thought of hate will be dissolved, not only in the mind of the thinker but in the minds of those with whom he comes in contact in mind or in body. The love current is not a projection of the will; it is a setting free of a natural, equalizing, harmonizing force that in most persons has been dammed up by
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human limitations. The ordinary man is not aware that he possesses this mighty power, which will turn away every shaft of hate that is aimed at him. We know that "a soft answer turneth away wrath," but here is a faculty native to man, existent in every soul, which may be used at all times to bring about harmony and unity among those who have been disunited through misunderstandings, contentions, or selfishness.
9. Henry Drummond says that Paul's 13th chapter of I Corinthians is the greatest love poem ever written. In his book based on this chapter, "Love, the Supreme Gift," Professor Drummond analyzes love and portrays its various activities. We quote:
10. THE SPECTRUM OF LOVE. Love is a compound thing, Paul tells us. It is like light. As you have seen a man of science take a beam of light and pass it through a crystal prism, as you have seen it come out on the other side of the prism broken up into its component colors -- red and blue and yellow and orange, and all the colors of the rainbow -- so Paul passes this thing, love, through the magnificent prism of his inspired intellect, and it comes out on the other side broken up into its elements. And in these few words we have what one might call the Spectrum of Love, the analysis of love. Will you observe what its elements are? Will you notice that they have common names; that they are virtues which we hear about every day; that they are things that can be practiced by every man in every place in life; and how, by a multitude of small things and ordinary virtues, the supreme thing, the Summum bonum, is made up? The Spectrum of Love has nine ingredients, viz.:
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11. Patience -- "Love suffereth long." Kindness -- "and is kind." Generosity -- "Love envieth not." Humility -- "Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up." Courtesy -- "Doth not behave itself unseemly." Unselfishness -- "Seeketh not her own." Good Temper -- "Is not easily provoked." Guilelessness -- "Thinketh no evil." Sincerity -- "Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth."
12. Professor Drummond, in his address on this chapter to Mr. Moody's students gathered at Northfield, Massachusetts, said: "How many of you will join me in reading this chapter once a week for the next three months? A man did that once and it changed his whole life. Will you do it? Will you?"
13. Love is more than mere affection, and all our words protesting our love are not of value unless we have this inner current, which is real substance. Though we have the eloquence of men and of angels, and have not this deeper feeling, it profits us nothing. We should deny the mere conventional, surface affection, and should set our mind on the very substance of love.
14. Charity is not love. You may be kindhearted, and give to the poor and needy until you are impoverished, yet not acquire love. You may be a martyr to the cause of Truth and consume your vitality in good works, yet be far from love. Love is a force that runs in the mind and body like molten gold in a furnace. It does not mix with the baser metals -- it has no affinity for anything less than itself. Love is patient; it never gets weary or discouraged. Love is
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always kind and gentle. It does not envy; jealousy has no place in its world. Love never becomes puffed up with human pride, and does not brag about itself. It is love that makes the refinement of the natural gentleman or lady, although he or she may be ignorant of the world's standards of culture. Love does not seek its own -- its own comes to it without being sought.
15. Jesus came proclaiming the spiritual inter-relationship of the human family. His teaching was always of gentleness, nonresistance, love. "I say unto you, Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you." To do this, one must be established in the consciousness of divine love, and there must be discipline of the mental nature to preserve such a high standard. The divine law is founded in the eternal unity of all things, and "love therefore is the fulfillment of the law." Physical science has discovered that everything can be reduced to a few primal elements, and that if the universe were destroyed it could be built up again from a single cell. So this law of harmony, which has its origin in love, is established in the midst of every individual. "I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it." But before this fixed inward principle can be brought to the surface, man must open the way by having faith in the power of love to accomplish all that Jesus claimed for it.
16. "The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil." The love of money, not money itself, is the
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root of all kinds of evil. Money is a convenience that saves men many burdens in the exchange of values. Primitive civilization used the cumbersome method of trading products without a money measure of value, while modern progress uses money continually as a medium of exchange. Money is therefore good to the man of sense perception; but when he allows himself to become enamored of it and hoards it, he makes it his god. The erasure of this idea from human consciousness is part of the metaphysician's work. Trusting in God, we have faith in Him as our resource, and He becomes a perpetual spiritual supply and support; but when we put our faith in the power of material riches, we wean our trust from God and establish it in this transitory substance of rust and corruption. This point is not clearly understood by those who are hypnotized by the money idea. When the metaphysician affirms God to be his opulent supply and support and declares that he has money in abundance, the assumption is that he loves money and depends upon it in the same way that the devotees of Mammon do. The difference is that one trusts in the law of God, while the other trusts in the power of Mammon. The man who blindly gives himself up to money getting acquires a love for it and finally becomes its slave. The wise metaphysician deals with the money idea and masters it.
17. When Jesus said, "I have overcome the world," He meant that by the use of certain words He had dissolved all adverse states of consciousness
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in materiality, appetite, and selfishness. Christ is the Word, the Logos. Because the word is the mind seed from which springs every condition, great stress is laid on the power of the word, both in the Scriptures and in metaphysical interpretations of the Scriptures. The word is the most enduring thing in existence. "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." All metaphysicians recognize that certain words, used persistently, mold and transform conditions in mind, body, and affairs. The word love overcomes hate, resistance, opposition, obstinacy, anger, jealousy, and all states of consciousness where there is mental or physical friction. Words make cells, and these cells are adjusted one to the other through associated ideas. When divine love enters into man's thought process, every cell is poised and balanced in space, in right mathematical order as to weight and relative distance. Law and order rule in the molecules of the body with the exactness that characterizes their action in the worlds of a planetary system.
18. Divine love and human love should not be confounded, because one is as broad as the universe and is always governed by undeviating laws, while the other is fickle, selfish, and lawless. It was to this personal aspect of the love center in man that Jesus referred when He said: "Out of the heart of men, evil thoughts proceed." But in the regeneration all this is changed; the heart is cleansed and becomes the standard of right relation among all men. "By
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this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." We cannot enter fully into the Christ consciousness so long as we have a grudge against anyone. The mind is so constituted that a single thought of a discordant character tinges the whole consciousness; so we must cast out all evil and resisting thoughts before we can know the love of God in its fullness. "If therefore thou art offering thy gift at the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way, first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift."
19. Divine love in the heart establishes one in fearlessness and indomitable courage. "God gave us not a spirit of fearfulness; but of power and love and discipline." A woman who understands this law was waylaid by a tramp. She looked him steadily in the eye and said, "God loves you." He released his hold upon her and slunk away. Another woman saw a man beating a horse that could not pull a load up a hill. She silently said to the man: "The love of God fills your heart and you are tender and kind." He unhitched the horse; the grateful animal walked directly over to the house where the woman was, and put his nose against the window behind which she stood. A young girl sang "Jesus, Lover of My Soul," to a calloused criminal; the man's heart was softened, and he was reformed.
20. The new heaven and the new earth that are now being established among men and nations the
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world over are based on love. When men understand each other, love increases. This is true not only among men, but between man and the animal world, and even between man and the vegetable world. In Yellowstone Park, where animals are protected by our government, grizzly bears come to the house doors and eat scraps from the table, and wild animals of all kinds are tame and friendly. "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. . . . They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea."
21. Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is begotten of God; and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No man hath beheld God at any time: if we love one another, God abideth in us, and his love is perfected in us: hereby we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. And we have beheld and bear witness that the Father hath sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God abideth in him, and he in God. And we know and have believed the love which God hath in us. God is love; and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him. Herein
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is love made perfect with us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as he is, even so are we in this world. There is no fear in love: but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath punishment; and he that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love, because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love God whom he hath not seen. And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also.
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Love Demonstrated (To be used in connection with Lesson Twelve)
- "God is love; and he that abideth in love abideth in God."
- I dwell consciously in the very presence of infinite love.
- God is love, and everyone that loves is born of God.
- I am born of love.
- "Love . . . is the fulfillment of the law."
- I love everybody and everything.
- Faith works by love.
- I have faith in the supreme power of love.
- God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
- I am fearless, powerful, and wise in God's love.
- "Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God."
- I love the Lord my God with all my heart, and with all my mind, and with all my soul, and with all my strength.
- "But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love."
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Preceding Entry: Christian Healing 119-129: 11. Judgment and Justice
Following Entry: Christian Healing 144-160: Study Helps and Questions
