Life of Prayer I - Lesson 6: Love

 

Segment #13 from Wings of Truth video.

Here are what five great Unity ministers have said about love. Consider the following points made in this video. What do they mean to you?

  1. God's nature is love itself (Jim).
  2. God has nothing other to do than to love you (Eric).
  3. As Truth students what we want to do is to wake up and live consciously from the understanding that we are spiritual beings ... that the heart of us is love (Sharon).
  4. Man is a creature of love and love is his true nature ... so we have an obligation to love everybody in the universal sense (Eric).
  5. Love is speaking, touching, helping, taking care, laughing, crying with people (James).
  6. People are in my life by divine plan (Dorothy).
  7. I am convinced that as we learn to accept who we are in personality and character then the Spirit of God begins to reveal itself through that (Sharon).
  8. Loving is its own reward ... like prayer, it is its own reason for being(James).

Reading:

  1. Love Harmonizes
  2. Casting Out Fear
  3. Spiritual Unfoldment Makes Man Master
  4. "Selah"
  5. (Supplementary) Christian Healing (Fillmore) Chapter 12
  6. (Supplementary) Jesus Christ Heals (Fillmore) Chapter 2
  7. (Supplementary) 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

1. Love As Harmonizeing Principle

  1. Love is the greatest harmonizing principle known to man (Revealing Word).
  2. The problem is how to get people to use love in adjusting their discords.
  3. Love is fundamental in every activity of life, not only in the spiritual and mental but in the physical as well.
  4. The universe was created out of love.
  5. What physicists call gravitation is one of the activities of love.
  6. Love is essential to soul growth. It is the binding power, the factor so necessary to strengthening or fortifying the soul. (Hate and antagonism are disintegrating, and they destroy rather than build.

2. Commandments Of Love

  1. When Jesus was asked by a crafty lawyer to name the greatest commandment He quickly answered that all the Law and the Prophets could be summarized thus: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the greatest commandment. And a second is like unto this. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments the whole law hangeth, and the prophets."
  2. These commandments are a challenge to all those who want to unfold spiritually. When our thoughts are established in love, a divine synchronization takes place. It is in a sense as if we are on the same wave length with Divine Mind. We are one with the love of God.
  3. We all try to follow the commandments on love. But we have thought of love to God in terms of something immense, something that we must encompass as a whole.

3. Love Is A Composite

  1. It is made up of attributes as Paul pointed out in 1 Corinthians. Love is the name of a great variety of little commomplace activities of everyday life. Let's work on these little activities one at a time.
  2. Are you patient and kind? Love suffers long and is kind.
  3. Are you envious? Love does not envy.
  4. Are you egotistical and proud? "Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up."
  5. Are you temperamental? Love "doth not behave itself unseemly."
  6. Are you grasping and selfish? Love "seeketh not its own."
  7. Do you give way easily to your temper? "Love is not provoked."
  8. Do you behold evil as real and agonize over the evils of the world? Love "taketh not account of evil."
  9. Do you rejoice when disaster overtakes evil persons and exclaim, "They got just what was coming to them"? Love rejoiceth not in unrighteousness, but rejoiceth with the truth."
  10. Do you patiently bear "the whips and scorns of time"? "Love beareth all things."
  11. Are you open-minded and receptive to good, whatever the source? "Love believeth all things."
  12. Do you anticipate the future with fear and forebodings? "Love hopeth all things."
  13. Do you believe with trust and confidence in eternal justice? "Love endureth all things."
  14. Paul says: "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge? and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. Now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love."

4. Perfect Love Casts Out Fear

  1. (Give illustration from life where love has overcome fear). The only remedy for the crosscurrents of fear is the restoration of peace and harmony of life by love.
  2. Overcoming fear: Helpful ideas used by others include
    1. the Prayer of Faith
    2. the Prayer for Protection
    3. the Golden Key idea of Emmet Fox
    4. beholding the Christ in another as suggested by Frank Whitney's poem-prayer "I behold the Christ in You"
    5. "I Am There" by James Dillet Freeman

5. Love As A Force

Whatever idea you use, remember that love is the greatest force in the world.

Love heals.
Love harmonizes.
Love is the greatest power.

6. Closing Meditation

  1. Let us now close this class with prayer as is our custom.
  2. When we pray, let us pray with a purpose. Purpose gives life a real meaning. Purpose gives joy and zest to living. When our eye is on a goal we are not so easily perturbed. Purpose awakens new trains of thought; purpose directs these trains of thought into new fields of achievement. Decide on your goal now.
  3. As we relax now in preparation for our time of meditation and prayer, think about God's love enfolding you as a warm cloak. Let's say together:

    DIVINE LOVE, LIKE A MAGNET, CHARGES MY MIND, PROSPERS MY AFFAIRS, HEALS AND BLESSES ME.