God As Love

Is there more than one Life? No. Life has different expressions to finite sense; but God is the one only Life. Life is real, and it is eternal. It cannot cease to be, or give place to death. If Life is a reality, death, being its opposite, must be an unreality. Nothing is real, in the spiritual sense, which is not eternal. Jesus demonstrated this Truth in raising the dead to Life, and in presenting himself in bodily form, after his enemies thought they had destroyed him. Let us eliminate death from our thoughts, it being the product of mortal mind, a dream from which we can only be awakened through the understanding of immortal Life and Truth.

We next consider God as Love, which if comprehended would be regarded as his crowning attribute. There is much in this phase of our life-experience which we call love that bears no relation to God as Love, it being a product or growth of sensitive pleasure, not an emanation of Divine Mind, from which cometh love that is real, true and without alloy. If we hope to enjoy God as Love, and experience a foreshadowing, even, of its blessedness, we must look away from sense to Soul. Only, from the standpoint of the real and eternal can we learn of God, who is perfect Love; and when understood begets perfect trust; which, when we have grown to realize, will destroy all fear, and enable us to claim the promise whereby we can heal the sick, and cast out devils,—error, in every case; a work we can only do in Christian Science in proportion as we advance in Love and Truth. When we attempt to apply God’s law of Love in our daily lives, we discern how verily we fail in complying with the precept whereby we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourself, do unto others as we would they should do unto us, love those who persecute and despitefully use us. We shrink from claiming such Christian graces; but it is a height we must and shall reach before we can enjoy the full fruition of Love.

We hear much about perfection in this phase of Life; but when the crucial test is applied, we find nothing which answers the claim except that in which we see the guiding hand of God. Love! what a word when measured from Soul; as good, as limitless, as eternal, as beautiful in thought as God, that which can only be measured by God! Thus we fail to comprehend Love in its verity, because we cannot fathom the source of Love. Only the still small voice of Truth and Love, made manifest to our consciousness through its silent action, can give us a foretaste even of its reality. What a theme to contemplate! We are lost in rapture as we try to consider God as Love.

But let us consider Love as expressed in the Only-begotten of the Father, Jesus the Christ, who took upon himself flesh whereby to manifest himself to the world; that whosoever believeth on him might not perish but have everlasting Life. God so loved the world that he gave to us Jesus, who toiled among men, was despised and rejected, became poor that we might be made rich in Life, Love, and Truth; was reviled, but reviled not again; suffered himself to be betrayed into the hands of his enemies, was brought before Pontius Pilate, as a lamb dumb before his shearers, yet opened he not his mouth; was crucified between two thieves,—all in obedience to that mighty law of Love. Had Love been other than Divine, no such history could ever have been written. There never was, nor ever will be on earth such a demonstration of it as was that of Jesus on Calvary. Well may we sing of his mighty Love. If we are enraptured by the little foretaste of Love which we are privileged to enjoy here, in our finite state, what will it be when we shall come to enjoy its full fruition in heaven; when mortality shall be overcome of Life, and we shall know as we are known? That will be Love without alloy, dissimulation, or discord. There, Harmony and Love will ever blend; so also will every other term by which God is expressed. Love! Oh precious Love! May it be forever our conscious possession.