Now I have all but finished. 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? It is for the greatest thing in the world. You might begin by reading it every day, especially the verses which describe the perfect character. “Love suffers long, and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself.” Get these ingredients into your life. Then everything that you do is eternal. It is worth doing. It is worth giving time to. No man can become a saint in his sleep. To fulfill the condition required, demands a certain amount of prayer and meditation and time, just as improvement in any direction, bodily or mentally, requires preparation and care. Address yourselves to that one thing; at any cost have this transcendent character exchanged for yours.
You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments that stand out, the moments when you have really lived, are the moments when you have done things in a spirit of love. As memory scans the past, above and beyond all the transitory pleasures of life, there leap forward those supreme hours when you have been enabled to do unnoticed kindnesses to those around you, things too trifling to speak about, but which you feel have entered into your eternal life. I have seen almost all the beautiful things God has made; I have enjoyed almost every pleasure that He has planned for man. And yet as I look back I see standing out above all the life that has gone, four or five short experience when the love of God reflected itself in some poor imitation, some small act of love of mine. Somehow these seem to be the things which alone of all one’s life abide. Everything else in all our lives is transitory. Every other good is visionary. But the acts of love which no man knows about, or can ever know about - they never fail.
In the Book of Matthew, where the Judgment Day is depicted for us in the imagery of One seated upon a throne and dividing the sheep from the goats, the test of a man then is not, “How have I believed?” but “How have I loved?” The test of religion, the final test of religion is not religiousness, but love, I say the final test of religion at that great Day is not religiousness, but love; not what I have done, not what I have believed, not what I have achieved, but how I have discharged the common charities of life. Sins of commission in that awful indictments are not even referred to. By what we have not done, by sins of omission, we are judged. It could not be otherwise. For the withholding of love is the negation of the Spirit of Christ, the proof that we never knew Him, that for us He lived in vain. It means that He suggested nothing in all our thoughts that He inspired nothing in all our lives that we were not once near enough to Him to be seized with the fervency of His compassion for the world. It means that:
I lived for myself, I thought for myself,
For myself, and none beside -
Just as if Jesus had never lived,
As if He had never died.
It is the Son of Man before whom the nations of the world shall be gathered. It is in the presence of Humanity that we shall be charged. And the spectacle itself, the mere sight of it, will silently judge each one. Those will be there whom we have met and helped: or there, the unpitied multitude whom we neglected or despised. No other witness need be summoned. No other charge than lovelessness shall be preferred.
Be not deceived. The words which all of us shall one day hear, sound not of theology but of life, not of churches and saints but of the hungry and the poor, not of creeds and doctrines but of shelter and clothing, not of Bibles and prayer books but of cups of cold water in the name of Christ. Thank God the Christianity of today is coming nearer the world’s need. Live to help that on. Thank God men know better, by a hairs’ breadth, what religion is, what God is, who Christ is, where Christ is.
Who is Christ? He who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited the sick. And where is Christ? Where? “Whoso shall receive a little child in My name receives me.” And who are Christ’s? “Every one that love is born of God.”
The Lord works from the inside out. The
World works from the outside in. The world
would take people out of the slums. Christ
takes the slums out of people, and then they
take themselves out of the slums. The world
would mold men by changing their
environment. Christ changes men, who then
change their environment. The world would
shape human behavior, but Christ can change
human nature. -EZRA TAFT BENSON
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Covey, Stephen R., “Principle-Centered Leadership”,
(1991) Simon and Schuster
Covey, Stephen R., “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”,
(1989) Simon and Schuster
Lee, Blaine, “The Power Principle: Influence with Honor”,
(1997) Simon and Schuster
Drummond, Henry, “The Greatest Thing in the World”,
(1981) Whitaker House
The Holy Bible, New King James Version,
(1982) Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Love Defended
Now I have a closing sentence or two to add about Paul’s reason for singling out love as the supreme possession.
It is a very remarkable reason: it lasts.
“Love,” urges Paul, “never failed.” Then he begins again one of his marvelous lists of the great things of the day, and exposes them one by one. He runs over the things that men thought were going to last, and shows that they are all fleeting, temporary, passing away.
“Whether there are prophecies, they will fail.” It was the mother’s ambition for her boy in those days that he should become a prophet. For hundreds of years God had never spoken by means of any prophet, and at that time the prophet was greater than the king. Men waited wistfully for another messenger to come, and hung upon his lips when he appeared as upon the very voice of God. Paul says, “Whether there are prophecies, they will fail.” The Bible is full of prophecies. One by one they have “failed”; that is, having been fulfilled their work is finished; they have nothing more to do now in the world except to feed a devout man’s faith.
Then Paul talks about tongues. That was another thing that was greatly coveted. “Whether there are tongues, they will cease.” As we all know, many, many centuries have passed since tongues have been known in this world. They have ceased.
Take it in any sense you like. Take it, for illustration merely, as languages in general - a sense which was not in Paul’s mind at all, and which though it cannot give us the specific lesson, will point the general truth. Consider the words in which these chapters were written –biblical Greek. It is gone from common use. Take Latin, the other great tongue of those days. It also ceased to be a common language long ago. Look at the Indian language. It is ceasing. The language of Wales, of Ireland, of the Scottish Highlands is dying before our eyes. The most popular book in the English tongue at the present time, except the Bible, is one of Dickens’ works, his Pickwick Papers. It is largely written in the language of London street-life; and experts assure us that in fifty years it will be unintelligible to the average English reader.
Then Paul goes farther, and with even greater boldness adds, “Whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.” The wisdom of the ancients, where is it? It is wholly gone. A schoolboy today knows more than Sir Isaac Newton knew; his knowledge has vanished away. You put yesterday’s newspaper in the fire; its knowledge has vanished away. You buy the old editions of the great encyclopedias for a few cents; their knowledge has vanished away. Look how the carriage has been superseded by the use of steam. Look how electricity has superseded that, and swept a hundred almost new inventions into oblivion. “Whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.” At every workshop you will see, a heap of old iron, a few wheels, a few levers, a few cranks, broken and eaten with rust. Twenty years ago that was the pride of the city. Men flocked in from the country to see the great invention; now it is superseded, its day is done. And all the boasted science and philosophy of this day will soon be old.
At the University of Edinburgh, in that time, the greatest figure in the faculty was Sir James Simpson, the discoverer of chloroform. Recently his successor and nephew, Professor Simpson, was asked by the librarian of the University to go to the library and pick out the books on his subject that were no longer needed. And his reply to the librarian was this: “Take every text-book that is more than ten years old, and put it down in the cellar.” Sir James Simpson was a great authority only a few years ago: men came from all parts of the earth to consult him; and almost the whole teaching of that time is consigned by the science of today to oblivion. And in every branch of science it is the same. “Now we know in part. We see through a glass darkly.”
Can you tell me anything that is going to last? Many things Paul did not condescend to name. He did not mention money, fortune, fame; but he picked out the great things of his time, the things the best men thought had something in them, and brushed them firmly aside. Paul had no charge against these things in themselves. All he said about them was that they would not last. They were great things, but not supreme things. There were things beyond them.
What we are stretches past what we do, beyond what we possess. Many things that men denounce as sins are not sins; but they are temporary. And that is a favorite argument of the New Testament. John says of the world, not that it is wrong, but simply that it “passes away.” There is a great deal in the world that is delightful and beautiful; there is a great deal in it that is great and engrossing; but it will not last. All that is in the world, the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, are but for a little while. Love not the world therefore. Nothing that it contains is worth the life and consecration of an immortal soul. The immortal soul must give itself to something that is immortal. And the only immortal things are these: “Now abide faith, hope, love, but the greatest of these is love.”
Some think the time may come when two of these three things will also pass away - faith into sight, hope into fruition. Paul does not say so. We know but little now about the conditions of the life that is to come. But what is certain is that love must last. God, the Eternal God, is love. Covet therefore that everlasting gift, that one thing which it is certain is going to stand, that one coinage which will be current in the Universe when all the other coinages of all the nations of the world shall be useless and unhonored. You will give yourselves to many things; give yourselves first to love. Hold things in their proportion. Hold things in their proportion. Let at least the first great object of our lives be to achieve the character defended in these words, the character - and it is the character of Christ - which is built around love.
I have said this thing is eternal. Did you ever notice how continually John associates love and faith with eternal life? I was not told when I was a boy that “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believe in Him should have everlasting life.” What I was told, I remember, was that God so loved the world that, if I trusted in Him, I was to have a thing called peace, or I was to have rest, or I was to have joy, or I was to have safety. But I had to find out for myself that whosoever trust in Him - that is, whosoever loves Him, for trust is only the avenue to love - had everlasting life.
The Gospel offers a man life. Never offer men a thimbleful of Gospel. Do not offer them merely joy, or merely peace, or merely rest, or merely safety. Tell them how Christ came to give men a more abundant life than they have. A life abundant in love, and therefore abundant in salvation for themselves and fulfillment of Christ’s great Commission to the world. Only then can the Gospel take hold of the whole of a man - body, soul, and spirit - and give to each part of his nature both its task and its reward.
Many of the current Gospels are addressed only to a part of man’s nature. They offer peace, not life; faith, not love; justification, not regeneration. And men slip back again from such religion because it has never really held them. Their nature was not all in it. It offered no deeper and more joyful life current than the life that was lived before. Surely it stands to reason that only a fuller love can compete with the love of the world.
To love abundantly is to live abundantly, and to love forever is to live forever. Hence, eternal life is inextricably bound up with love. We want to live forever for the same reason that we want to live tomorrow. Why do you want to live tomorrow? Is it because there is someone who loves you, and whom you want to see tomorrow, and be with, and love back? There is no other reason why we should live on than that we love and are loved. It is when a man has no one to love him that he commits suicide. So long as he has friends, those who love him and whom he loves, he will live; because to live is to love. Be it but the love of a dog, it will keep him in life; but let that go, he has no contact with life, no reason to live. He dies by his own hand.
Eternal life also is to know God, and God is love. This is Christ’s own definition. Ponder it. “This is life eternal, that they might know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you has sent.” Love must be eternal. It is what God is. On the last analysis, then, love is life. Love never fails, and life never fails, so long as there is love. That is the philosophy of what Paul is showing us; the reason why in the nature of things, love should be the supreme thing - because it is going to last; because in the nature of things it is part of Eternal Life. It is a thing that we are living now, not that we get when we die. We shall have a poor chance of getting when we die unless we are living now. No worse fate can befall a man in this world than to live and grow old alone, unloving, and unloved. To be lost is to live in an unregenerate condition, loveless and unloved; and to be saved is to love. He that dwells in love dwells already in God. For God is love.
It is a very remarkable reason: it lasts.
“Love,” urges Paul, “never failed.” Then he begins again one of his marvelous lists of the great things of the day, and exposes them one by one. He runs over the things that men thought were going to last, and shows that they are all fleeting, temporary, passing away.
“Whether there are prophecies, they will fail.” It was the mother’s ambition for her boy in those days that he should become a prophet. For hundreds of years God had never spoken by means of any prophet, and at that time the prophet was greater than the king. Men waited wistfully for another messenger to come, and hung upon his lips when he appeared as upon the very voice of God. Paul says, “Whether there are prophecies, they will fail.” The Bible is full of prophecies. One by one they have “failed”; that is, having been fulfilled their work is finished; they have nothing more to do now in the world except to feed a devout man’s faith.
Then Paul talks about tongues. That was another thing that was greatly coveted. “Whether there are tongues, they will cease.” As we all know, many, many centuries have passed since tongues have been known in this world. They have ceased.
Take it in any sense you like. Take it, for illustration merely, as languages in general - a sense which was not in Paul’s mind at all, and which though it cannot give us the specific lesson, will point the general truth. Consider the words in which these chapters were written –biblical Greek. It is gone from common use. Take Latin, the other great tongue of those days. It also ceased to be a common language long ago. Look at the Indian language. It is ceasing. The language of Wales, of Ireland, of the Scottish Highlands is dying before our eyes. The most popular book in the English tongue at the present time, except the Bible, is one of Dickens’ works, his Pickwick Papers. It is largely written in the language of London street-life; and experts assure us that in fifty years it will be unintelligible to the average English reader.
Then Paul goes farther, and with even greater boldness adds, “Whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.” The wisdom of the ancients, where is it? It is wholly gone. A schoolboy today knows more than Sir Isaac Newton knew; his knowledge has vanished away. You put yesterday’s newspaper in the fire; its knowledge has vanished away. You buy the old editions of the great encyclopedias for a few cents; their knowledge has vanished away. Look how the carriage has been superseded by the use of steam. Look how electricity has superseded that, and swept a hundred almost new inventions into oblivion. “Whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.” At every workshop you will see, a heap of old iron, a few wheels, a few levers, a few cranks, broken and eaten with rust. Twenty years ago that was the pride of the city. Men flocked in from the country to see the great invention; now it is superseded, its day is done. And all the boasted science and philosophy of this day will soon be old.
At the University of Edinburgh, in that time, the greatest figure in the faculty was Sir James Simpson, the discoverer of chloroform. Recently his successor and nephew, Professor Simpson, was asked by the librarian of the University to go to the library and pick out the books on his subject that were no longer needed. And his reply to the librarian was this: “Take every text-book that is more than ten years old, and put it down in the cellar.” Sir James Simpson was a great authority only a few years ago: men came from all parts of the earth to consult him; and almost the whole teaching of that time is consigned by the science of today to oblivion. And in every branch of science it is the same. “Now we know in part. We see through a glass darkly.”
Can you tell me anything that is going to last? Many things Paul did not condescend to name. He did not mention money, fortune, fame; but he picked out the great things of his time, the things the best men thought had something in them, and brushed them firmly aside. Paul had no charge against these things in themselves. All he said about them was that they would not last. They were great things, but not supreme things. There were things beyond them.
What we are stretches past what we do, beyond what we possess. Many things that men denounce as sins are not sins; but they are temporary. And that is a favorite argument of the New Testament. John says of the world, not that it is wrong, but simply that it “passes away.” There is a great deal in the world that is delightful and beautiful; there is a great deal in it that is great and engrossing; but it will not last. All that is in the world, the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, are but for a little while. Love not the world therefore. Nothing that it contains is worth the life and consecration of an immortal soul. The immortal soul must give itself to something that is immortal. And the only immortal things are these: “Now abide faith, hope, love, but the greatest of these is love.”
Some think the time may come when two of these three things will also pass away - faith into sight, hope into fruition. Paul does not say so. We know but little now about the conditions of the life that is to come. But what is certain is that love must last. God, the Eternal God, is love. Covet therefore that everlasting gift, that one thing which it is certain is going to stand, that one coinage which will be current in the Universe when all the other coinages of all the nations of the world shall be useless and unhonored. You will give yourselves to many things; give yourselves first to love. Hold things in their proportion. Hold things in their proportion. Let at least the first great object of our lives be to achieve the character defended in these words, the character - and it is the character of Christ - which is built around love.
I have said this thing is eternal. Did you ever notice how continually John associates love and faith with eternal life? I was not told when I was a boy that “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believe in Him should have everlasting life.” What I was told, I remember, was that God so loved the world that, if I trusted in Him, I was to have a thing called peace, or I was to have rest, or I was to have joy, or I was to have safety. But I had to find out for myself that whosoever trust in Him - that is, whosoever loves Him, for trust is only the avenue to love - had everlasting life.
The Gospel offers a man life. Never offer men a thimbleful of Gospel. Do not offer them merely joy, or merely peace, or merely rest, or merely safety. Tell them how Christ came to give men a more abundant life than they have. A life abundant in love, and therefore abundant in salvation for themselves and fulfillment of Christ’s great Commission to the world. Only then can the Gospel take hold of the whole of a man - body, soul, and spirit - and give to each part of his nature both its task and its reward.
Many of the current Gospels are addressed only to a part of man’s nature. They offer peace, not life; faith, not love; justification, not regeneration. And men slip back again from such religion because it has never really held them. Their nature was not all in it. It offered no deeper and more joyful life current than the life that was lived before. Surely it stands to reason that only a fuller love can compete with the love of the world.
To love abundantly is to live abundantly, and to love forever is to live forever. Hence, eternal life is inextricably bound up with love. We want to live forever for the same reason that we want to live tomorrow. Why do you want to live tomorrow? Is it because there is someone who loves you, and whom you want to see tomorrow, and be with, and love back? There is no other reason why we should live on than that we love and are loved. It is when a man has no one to love him that he commits suicide. So long as he has friends, those who love him and whom he loves, he will live; because to live is to love. Be it but the love of a dog, it will keep him in life; but let that go, he has no contact with life, no reason to live. He dies by his own hand.
Eternal life also is to know God, and God is love. This is Christ’s own definition. Ponder it. “This is life eternal, that they might know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you has sent.” Love must be eternal. It is what God is. On the last analysis, then, love is life. Love never fails, and life never fails, so long as there is love. That is the philosophy of what Paul is showing us; the reason why in the nature of things, love should be the supreme thing - because it is going to last; because in the nature of things it is part of Eternal Life. It is a thing that we are living now, not that we get when we die. We shall have a poor chance of getting when we die unless we are living now. No worse fate can befall a man in this world than to live and grow old alone, unloving, and unloved. To be lost is to live in an unregenerate condition, loveless and unloved; and to be saved is to love. He that dwells in love dwells already in God. For God is love.
Love Analyzed
After contrasting love with these things, Paul, in three very short verses, gives us an amazing analysis of what this supreme gift is.
I ask you to look at it. It is a compound thing, he tells us. It is like light. You have seen a man of science take a beam of light and pass it through a crystal prism, and you have seen it come out on the other side of the prism broken up into its component colors - red, blue, yellow, violet, orange, and all the colors of the rainbow. In the same way, Paul passes this virtue – love - through the magnificent prism of his inspired intellect, and it comes out on the other side broken up into its elements.
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, which can be practice by every man in every place of life? It is by a multitude of small things and ordinary virtues that the supreme gift of love is made up. The spectrum of love has nine ingredients:
Patience …….. Love suffers long.
Kindness ……. And is kind.
Generosity…… Love does not envy.
Humility ….. Love does not parade itself, is not puffed up.
Courtesy …… Does not behave rudely.
Unselfishness … Seek not its own.
Good temper … Is not provoked.
Guilelessness .. Thinks no evil.
Sincerity ….. Rejoices not in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth.
Patience, kindness, generosity, humility, courtesy, unselfishness, good temper, guilelessness, sincerity - these make up the supreme gift, the stature of the perfect man.
You will observe that all are in relation to men, in relation to life, in relation to the known today and the near tomorrow, and not to the unknown eternity. We hear much of love to God; Christ spoke much of love to man. We make a great deal of peace with heaven; Christ made much of peace on earth. Religion is not a strange or added thing, but the inspiration of the secular life, the breathing of an eternal spirit through this temporal world. The supreme thing, in short, is not a thing at all. It is the ultimate purpose of the many words and acts which make up the sum of every common day.
Patience. This is the normal attitude of love; love passive, love waiting to begin, not in a hurry, calm, ready to do its work when the summons comes, but meantime wearing the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit. Love suffers long, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things. For love understands, and therefore waits.
Kindness. Love active. Have you ever noticed how much of Christ’s life was spent in doing kind things - in merely doing kind things? Review His life with that in view, and you will find that He spent a great proportion of His time simply in making people happy, in doing good turns to people. There is only one thing greater than happiness in the world, and that is holiness. Holiness is not in our keeping, but what God has put in our power is the happiness of those about us, and that is largely to be secured by our being kind to them.
“The greatest thing”, says someone, “a man can do for his Heavenly Father is to be kind to some of His other children.” I wonder why it is that we are not all kinder than we are? How much the world needs it! How easily it is done! How instantaneously it acts! How infallibly it is remembered. How superabundantly it pays itself back - for there is no debtor in the world so honorable, so superbly honorable, as love. “Love never fails.” Love is success, love is happiness, love is life. “Love,” I say with Browning, “is energy of life.”
For life, with all its yields of joy or woe
And hope and fear,
Is just our chance o’the prize of learning love, --
How love might be, had been indeed, and is.
Where love is, God is. He that dwells in love dwells in God. God is love. Therefore love. Without distinction, without calculation, without procrastination, love. Lavish it upon the poor, where it is very easy; especially upon the rich, who often need it most; most of all upon our equals, where it is very difficult, and for whom perhaps we each do least of all. There is a difference between trying to please and giving pleasure. Give pleasure. Lose no chance of giving pleasure, for that is the ceaseless and anonymous triumph of a truly loving spirit. “I shall pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”
Generosity. “Love does not envy.” This is love in competition with others. Whenever you attempt a good work you will find other men doing the same kind of work, and probably doing it better. Envy them not. Envy is a feeling of ill-will to those who are in the same line as ourselves, a spirit of covetousness and detraction. Christian work is little protection against unchristian feeling! Envy, that most despicable of all the unworthy moods which cloud a Christian’s soul, assuredly waits for us on the threshold of every work, unless we are fortified with this grace of magnanimity. Only one thing truly need the Christian envy - the large, rich, generous soul which “envy not.”
Humility. And then, after having learned all that, you have to learn this further thing, humility - to put a seal upon your lips and forget what you have done. After you have been kind, after love has stolen forth into the world and done its beautiful work, go back into the shade again and say nothing about it. Love hides even from itself. Love waives even self-satisfaction. “Love does not parade itself, is not puffed up.” Humility – love hiding.
Courtesy. The fifth ingredient is a somewhat strange one to find in this supreme gift: courtesy. This is love in society, love in relation to etiquette. “Love does not behave rudely.”
Politeness has been defined as love in trifles. Courtesy is said to be love in little things. And the one secret of politeness is to love.
Love cannot behave rudely. You can put the most untutored persons into the highest society, and if they have a reservoir of love in their hearts they will not behave rudely. They simply cannot do it. Carlisle said of Robert Burns that there was no truer gentleman in Europe than the ploughman poet. It was because he loved everything - the mouse, and the daisy and all the things, great and small, that God had made. So with this simple passport he could mingle with any society and enter courts and palaces from his little cottage on the banks of the Ayr.
You know the meaning of the word “gentleman.” It means a gentle man – a man who does things gently, with love. This is the whole art and mystery of it. The gentle man cannot in the nature of things do an ungentle, and ungentlemanly thing. The ungentle soul, the inconsiderate, unsympathetic nature cannot do anything else. “Love does not behave rudely.”
Unselfishness. “Love seeks not her own.” Observe: Seeks not even that which is her own. In Britain the Englishman is devoted, and rightly, to his rights. But there comes a time when a man may exercise even the higher right of giving up his rights.
Yet Paul does not summon us to give up our rights. Love strikes much deeper. It would have us not seek them at all, ignore them, eliminate the personal element altogether from our calculations.
It is not hard to give up our rights. They are often external. The difficult thing is to give up ourselves. The more difficult thing still is not to seek things for ourselves at all. After we have sought them, bought them, won them, deserved them, we have taken the cream off them for ourselves already. It is a small cross to give them up then. But not to seek them at all, for every man to look not on his own things, but on the things of others – that is the difficulty. “Seek you great things for yourself?” said the prophet; “seek them not.” Why? Because there is no greatness in things. Things cannot be great.
The only greatness is unselfish love. Even self-denial in itself is nothing, is almost a mistake. Only a great purpose or a mightier love can justify the waste.
It is more difficult, I have said, not to seek our own at all than having sought it, to give it up. I must take that back. It is only true of a partly selfish heart. Nothing is a hardship to love, and nothing is hard. I believe that Christ’s “yoke” is easy. Christ’s yoke is just His way of taking life. And I believe it is an easier way than any other. I believe it is a happier way than any other. The most obvious lesson in Christ’s teaching is that there is no happiness in having and getting anything, but only in giving. I repeat, there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Half the world is on the wrong scent in the pursuit of happiness. They think it consists in having and getting, and in being served by others. It really consists in giving and in serving others. “He” that would be great among you,” said Christ, “let him serve.” He that would be happy, let him remember that there is but one way – “It is more blessed, it is more happy, to give than to receive.”
Good temper. The next ingredient is a very remarkable one: “love is not provoked.” Nothing could be more striking than to find this here. We are inclined to look upon bad temper as a very harmless weakness. We speak of it as a mere infirmity of nature, a family failing, a matter of temperament, not a thing to take into very serious account in estimating a man’s character. And yet here, right in the heart of this analysis of love, it finds a place; and the Bible again and again returns to condemn it as one of the most destructive elements in human nature.
The peculiarity of ill temper is that it is the vice of the virtuous. It is often the one blot on an otherwise noble character. You know men who are all but perfect, and women who would be entirely perfect, but for an easily ruffled, quick-tempered, or “touchy” disposition. This compatibility of ill temper with high moral character is one of the strangest and saddest problems of ethics.
The truth is, there are two great classes of sins- sins of the body, and sins of the disposition. The Prodigal Son may be taken as a type of the first, the Elder Brother of the second. Now, society has no doubt whatever as to which of these is the worse. Its brand falls, without a challenge, upon the Prodigal. But are we right? We have no balance to weigh one another’s sins, and coarser and finer are but human words. But faults in the higher nature may be more serious than those in the lower. And to the eye of Him who is love, a sin against love may seem a hundred times more base. No form of vice, not worldliness, not greed of gold, not drunkenness itself, does more to unchristianize society than evil temper. For embittering life, for breaking up communities, for destroying the most sacred relationships, for devastating homes, for withering up men and women, for taking the bloom of childhood, in short, for sheer gratuitous misery-producing power, this influence stands alone.
Look at the Elder Brother - moral, hard-working, patient, dutiful - let him get all credit for his virtues - look at this man, this baby, sulking outside his own father’s door. “He was angry,” we read, “and would not go in.” Look at the effect upon the father, upon the servants, upon the happiness of the guests. Judge of the effect upon the Prodigal - and how many prodigals are kept out of the kingdom of God by the unlovely character of those who profess to be inside. Analyze, as a study in temper, the thunder-cloud itself as it gathers upon the Elder Brother’s brow. What is it made of? Jealousy, anger, pride, uncharity, cruelty, self-righteousness, touchiness, doggedness, sullenness - these are the ingredients of this dark and loveless soul. In varying proportions, also, these are the ingredients of all ill temper. Judge if such sins of the disposition are not worse to live in, and for others to live with, than sins of the body. Did Christ indeed not answer the question Himself when He said, “I say unto you that the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of god before you.” There is really no place in heaven for a disposition like this. A man with such a mood could only make heaven miserable for all the people in it. Except, therefore, such a man be born again, he cannot, simply cannot, enter the kingdom of heaven.
You will see then why temper is significant. It is not in what it is alone, but in what it reveals. This is why I speak of it with such unusual plainness. It is a test for love, a symptom, a revelation of an unloving nature at bottom. It is the intermittent fever which bespeaks unintermittent disease within; the occasional bubble escaping to the surface which betrays some rottenness underneath; a sample of the most hidden products of the soul dropped involuntarily when off one’s guard; in a word, the lightning form of a hundred hideous and unchristian sins. A want of patience, a want of kindness, a want of generosity, a want of courtesy, a want of unselfishness, are all instantaneously symbolized in one flash of temper. Hence it is not enough to deal with the temper. We must go to the source, and change the inmost nature, and the angry humors will die away of themselves. Souls are made sweet not by taking the acid fluids out, but by putting something in - a great love, a new spirit, the Spirit of Christ. Christ, the Spirit of Christ, interpenetrating our spirit, sweetens, transforms all. This only can eradicate what is wrong, work a chemical change, renovate and regenerate, and rehabilitate the inner man. Willpower does not change men. Time does not change men. Christ does. Therefore, “Let that mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”
Some of us haven’t much time to lose. Remember, once more, that this is a matter of life or death. I cannot help speaking urgently for myself, for yourselves. “Whoso shall offend one of these little ones, which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” That is to say, it is the deliberate verdict of the Lord Jesus that it is better not to live than not to love. It is better not to live than not to love.
Guilelessness and Sincerity may be dismissed almost with a word. Guilelessness is the grace for suspicious people. The possession of it is the great secret of personal influence.
You will find, if you think for a moment, that the people who in- fluence you are people who believe in you. In an atmosphere of suspicion men shrivel up, but in a trusting atmosphere they expand, and find encouragement and educative fellowship.
It is a wonderful thing that here and there in this hard, uncharitable world there should still be left a few rare souls who think no evil. This is the great unworldliness. Love “thinks no evil,” imputes no motive, sees the bright side, puts the best construction on every action. What a delightful state of mind to live in! What a stimulus and benediction even to meet with it for a day! And if we try to influence or elevate others, we shall soon see that our endeavor is successful in proportion to their belief of our belief in them. To respect a man is the first restoration of the self-respect he has lost; our ideal of what he is becomes to him the hope and pattern of what he may become.
“Love rejoices not in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth.” I have called this sincerity, from the words rendered in the Authorized Version by “rejoices in the truth.” And, certainly, were this the real translation, nothing could be more just, for he who loves will love truth not less than men. He will rejoice in the truth - rejoice not in what he has been taught to believe, not in this Church’s doctrine or in that, not in this ism or in that ism, but “in the truth.” He will accept only what is real; he will strive to get at facts; he will search for truth with a humble and unbiased mind, and cherish whatever he finds at any sacrifice. But in these verse the more literal translation of the Revised Version calls for just such a sacrifice for truth’s sake. For, as we read it there what Paul really meant is, “Rejoices not in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth,” a quality which probably no one English word--and certainly not “sincerity”--adequately defines. It includes, perhaps more strictly, the self-restraint which refuses to make capital out of other’s faults; the charity which delights not in exposing the weakness of others, but “covers all things”; the sincerity of purpose which endeavors to see things as they are, and rejoices to find them better than suspicion feared or gossip denounced.
So much for the analysis of love. Now the business of our lives is to have these things fitted into our characters. That is the supreme work to which we need to address ourselves in this world, to learn love. Is life not full of opportunities for learning love? Every man and woman every day has a thousand of them. The world is not a playground; it is a schoolroom. Life is not a holiday, but an education. And the one eternal lesson for us all is how we can “love better.”
What makes a man a good athlete? Practice. What makes a man a good artist, a good sculptor, a good musician? Practice. What makes a man a good linguist, a good stenographer? Practice. What makes a man a good man? Practice. Nothing else. There is nothing capricious about religion. We do not get the soul in different ways, under different laws, from those in which we get the body and the mind. If a man does not exercise his arm, he develops no biceps muscle; and if a man does not exercise his soul, he acquires no muscle in his soul, no strength of character, no vigor of moral fiber, nor beauty of spiritual growth. Love is not a thing of enthusiastic emotion. It is a rich, strong, manly, vigorous expression of the whole round Christian character --- the Christ like nature in its fullest development. And the constituents of this great character are only to be built up by ceaseless practice.
What was Christ doing in the carpenter’s shop? Practicing. Though perfect, we read that He learned obedience, and grow in wisdom and in favor with God. Do not quarrel, therefore, with your lot in life. Do not complain of its never-ceasing cares, its petty environment, the vexations you have to stand, the small and sordid souls you have to live and work with. Above all, do not resent temptation; do not be perplexed because it seems to thicken round you more and more, and ceases neither for effort nor for agony nor prayer. That is your practice. That is the practice to which God appoints you; and it is having its work in making you patient, humble, generous, unselfish, kind, and courteous. Do not begrudged the hand that is molding the still too shapeless image within you. It is growing more beautiful, though you do not see it, and every touch of temptation may add to its perfection.
Therefore keep in the midst of life. Do not isolate yourself. Be among men and among things, among troubles, difficulties, and obstacles. You remember Goethe’s words: “Talent develops itself in solitude, character in the stream of life.” Talent develops itself in solitude, the talent of prayer, of faith, of meditation, of seeing the unseen; character grows in the stream of the world’s life. That chiefly is where men are to learn love.
How? To make it easier, I have named a few of the elements of love. But these are only elements. Love itself can never be defined. Light is something more than the sum of its ingredients – glowing, dazzling, tremulous ether. And love is something more than all its elements --a palpitating, quivering, sensitive, living thing. By synthesis of all the colors, men can make whiteness; they cannot make light. By synthesis of all the virtues, men can make virtue, they cannot create love. How then are we to have this transcendent living whole conveyed into our souls? We brace our wills to secure it. We try to copy those who have it. We lay down rules about it. We watch. We pray. But these things alone will not bring love into our nature. Love is an effect. And only as we fulfill the right condition can we have the effect produced. Shall I tell you what the cause is?
If you turn to the Revised Version of the First Epistle of John you will find these words: “We love, because He first loved us.” “We love,” not “We love Him.” The latter is the way the old Version has it, and it is quite wrong. “We love -- because He first loved us.” Look at that word “because.” It is the cause of which I have spoken. “Because He first loved us,” the effect follows that we love, we love Him, we love all men. We cannot help it. Because He loved us, we love, we love everybody. Our heart is slowly changed.
Contemplate the love of Christ, and you will love. Stand before that mirror, reflect Christ’s character, and you will be changed into the same image from tenderness to tenderness. There is no other way. You cannot love to order. You can only look at the lovely object, and fall in love with it, and grow into likeness to it. And so look at this Perfect Character, this Perfect Life. Look at the great Sacrifice as He laid Himself down, all through life, and upon the Cross of Calvary, and you must love Him. And loving Him, you most become like Him. Love begets love. It is a process of induction. Put a piece of iron in the presence of an electrified object, and that piece of iron for a time becomes electrified. It is changed into a temporary magnet in the mere presence of a permanent magnet, and as long as you leave the two side by side, they are both magnets alike. Remain side by side with Him who loved us, and gave Himself for us, and you, too, will become a permanent magnet, a permanently attractive force. And like Him you will draw all men unto you, like Him you will be drawn unto all men. That is the inevitable effect of love. Any man who fulfills that cause must have that effect produced in him.
Try to give up the idea that religion comes to us by chance, or by mystery. It comes to us by natural law, or by supernatural law, for all law is Divine.
Edward Irving went to see a dying boy once, and when he entered the room he just put his hand on the sufferer’s head, and said, “My boy, God loves you,” and went away. And the boy started from his bed, and called out to the people in the house,
“God loves me! God loves me!”
One word! It changed that boy. The sense that God loved him overpowered him, melted him down, and began the creating of a new heart in him. And that is how the love of God melts down the unlovely heart in man, and begets in him the new creature, who is patient and humble and gentle and unselfish. And there is no other way to get it. There is no mystery about it. We love others, we love everybody, we love our enemies, because He first loved us.
I ask you to look at it. It is a compound thing, he tells us. It is like light. You have seen a man of science take a beam of light and pass it through a crystal prism, and you have seen it come out on the other side of the prism broken up into its component colors - red, blue, yellow, violet, orange, and all the colors of the rainbow. In the same way, Paul passes this virtue – love - through the magnificent prism of his inspired intellect, and it comes out on the other side broken up into its elements.
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, which can be practice by every man in every place of life? It is by a multitude of small things and ordinary virtues that the supreme gift of love is made up. The spectrum of love has nine ingredients:
Patience …….. Love suffers long.
Kindness ……. And is kind.
Generosity…… Love does not envy.
Humility ….. Love does not parade itself, is not puffed up.
Courtesy …… Does not behave rudely.
Unselfishness … Seek not its own.
Good temper … Is not provoked.
Guilelessness .. Thinks no evil.
Sincerity ….. Rejoices not in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth.
Patience, kindness, generosity, humility, courtesy, unselfishness, good temper, guilelessness, sincerity - these make up the supreme gift, the stature of the perfect man.
You will observe that all are in relation to men, in relation to life, in relation to the known today and the near tomorrow, and not to the unknown eternity. We hear much of love to God; Christ spoke much of love to man. We make a great deal of peace with heaven; Christ made much of peace on earth. Religion is not a strange or added thing, but the inspiration of the secular life, the breathing of an eternal spirit through this temporal world. The supreme thing, in short, is not a thing at all. It is the ultimate purpose of the many words and acts which make up the sum of every common day.
Patience. This is the normal attitude of love; love passive, love waiting to begin, not in a hurry, calm, ready to do its work when the summons comes, but meantime wearing the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit. Love suffers long, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things. For love understands, and therefore waits.
Kindness. Love active. Have you ever noticed how much of Christ’s life was spent in doing kind things - in merely doing kind things? Review His life with that in view, and you will find that He spent a great proportion of His time simply in making people happy, in doing good turns to people. There is only one thing greater than happiness in the world, and that is holiness. Holiness is not in our keeping, but what God has put in our power is the happiness of those about us, and that is largely to be secured by our being kind to them.
“The greatest thing”, says someone, “a man can do for his Heavenly Father is to be kind to some of His other children.” I wonder why it is that we are not all kinder than we are? How much the world needs it! How easily it is done! How instantaneously it acts! How infallibly it is remembered. How superabundantly it pays itself back - for there is no debtor in the world so honorable, so superbly honorable, as love. “Love never fails.” Love is success, love is happiness, love is life. “Love,” I say with Browning, “is energy of life.”
For life, with all its yields of joy or woe
And hope and fear,
Is just our chance o’the prize of learning love, --
How love might be, had been indeed, and is.
Where love is, God is. He that dwells in love dwells in God. God is love. Therefore love. Without distinction, without calculation, without procrastination, love. Lavish it upon the poor, where it is very easy; especially upon the rich, who often need it most; most of all upon our equals, where it is very difficult, and for whom perhaps we each do least of all. There is a difference between trying to please and giving pleasure. Give pleasure. Lose no chance of giving pleasure, for that is the ceaseless and anonymous triumph of a truly loving spirit. “I shall pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”
Generosity. “Love does not envy.” This is love in competition with others. Whenever you attempt a good work you will find other men doing the same kind of work, and probably doing it better. Envy them not. Envy is a feeling of ill-will to those who are in the same line as ourselves, a spirit of covetousness and detraction. Christian work is little protection against unchristian feeling! Envy, that most despicable of all the unworthy moods which cloud a Christian’s soul, assuredly waits for us on the threshold of every work, unless we are fortified with this grace of magnanimity. Only one thing truly need the Christian envy - the large, rich, generous soul which “envy not.”
Humility. And then, after having learned all that, you have to learn this further thing, humility - to put a seal upon your lips and forget what you have done. After you have been kind, after love has stolen forth into the world and done its beautiful work, go back into the shade again and say nothing about it. Love hides even from itself. Love waives even self-satisfaction. “Love does not parade itself, is not puffed up.” Humility – love hiding.
Courtesy. The fifth ingredient is a somewhat strange one to find in this supreme gift: courtesy. This is love in society, love in relation to etiquette. “Love does not behave rudely.”
Politeness has been defined as love in trifles. Courtesy is said to be love in little things. And the one secret of politeness is to love.
Love cannot behave rudely. You can put the most untutored persons into the highest society, and if they have a reservoir of love in their hearts they will not behave rudely. They simply cannot do it. Carlisle said of Robert Burns that there was no truer gentleman in Europe than the ploughman poet. It was because he loved everything - the mouse, and the daisy and all the things, great and small, that God had made. So with this simple passport he could mingle with any society and enter courts and palaces from his little cottage on the banks of the Ayr.
You know the meaning of the word “gentleman.” It means a gentle man – a man who does things gently, with love. This is the whole art and mystery of it. The gentle man cannot in the nature of things do an ungentle, and ungentlemanly thing. The ungentle soul, the inconsiderate, unsympathetic nature cannot do anything else. “Love does not behave rudely.”
Unselfishness. “Love seeks not her own.” Observe: Seeks not even that which is her own. In Britain the Englishman is devoted, and rightly, to his rights. But there comes a time when a man may exercise even the higher right of giving up his rights.
Yet Paul does not summon us to give up our rights. Love strikes much deeper. It would have us not seek them at all, ignore them, eliminate the personal element altogether from our calculations.
It is not hard to give up our rights. They are often external. The difficult thing is to give up ourselves. The more difficult thing still is not to seek things for ourselves at all. After we have sought them, bought them, won them, deserved them, we have taken the cream off them for ourselves already. It is a small cross to give them up then. But not to seek them at all, for every man to look not on his own things, but on the things of others – that is the difficulty. “Seek you great things for yourself?” said the prophet; “seek them not.” Why? Because there is no greatness in things. Things cannot be great.
The only greatness is unselfish love. Even self-denial in itself is nothing, is almost a mistake. Only a great purpose or a mightier love can justify the waste.
It is more difficult, I have said, not to seek our own at all than having sought it, to give it up. I must take that back. It is only true of a partly selfish heart. Nothing is a hardship to love, and nothing is hard. I believe that Christ’s “yoke” is easy. Christ’s yoke is just His way of taking life. And I believe it is an easier way than any other. I believe it is a happier way than any other. The most obvious lesson in Christ’s teaching is that there is no happiness in having and getting anything, but only in giving. I repeat, there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Half the world is on the wrong scent in the pursuit of happiness. They think it consists in having and getting, and in being served by others. It really consists in giving and in serving others. “He” that would be great among you,” said Christ, “let him serve.” He that would be happy, let him remember that there is but one way – “It is more blessed, it is more happy, to give than to receive.”
Good temper. The next ingredient is a very remarkable one: “love is not provoked.” Nothing could be more striking than to find this here. We are inclined to look upon bad temper as a very harmless weakness. We speak of it as a mere infirmity of nature, a family failing, a matter of temperament, not a thing to take into very serious account in estimating a man’s character. And yet here, right in the heart of this analysis of love, it finds a place; and the Bible again and again returns to condemn it as one of the most destructive elements in human nature.
The peculiarity of ill temper is that it is the vice of the virtuous. It is often the one blot on an otherwise noble character. You know men who are all but perfect, and women who would be entirely perfect, but for an easily ruffled, quick-tempered, or “touchy” disposition. This compatibility of ill temper with high moral character is one of the strangest and saddest problems of ethics.
The truth is, there are two great classes of sins- sins of the body, and sins of the disposition. The Prodigal Son may be taken as a type of the first, the Elder Brother of the second. Now, society has no doubt whatever as to which of these is the worse. Its brand falls, without a challenge, upon the Prodigal. But are we right? We have no balance to weigh one another’s sins, and coarser and finer are but human words. But faults in the higher nature may be more serious than those in the lower. And to the eye of Him who is love, a sin against love may seem a hundred times more base. No form of vice, not worldliness, not greed of gold, not drunkenness itself, does more to unchristianize society than evil temper. For embittering life, for breaking up communities, for destroying the most sacred relationships, for devastating homes, for withering up men and women, for taking the bloom of childhood, in short, for sheer gratuitous misery-producing power, this influence stands alone.
Look at the Elder Brother - moral, hard-working, patient, dutiful - let him get all credit for his virtues - look at this man, this baby, sulking outside his own father’s door. “He was angry,” we read, “and would not go in.” Look at the effect upon the father, upon the servants, upon the happiness of the guests. Judge of the effect upon the Prodigal - and how many prodigals are kept out of the kingdom of God by the unlovely character of those who profess to be inside. Analyze, as a study in temper, the thunder-cloud itself as it gathers upon the Elder Brother’s brow. What is it made of? Jealousy, anger, pride, uncharity, cruelty, self-righteousness, touchiness, doggedness, sullenness - these are the ingredients of this dark and loveless soul. In varying proportions, also, these are the ingredients of all ill temper. Judge if such sins of the disposition are not worse to live in, and for others to live with, than sins of the body. Did Christ indeed not answer the question Himself when He said, “I say unto you that the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of god before you.” There is really no place in heaven for a disposition like this. A man with such a mood could only make heaven miserable for all the people in it. Except, therefore, such a man be born again, he cannot, simply cannot, enter the kingdom of heaven.
You will see then why temper is significant. It is not in what it is alone, but in what it reveals. This is why I speak of it with such unusual plainness. It is a test for love, a symptom, a revelation of an unloving nature at bottom. It is the intermittent fever which bespeaks unintermittent disease within; the occasional bubble escaping to the surface which betrays some rottenness underneath; a sample of the most hidden products of the soul dropped involuntarily when off one’s guard; in a word, the lightning form of a hundred hideous and unchristian sins. A want of patience, a want of kindness, a want of generosity, a want of courtesy, a want of unselfishness, are all instantaneously symbolized in one flash of temper. Hence it is not enough to deal with the temper. We must go to the source, and change the inmost nature, and the angry humors will die away of themselves. Souls are made sweet not by taking the acid fluids out, but by putting something in - a great love, a new spirit, the Spirit of Christ. Christ, the Spirit of Christ, interpenetrating our spirit, sweetens, transforms all. This only can eradicate what is wrong, work a chemical change, renovate and regenerate, and rehabilitate the inner man. Willpower does not change men. Time does not change men. Christ does. Therefore, “Let that mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”
Some of us haven’t much time to lose. Remember, once more, that this is a matter of life or death. I cannot help speaking urgently for myself, for yourselves. “Whoso shall offend one of these little ones, which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” That is to say, it is the deliberate verdict of the Lord Jesus that it is better not to live than not to love. It is better not to live than not to love.
Guilelessness and Sincerity may be dismissed almost with a word. Guilelessness is the grace for suspicious people. The possession of it is the great secret of personal influence.
You will find, if you think for a moment, that the people who in- fluence you are people who believe in you. In an atmosphere of suspicion men shrivel up, but in a trusting atmosphere they expand, and find encouragement and educative fellowship.
It is a wonderful thing that here and there in this hard, uncharitable world there should still be left a few rare souls who think no evil. This is the great unworldliness. Love “thinks no evil,” imputes no motive, sees the bright side, puts the best construction on every action. What a delightful state of mind to live in! What a stimulus and benediction even to meet with it for a day! And if we try to influence or elevate others, we shall soon see that our endeavor is successful in proportion to their belief of our belief in them. To respect a man is the first restoration of the self-respect he has lost; our ideal of what he is becomes to him the hope and pattern of what he may become.
“Love rejoices not in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth.” I have called this sincerity, from the words rendered in the Authorized Version by “rejoices in the truth.” And, certainly, were this the real translation, nothing could be more just, for he who loves will love truth not less than men. He will rejoice in the truth - rejoice not in what he has been taught to believe, not in this Church’s doctrine or in that, not in this ism or in that ism, but “in the truth.” He will accept only what is real; he will strive to get at facts; he will search for truth with a humble and unbiased mind, and cherish whatever he finds at any sacrifice. But in these verse the more literal translation of the Revised Version calls for just such a sacrifice for truth’s sake. For, as we read it there what Paul really meant is, “Rejoices not in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth,” a quality which probably no one English word--and certainly not “sincerity”--adequately defines. It includes, perhaps more strictly, the self-restraint which refuses to make capital out of other’s faults; the charity which delights not in exposing the weakness of others, but “covers all things”; the sincerity of purpose which endeavors to see things as they are, and rejoices to find them better than suspicion feared or gossip denounced.
So much for the analysis of love. Now the business of our lives is to have these things fitted into our characters. That is the supreme work to which we need to address ourselves in this world, to learn love. Is life not full of opportunities for learning love? Every man and woman every day has a thousand of them. The world is not a playground; it is a schoolroom. Life is not a holiday, but an education. And the one eternal lesson for us all is how we can “love better.”
What makes a man a good athlete? Practice. What makes a man a good artist, a good sculptor, a good musician? Practice. What makes a man a good linguist, a good stenographer? Practice. What makes a man a good man? Practice. Nothing else. There is nothing capricious about religion. We do not get the soul in different ways, under different laws, from those in which we get the body and the mind. If a man does not exercise his arm, he develops no biceps muscle; and if a man does not exercise his soul, he acquires no muscle in his soul, no strength of character, no vigor of moral fiber, nor beauty of spiritual growth. Love is not a thing of enthusiastic emotion. It is a rich, strong, manly, vigorous expression of the whole round Christian character --- the Christ like nature in its fullest development. And the constituents of this great character are only to be built up by ceaseless practice.
What was Christ doing in the carpenter’s shop? Practicing. Though perfect, we read that He learned obedience, and grow in wisdom and in favor with God. Do not quarrel, therefore, with your lot in life. Do not complain of its never-ceasing cares, its petty environment, the vexations you have to stand, the small and sordid souls you have to live and work with. Above all, do not resent temptation; do not be perplexed because it seems to thicken round you more and more, and ceases neither for effort nor for agony nor prayer. That is your practice. That is the practice to which God appoints you; and it is having its work in making you patient, humble, generous, unselfish, kind, and courteous. Do not begrudged the hand that is molding the still too shapeless image within you. It is growing more beautiful, though you do not see it, and every touch of temptation may add to its perfection.
Therefore keep in the midst of life. Do not isolate yourself. Be among men and among things, among troubles, difficulties, and obstacles. You remember Goethe’s words: “Talent develops itself in solitude, character in the stream of life.” Talent develops itself in solitude, the talent of prayer, of faith, of meditation, of seeing the unseen; character grows in the stream of the world’s life. That chiefly is where men are to learn love.
How? To make it easier, I have named a few of the elements of love. But these are only elements. Love itself can never be defined. Light is something more than the sum of its ingredients – glowing, dazzling, tremulous ether. And love is something more than all its elements --a palpitating, quivering, sensitive, living thing. By synthesis of all the colors, men can make whiteness; they cannot make light. By synthesis of all the virtues, men can make virtue, they cannot create love. How then are we to have this transcendent living whole conveyed into our souls? We brace our wills to secure it. We try to copy those who have it. We lay down rules about it. We watch. We pray. But these things alone will not bring love into our nature. Love is an effect. And only as we fulfill the right condition can we have the effect produced. Shall I tell you what the cause is?
If you turn to the Revised Version of the First Epistle of John you will find these words: “We love, because He first loved us.” “We love,” not “We love Him.” The latter is the way the old Version has it, and it is quite wrong. “We love -- because He first loved us.” Look at that word “because.” It is the cause of which I have spoken. “Because He first loved us,” the effect follows that we love, we love Him, we love all men. We cannot help it. Because He loved us, we love, we love everybody. Our heart is slowly changed.
Contemplate the love of Christ, and you will love. Stand before that mirror, reflect Christ’s character, and you will be changed into the same image from tenderness to tenderness. There is no other way. You cannot love to order. You can only look at the lovely object, and fall in love with it, and grow into likeness to it. And so look at this Perfect Character, this Perfect Life. Look at the great Sacrifice as He laid Himself down, all through life, and upon the Cross of Calvary, and you must love Him. And loving Him, you most become like Him. Love begets love. It is a process of induction. Put a piece of iron in the presence of an electrified object, and that piece of iron for a time becomes electrified. It is changed into a temporary magnet in the mere presence of a permanent magnet, and as long as you leave the two side by side, they are both magnets alike. Remain side by side with Him who loved us, and gave Himself for us, and you, too, will become a permanent magnet, a permanently attractive force. And like Him you will draw all men unto you, like Him you will be drawn unto all men. That is the inevitable effect of love. Any man who fulfills that cause must have that effect produced in him.
Try to give up the idea that religion comes to us by chance, or by mystery. It comes to us by natural law, or by supernatural law, for all law is Divine.
Edward Irving went to see a dying boy once, and when he entered the room he just put his hand on the sufferer’s head, and said, “My boy, God loves you,” and went away. And the boy started from his bed, and called out to the people in the house,
“God loves me! God loves me!”
One word! It changed that boy. The sense that God loved him overpowered him, melted him down, and began the creating of a new heart in him. And that is how the love of God melts down the unlovely heart in man, and begets in him the new creature, who is patient and humble and gentle and unselfish. And there is no other way to get it. There is no mystery about it. We love others, we love everybody, we love our enemies, because He first loved us.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Love Contrasted
Paul begins by contrasting love with other things that men in those days thought much of. I shall not attempt to go over these things in detail. Their inferiority is already obvious.
He contrasts it with eloquence. And what a noble gift it is, the power of playing upon the souls and wills of men, and rousing them to lofty purposes and holy deeds! Paul says, “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I have become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” We all know why. We have all felt the brazenness of words without emotion, the hollowness, the unaccountable unpersuasiveness, of eloquence behind which lies no love.
He contrasts it with prophecy. He contrasts it with mysteries. He contrasts it with faith. He contrasts it with charity. Why is love greater than faith? Because the end is greater than the means. And why is it greater than charity? Because the whole is greater than the part.
Love is greater than faith, because the end is greater than the means. What is the use of having faith? It is to connect the soul with God. And what is the object of connecting man with God? That he may become like God. But God is love. Hence faith, the means, is in order to love, the end. Love, therefore, obviously is greater than faith. “If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”
“And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor…” Love is greater than charity, because the whole is greater than a part. Charity is only a little bit of love, one of the innumerable avenues of love. And there may even be, and there is, a great deal of charity without love.
It is a very easy thing to toss a coin to a beggar on the street; it is generally an easier thing than not to do it. Yet love is just as often in the withholding. We purchase relief from the sympathetic feelings aroused by the spectacle of misery, at the cost of a coin. It is too cheap – too cheap for us, and often too dear for the beggar. If we really loved him we would do more for him. Hence, “If I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, but have not love, it profits me nothing.”
Then Paul contrasts it with sacrifice and martyrdom: “If I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” Missionaries can take nothing greater to the heathen world than the reflection of the love of God upon their own character!” That is the universal language. It will take them years to speak in Chinese, or in the dialects of India. From the day you land, that language of love, understood by all, will be pouring forth its unconscious eloquence.
It is the man who is the missionary; it is not his words. His character is his message. In the heart of Africa, among the great Lakes, I have come across black men and women who remembered the only white man they ever saw before - David Livingstone. As you cross his footsteps in that continent, men’s faces light up as they speak of the kind doctor who passed there years ago. They could not understand him, but they felt the love that beat in his heart. They know that it was love, although he spoke no word.
Take into your sphere of labor, where you also mean to lay down your life, that simple love, and your lifework will succeed. You can take nothing greater, you need take nothing less. You may take every accomplishment; you may be braced for every sacrifice; but if you give your body to be burned, and have not love, it will profit you and the cause of Christ nothing.
He contrasts it with eloquence. And what a noble gift it is, the power of playing upon the souls and wills of men, and rousing them to lofty purposes and holy deeds! Paul says, “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I have become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” We all know why. We have all felt the brazenness of words without emotion, the hollowness, the unaccountable unpersuasiveness, of eloquence behind which lies no love.
He contrasts it with prophecy. He contrasts it with mysteries. He contrasts it with faith. He contrasts it with charity. Why is love greater than faith? Because the end is greater than the means. And why is it greater than charity? Because the whole is greater than the part.
Love is greater than faith, because the end is greater than the means. What is the use of having faith? It is to connect the soul with God. And what is the object of connecting man with God? That he may become like God. But God is love. Hence faith, the means, is in order to love, the end. Love, therefore, obviously is greater than faith. “If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”
“And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor…” Love is greater than charity, because the whole is greater than a part. Charity is only a little bit of love, one of the innumerable avenues of love. And there may even be, and there is, a great deal of charity without love.
It is a very easy thing to toss a coin to a beggar on the street; it is generally an easier thing than not to do it. Yet love is just as often in the withholding. We purchase relief from the sympathetic feelings aroused by the spectacle of misery, at the cost of a coin. It is too cheap – too cheap for us, and often too dear for the beggar. If we really loved him we would do more for him. Hence, “If I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, but have not love, it profits me nothing.”
Then Paul contrasts it with sacrifice and martyrdom: “If I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” Missionaries can take nothing greater to the heathen world than the reflection of the love of God upon their own character!” That is the universal language. It will take them years to speak in Chinese, or in the dialects of India. From the day you land, that language of love, understood by all, will be pouring forth its unconscious eloquence.
It is the man who is the missionary; it is not his words. His character is his message. In the heart of Africa, among the great Lakes, I have come across black men and women who remembered the only white man they ever saw before - David Livingstone. As you cross his footsteps in that continent, men’s faces light up as they speak of the kind doctor who passed there years ago. They could not understand him, but they felt the love that beat in his heart. They know that it was love, although he spoke no word.
Take into your sphere of labor, where you also mean to lay down your life, that simple love, and your lifework will succeed. You can take nothing greater, you need take nothing less. You may take every accomplishment; you may be braced for every sacrifice; but if you give your body to be burned, and have not love, it will profit you and the cause of Christ nothing.
Moving Into and Thinking in the Third Domain
Since earliest time people have asked the great question: What is the supreme good? You have life before you. You can only live it once. What is the noblest object of desire, the supreme gift to covet?
We have been accustomed to be told that the greatest thing in the religious world is faith. That great word has been the key-note for centuries of the popular religion; and we have easily learned to look upon it as the greatest thing in the world. Well, we are wrong. If we have been told that, we may miss the mark. In the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul takes us to Christianity at its source, and there we see, “The greatest of these is love.”
It is not an oversight. Paul was speaking of faith just a moment before. He says, “If I have all faith, so that I can remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing.” So far from forgetting, he deliberately contrasts them, “Now abide faith, hope, love,” and without a moment’s hesitation, the decision falls, “The greatest of these is love.”
And it is not prejudice. A man is apt to recommend to others his own strong point. Love was not Paul’s strong point. The observing student can detect a beautiful tenderness growing and ripening all through his character as Paul gets old; but the hand that wrote; “The greatest of these is love,” when we meet it first, is stained with blood.
Nor is this letter to the Corinthians peculiar in singling out love as the supreme good. The masterpieces of Christianity are agreed about it. Peter says, “Above all things have fervent love among yourselves.” Above all things. And John goes farther, “God is love.”
You remember the profound remark which Paul makes elsewhere, “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” Did you ever think what he meant by that? In those days men were working their passage to Heaven by keeping the Ten Commandments, and the hundred and ten other commandments, which they had manufactured out of them. Christ came and said, “I will show you a more simple way. If you do one thing, you will do these hundred and ten things, without ever thinking about them. If you love, you will unconsciously fulfill the whole law.”
You can readily see for yourselves how that must be so. Take any of the commandments. “You shall have no other gods before me.” If a man loves God, you will not need to tell him to put away other gods. Love is the fulfilling of that law. “Take not the Lord’s name in vain.” Would a man ever dream of taking the Lord’s name in vain if he loved Him? “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” Wouldn’t a man be glad to have one day in seven to dedicate more exclusively to the object of his affection? Love would fulfill all these laws regarding God.
In the same way, if a man loves others, you would never think of telling him to honor his father and mother. He could not do anything else. It would be preposterous to tell him not to kill. You could only insult him if you suggested that he should not steal - how could he steal from those he loved? It would be superfluous to beg him not to bear false witness against his neighbor. If he loved him it would be the last thing he would do. And you would never dream of urging him not to covet what his neighbors had. He would rather they possessed it than himself. In this way “love is the fulfilling of the law.” It is the rule for fulfilling all rules, the new commandment for keeping all the old commandments, Christ’s one secret of the Christian life.
Now Paul had learned that. And in his beautiful love chapter he has given us the most wonderful and original account there is of this supreme good. We may divide it into three parts.
In the beginning of 1 Corinthians 13 we have love contrasted; in the heart of it, we have love analyzed; towards the end we have love defended as the supreme gift.
We have been accustomed to be told that the greatest thing in the religious world is faith. That great word has been the key-note for centuries of the popular religion; and we have easily learned to look upon it as the greatest thing in the world. Well, we are wrong. If we have been told that, we may miss the mark. In the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul takes us to Christianity at its source, and there we see, “The greatest of these is love.”
It is not an oversight. Paul was speaking of faith just a moment before. He says, “If I have all faith, so that I can remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing.” So far from forgetting, he deliberately contrasts them, “Now abide faith, hope, love,” and without a moment’s hesitation, the decision falls, “The greatest of these is love.”
And it is not prejudice. A man is apt to recommend to others his own strong point. Love was not Paul’s strong point. The observing student can detect a beautiful tenderness growing and ripening all through his character as Paul gets old; but the hand that wrote; “The greatest of these is love,” when we meet it first, is stained with blood.
Nor is this letter to the Corinthians peculiar in singling out love as the supreme good. The masterpieces of Christianity are agreed about it. Peter says, “Above all things have fervent love among yourselves.” Above all things. And John goes farther, “God is love.”
You remember the profound remark which Paul makes elsewhere, “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” Did you ever think what he meant by that? In those days men were working their passage to Heaven by keeping the Ten Commandments, and the hundred and ten other commandments, which they had manufactured out of them. Christ came and said, “I will show you a more simple way. If you do one thing, you will do these hundred and ten things, without ever thinking about them. If you love, you will unconsciously fulfill the whole law.”
You can readily see for yourselves how that must be so. Take any of the commandments. “You shall have no other gods before me.” If a man loves God, you will not need to tell him to put away other gods. Love is the fulfilling of that law. “Take not the Lord’s name in vain.” Would a man ever dream of taking the Lord’s name in vain if he loved Him? “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” Wouldn’t a man be glad to have one day in seven to dedicate more exclusively to the object of his affection? Love would fulfill all these laws regarding God.
In the same way, if a man loves others, you would never think of telling him to honor his father and mother. He could not do anything else. It would be preposterous to tell him not to kill. You could only insult him if you suggested that he should not steal - how could he steal from those he loved? It would be superfluous to beg him not to bear false witness against his neighbor. If he loved him it would be the last thing he would do. And you would never dream of urging him not to covet what his neighbors had. He would rather they possessed it than himself. In this way “love is the fulfilling of the law.” It is the rule for fulfilling all rules, the new commandment for keeping all the old commandments, Christ’s one secret of the Christian life.
Now Paul had learned that. And in his beautiful love chapter he has given us the most wonderful and original account there is of this supreme good. We may divide it into three parts.
In the beginning of 1 Corinthians 13 we have love contrasted; in the heart of it, we have love analyzed; towards the end we have love defended as the supreme gift.
See, Do, Get in the Three Domains
THE CONSEQUENCES OF LIVING UNDER THE LAW
What we see:
Control
Do’s and don’ts
Right and wrong
Fear
Fairness
Coercion
Good
Justice
Doubt
Powerlessness
Helplessness
Under the law this is what we do:
Obey
Disobey
Think inside the box
Evade
Agree
Disagree
Comply
These are the results we get under the law:
Rewards
Punishment
Dissatisfaction
Uncertainty
Incompleteness
Error
Pain or gain
We survive
Success
Failure
Inaccuracy
Agreement
Compliance
THE CONSEQUENCES OF LIVING WITH GREAT LOVE
What we see:
Hope
Rest
Principles
Truth
The best way
Power
Ethics
Values
When we love, this is what we do:
Be kind
Be gentle
Be humble
Be courteous
We care
Never think evil
Give
Rejoice with the truth
Teach
We honor
Persuade
Accept
Discipline
Live with integrity
Learn
These are the results we get when we love:
Lasting relationships
Stability
Best
Legacy
Unity in diversity
Honor
Forgiveness
Significance
Consistency
Patience
Gain knowledge
Good temper
Unselfishness
Guilelessness
THE CONSEQUENCES OF BEING FREE AGAIN
What we see:
Release
Restoration
Reconciliation
Liberty
What we do when we choose to be powerful and free:
Natural and normal principle-centered behavior
What we get when we feel free again is:
We have become what God wants us to be--- like him.
What we want to become.
What we see, do, and get is now one.
Total alignment with correct principles
True freedom
1 CORINTHIANS 13: “A PARADIGM OF UNCONDITIONAL LOVE”
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I have become as a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profits me nothing.
Love suffers long, and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;
Does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;
Does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;
Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.
For we know in part and we prophesy in part.
But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then I shall know just as I also am known.
And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
What we see:
Control
Do’s and don’ts
Right and wrong
Fear
Fairness
Coercion
Good
Justice
Doubt
Powerlessness
Helplessness
Under the law this is what we do:
Obey
Disobey
Think inside the box
Evade
Agree
Disagree
Comply
These are the results we get under the law:
Rewards
Punishment
Dissatisfaction
Uncertainty
Incompleteness
Error
Pain or gain
We survive
Success
Failure
Inaccuracy
Agreement
Compliance
THE CONSEQUENCES OF LIVING WITH GREAT LOVE
What we see:
Hope
Rest
Principles
Truth
The best way
Power
Ethics
Values
When we love, this is what we do:
Be kind
Be gentle
Be humble
Be courteous
We care
Never think evil
Give
Rejoice with the truth
Teach
We honor
Persuade
Accept
Discipline
Live with integrity
Learn
These are the results we get when we love:
Lasting relationships
Stability
Best
Legacy
Unity in diversity
Honor
Forgiveness
Significance
Consistency
Patience
Gain knowledge
Good temper
Unselfishness
Guilelessness
THE CONSEQUENCES OF BEING FREE AGAIN
What we see:
Release
Restoration
Reconciliation
Liberty
What we do when we choose to be powerful and free:
Natural and normal principle-centered behavior
What we get when we feel free again is:
We have become what God wants us to be--- like him.
What we want to become.
What we see, do, and get is now one.
Total alignment with correct principles
True freedom
1 CORINTHIANS 13: “A PARADIGM OF UNCONDITIONAL LOVE”
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I have become as a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profits me nothing.
Love suffers long, and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;
Does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;
Does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;
Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.
For we know in part and we prophesy in part.
But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then I shall know just as I also am known.
And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
The Third Domain of Action
INRODUCTION: THE ANSWER IS ALSO IN YOU
“THE PRINCIPLES YOU LIVE BY CREATE THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN; if you change the principles you live by you will change your world.”
The need for change in the world is great, and I believe you have greatness in you. But to change the world, we must start with ourselves. Ghandi challenged us to become the change we seek in the world. This blog can help you change, to become the person you were meant to be, to influence others in an excellent way, and do more good.
THE THREE DOMAINS OF ACTION
domain, n. REGION, realm, dominion, territory, LAND, sphere of action; estate
There are three domains of action. One domain is control, you could call that law! The other domain, next to it, is freedom!
I visited a prison in California a while back. And I saw the prisoners coming in, being introduced to the system, and being assigned to their different cells. I also walk through the cellblocks. I saw some of those areas where they had to separate them from other prisoners because of the possibility of violence. In a sense there are only the two domains: control and freedom. And they are under control. They had abused their freedoms in their lives, so their freedoms were taken from them. And they were warehoused; they were caged, like animals. They were controlled. There were only two domains.
The third domain, which is a higher domain, you could call it the middle domain, is where civilization exists. That’s were a culture made up of values, and manners, and ethics, and principles exists. That’s were people exercise their freedom to choose, to be kind to other people, and to obey the basic laws of society.
Let me suggests that a good way to think about this third domain is to think about a compass. It’s a beautiful metaphor; it is really a physical instrument that embodies what we are talking about here. Why? Because the needle always points to true north, no matter where you are. And true north represents natural force or a natural law---correct principles!
So, an individual can get his value system focused upon principles, and they become synonymous. If you can get yourself into such a point where you can have your own compass, it will give you the ability to do whatever is necessary to fulfill your vision, your mission, and your purpose within the guidelines of those principles.
How good is a compass when you’re in a wilderness? It’s the only way you can make it. How good is a map, say a freeway map when you’re in a wilderness? It’s worthless; it’s useless to you. Today’s world is far more like a wilderness than a freeway system. Everything is changing in such a dizzying rate that it just overwhelms people. Future shock for sure.
But when you are anchored to principles or natural laws and you have a sense of vision from within, what happens is, you have the internal motivation and capability to do whatever is necessary to make success in the wilderness you find yourself in. If an individual has his own internal compass, you can see how you can begin to tap into your energies, and your talents. You can see the basis where you can cooperate creatively with others, where you can value differences, where you can view diversity as strength not a weakness. Where there is little need for comparisons and for competition.
A great sociologist by the name of Emil Durkheim, once said, “When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary; when mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.” You see, if you have mores, or norms, or strong emotional social rules surrounding principles---true north---it’s amazing what people or organizations can do. In a sense, this third domain is the domain of law of unenforceable. It’s where norms, and mores, and values, and principles reside. Trust, honor, love, honesty, and integrity are examples of the principles we are talking about in this third domain. It is the essence of civilization’s culture and character that is in this third domain.
THE LAWS OF LOVE AND THE LAWS OF LIFE
When we make deposits of unconditional love, when we live the primary laws of love, we encourage others to live the primary laws of life. In other words, when we truly love others without conditions, without strings, we help them feel secure and safe and validated and affirmed in their essential worth, identity, and integrity. Their natural growth process is encouraged. We make it easier for them to live the laws of life – cooperation, contribution, self-discipline, integrity – and to discover and live true to the highest and best within them. We give them the freedom to act on their own inner imperatives rather than react to our conditions and limitations. This does not mean we become permissive or soft. That itself is a massive withdrawal. We counsel, we plead, we set limits and consequences. But we love, regardless.
When we violate the primary laws of love -– when we attach strings and conditions to that gift -– we actually encourage others to violate the primary laws of life. We put them in a reactive, defensive position where they feel they have to prove “I matter as a person, independent of you.”
In reality, they aren’t independent. They are counter-dependent, which is another form of dependency and is at the lowest end of the “maturity continuum.” They become reactive, almost enemy-centered, more concerned about defending their “rights” and producing evidence of their individuality than they are about proactively listening to and honoring their own inner imperatives.
Rebellion is a knot of the heart, not of the mind. The key is to make deposits –-constant deposits of unconditional love.
An executive narrated this story: “I once had a friend who was dean of a very prestigious school. He planned and saved for years to provide his son the opportunity to attend that institution, but when the time came, the boy refused to go.
This deeply concerned his father. Graduating from that particular school would have been a great asset to the boy. Besides, it was a family tradition. Three generations of attendance preceded the boy. The father pleaded and urged and talked. He also tried to listen to the boy to understand him, all the while hoping that the son would change his mind.
The subtle message being communicated was one of conditional love. The son felt that in a sense the father’s desire for him to attend the school outweighed the value he placed on him as a person and as a son, which was terribly threatening. Consequently, he fought for and with his own identity and integrity, and he increased in his resolve and his efforts to rationalize his decision not to go.
After some intense soul-searching, the father decided to make a sacrifice –- to renounce conditional love. He knew that his son might choose differently than he had wished; nevertheless, he and his wife resolved to love their son unconditionally, regardless of his choice. It was an extremely difficult thing to do because the value of his educational experience was so close to their hearts and because it was something they had planned and worked for since his birth.
The father and mother went through a very difficult rescripting process, struggling to really understand the nature of unconditional love. They communicated to the boy what they were doing and why, and told him that they had come to the point at which they could say in all honesty that his decision would not affect their complete feeling of unconditional love toward him. They didn’t do this to manipulate him, to try to get him to “shape up.” They did it as the logical extension of their growth and character.
The boy didn’t give much of a response at the time, but his parents had such a paradigm of unconditional love at that point that it would have made no difference in their feelings for him. About a week later, he told his parents that he had decided not to go. They were perfectly prepared for this response and continued to show unconditional love for him. Everything was settled and life went along normally.
A short time later, an interesting thing happened. Now that the boy no longer felt he had to defend his position, he searched within himself more deeply and found that he really did want to have this educational experience. He applied for admission, and then he told his father, who again showed unconditional love by fully accepting his son’s decision. My friend was happy, but not excessively so, because he had truly learned to love without condition.”
Dag Hammarskjold, past Secretary-General of the United Nations, once made a profound, far-reaching statement: “It is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses.”
I take that to mean that I could devote eight, ten, or twelve hours a day, five, six, or seven days a week to the thousands of people and projects “out there” and still not have a deep, meaningful relationship with my own spouse, with my own teenage son, with my closest working associate. And it would take more nobility of character -– more humility, courage, and strength -– to rebuild that one relationship than it would to continue putting in all those hours for all those people and causes.
In many organizations, the power of that statement was validated, again and, again and, again. Many of the problems in organizations stem from the relationship difficulties at the very top -– between two partners in a professional firm, between the owner and the president of a company, between the president and an executive vice-president. It truly takes more nobility of character to confront and resolve those issues than it does to continue to diligently work for the many projects and people “out there.”
Another executive commented: “When I first came across Hammarskjold’s statement, I was working in an organization where there were unclear expectations between the individual who was my right-hand man and myself. I simply did not have the courage to confront our differences regarding role and goal expectations and values, particularly in our methods of administration. So I worked for a number of months in a compromise mode to avoid what might turn out to be an ugly confrontation. All the while, bad feelings were developing inside both of us.
After reading that it is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses, I was deeply affected by the idea of rebuilding that relationship.
I had steel myself for what lay ahead, because I knew it would be hard to really get the issues out and to achieve a deep, common understanding and commitment. I remember actually shaking in anticipation of the visit. He seemed like such a hard man, so set in his own ways and so right in his own eyes; yet I needed his strength and abilities. I was afraid a confrontation might jeopardize the relationship and result in my losing those strength.
I went through a mental dress rehearsal of the anticipated visit, and I finally became settled within myself around the principles rather than the practices of what I was going to do and say. At last I felt peace of mind and the courage to have the communication.
When we met together, to my total surprise, I discovered that this man had been going through the very same process and had been longing for such a conversation. He was anything but hard and defensive.
Nevertheless, our administrative styles were considerably different, and the entire organization was responding to these differences. We both acknowledged the problems that our disunity had created. Over several visits, we were able to confront the deeper issues, to get them all out on the table, and to resolve them, one by one, with a spirit of high mutual respect. We were able to develop a powerful complementary team and a deep personal affection which added tremendously to our ability to work effectively together.”
Creating the unity necessary to run an effective organization or business or a family or a marriage requires great personal strength and courage. No amount of technical administrative skill in laboring for the masses can make up for lack of nobility of personal character in developing relationships. It is at a very essential, one-on-one level, that we live the primary laws of love and life.
“THE PRINCIPLES YOU LIVE BY CREATE THE WORLD YOU LIVE IN; if you change the principles you live by you will change your world.”
The need for change in the world is great, and I believe you have greatness in you. But to change the world, we must start with ourselves. Ghandi challenged us to become the change we seek in the world. This blog can help you change, to become the person you were meant to be, to influence others in an excellent way, and do more good.
THE THREE DOMAINS OF ACTION
domain, n. REGION, realm, dominion, territory, LAND, sphere of action; estate
There are three domains of action. One domain is control, you could call that law! The other domain, next to it, is freedom!
I visited a prison in California a while back. And I saw the prisoners coming in, being introduced to the system, and being assigned to their different cells. I also walk through the cellblocks. I saw some of those areas where they had to separate them from other prisoners because of the possibility of violence. In a sense there are only the two domains: control and freedom. And they are under control. They had abused their freedoms in their lives, so their freedoms were taken from them. And they were warehoused; they were caged, like animals. They were controlled. There were only two domains.
The third domain, which is a higher domain, you could call it the middle domain, is where civilization exists. That’s were a culture made up of values, and manners, and ethics, and principles exists. That’s were people exercise their freedom to choose, to be kind to other people, and to obey the basic laws of society.
Let me suggests that a good way to think about this third domain is to think about a compass. It’s a beautiful metaphor; it is really a physical instrument that embodies what we are talking about here. Why? Because the needle always points to true north, no matter where you are. And true north represents natural force or a natural law---correct principles!
So, an individual can get his value system focused upon principles, and they become synonymous. If you can get yourself into such a point where you can have your own compass, it will give you the ability to do whatever is necessary to fulfill your vision, your mission, and your purpose within the guidelines of those principles.
How good is a compass when you’re in a wilderness? It’s the only way you can make it. How good is a map, say a freeway map when you’re in a wilderness? It’s worthless; it’s useless to you. Today’s world is far more like a wilderness than a freeway system. Everything is changing in such a dizzying rate that it just overwhelms people. Future shock for sure.
But when you are anchored to principles or natural laws and you have a sense of vision from within, what happens is, you have the internal motivation and capability to do whatever is necessary to make success in the wilderness you find yourself in. If an individual has his own internal compass, you can see how you can begin to tap into your energies, and your talents. You can see the basis where you can cooperate creatively with others, where you can value differences, where you can view diversity as strength not a weakness. Where there is little need for comparisons and for competition.
A great sociologist by the name of Emil Durkheim, once said, “When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary; when mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.” You see, if you have mores, or norms, or strong emotional social rules surrounding principles---true north---it’s amazing what people or organizations can do. In a sense, this third domain is the domain of law of unenforceable. It’s where norms, and mores, and values, and principles reside. Trust, honor, love, honesty, and integrity are examples of the principles we are talking about in this third domain. It is the essence of civilization’s culture and character that is in this third domain.
THE LAWS OF LOVE AND THE LAWS OF LIFE
When we make deposits of unconditional love, when we live the primary laws of love, we encourage others to live the primary laws of life. In other words, when we truly love others without conditions, without strings, we help them feel secure and safe and validated and affirmed in their essential worth, identity, and integrity. Their natural growth process is encouraged. We make it easier for them to live the laws of life – cooperation, contribution, self-discipline, integrity – and to discover and live true to the highest and best within them. We give them the freedom to act on their own inner imperatives rather than react to our conditions and limitations. This does not mean we become permissive or soft. That itself is a massive withdrawal. We counsel, we plead, we set limits and consequences. But we love, regardless.
When we violate the primary laws of love -– when we attach strings and conditions to that gift -– we actually encourage others to violate the primary laws of life. We put them in a reactive, defensive position where they feel they have to prove “I matter as a person, independent of you.”
In reality, they aren’t independent. They are counter-dependent, which is another form of dependency and is at the lowest end of the “maturity continuum.” They become reactive, almost enemy-centered, more concerned about defending their “rights” and producing evidence of their individuality than they are about proactively listening to and honoring their own inner imperatives.
Rebellion is a knot of the heart, not of the mind. The key is to make deposits –-constant deposits of unconditional love.
An executive narrated this story: “I once had a friend who was dean of a very prestigious school. He planned and saved for years to provide his son the opportunity to attend that institution, but when the time came, the boy refused to go.
This deeply concerned his father. Graduating from that particular school would have been a great asset to the boy. Besides, it was a family tradition. Three generations of attendance preceded the boy. The father pleaded and urged and talked. He also tried to listen to the boy to understand him, all the while hoping that the son would change his mind.
The subtle message being communicated was one of conditional love. The son felt that in a sense the father’s desire for him to attend the school outweighed the value he placed on him as a person and as a son, which was terribly threatening. Consequently, he fought for and with his own identity and integrity, and he increased in his resolve and his efforts to rationalize his decision not to go.
After some intense soul-searching, the father decided to make a sacrifice –- to renounce conditional love. He knew that his son might choose differently than he had wished; nevertheless, he and his wife resolved to love their son unconditionally, regardless of his choice. It was an extremely difficult thing to do because the value of his educational experience was so close to their hearts and because it was something they had planned and worked for since his birth.
The father and mother went through a very difficult rescripting process, struggling to really understand the nature of unconditional love. They communicated to the boy what they were doing and why, and told him that they had come to the point at which they could say in all honesty that his decision would not affect their complete feeling of unconditional love toward him. They didn’t do this to manipulate him, to try to get him to “shape up.” They did it as the logical extension of their growth and character.
The boy didn’t give much of a response at the time, but his parents had such a paradigm of unconditional love at that point that it would have made no difference in their feelings for him. About a week later, he told his parents that he had decided not to go. They were perfectly prepared for this response and continued to show unconditional love for him. Everything was settled and life went along normally.
A short time later, an interesting thing happened. Now that the boy no longer felt he had to defend his position, he searched within himself more deeply and found that he really did want to have this educational experience. He applied for admission, and then he told his father, who again showed unconditional love by fully accepting his son’s decision. My friend was happy, but not excessively so, because he had truly learned to love without condition.”
Dag Hammarskjold, past Secretary-General of the United Nations, once made a profound, far-reaching statement: “It is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses.”
I take that to mean that I could devote eight, ten, or twelve hours a day, five, six, or seven days a week to the thousands of people and projects “out there” and still not have a deep, meaningful relationship with my own spouse, with my own teenage son, with my closest working associate. And it would take more nobility of character -– more humility, courage, and strength -– to rebuild that one relationship than it would to continue putting in all those hours for all those people and causes.
In many organizations, the power of that statement was validated, again and, again and, again. Many of the problems in organizations stem from the relationship difficulties at the very top -– between two partners in a professional firm, between the owner and the president of a company, between the president and an executive vice-president. It truly takes more nobility of character to confront and resolve those issues than it does to continue to diligently work for the many projects and people “out there.”
Another executive commented: “When I first came across Hammarskjold’s statement, I was working in an organization where there were unclear expectations between the individual who was my right-hand man and myself. I simply did not have the courage to confront our differences regarding role and goal expectations and values, particularly in our methods of administration. So I worked for a number of months in a compromise mode to avoid what might turn out to be an ugly confrontation. All the while, bad feelings were developing inside both of us.
After reading that it is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses, I was deeply affected by the idea of rebuilding that relationship.
I had steel myself for what lay ahead, because I knew it would be hard to really get the issues out and to achieve a deep, common understanding and commitment. I remember actually shaking in anticipation of the visit. He seemed like such a hard man, so set in his own ways and so right in his own eyes; yet I needed his strength and abilities. I was afraid a confrontation might jeopardize the relationship and result in my losing those strength.
I went through a mental dress rehearsal of the anticipated visit, and I finally became settled within myself around the principles rather than the practices of what I was going to do and say. At last I felt peace of mind and the courage to have the communication.
When we met together, to my total surprise, I discovered that this man had been going through the very same process and had been longing for such a conversation. He was anything but hard and defensive.
Nevertheless, our administrative styles were considerably different, and the entire organization was responding to these differences. We both acknowledged the problems that our disunity had created. Over several visits, we were able to confront the deeper issues, to get them all out on the table, and to resolve them, one by one, with a spirit of high mutual respect. We were able to develop a powerful complementary team and a deep personal affection which added tremendously to our ability to work effectively together.”
Creating the unity necessary to run an effective organization or business or a family or a marriage requires great personal strength and courage. No amount of technical administrative skill in laboring for the masses can make up for lack of nobility of personal character in developing relationships. It is at a very essential, one-on-one level, that we live the primary laws of love and life.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
Welcome to THINKING NO EVIL!
Hello Everyone,
Let this be a place where anyone interested in a faith that continues to seek understanding can interact and share without prejudice the desires and intent of the heart.
Regards!
Let this be a place where anyone interested in a faith that continues to seek understanding can interact and share without prejudice the desires and intent of the heart.
Regards!
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