"Give, and it will be given to you..." (Luke 6:38)

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How to Love One Another

Rt. Rev. George de Charms

Lessons: Matthew 25:31-40, Divine Love 13:2

We have seen that the Lord wishes everybody to love Him-not only the angels of heaven, but also people on earth, including little children-and that He gives each one certain Commandments to keep, in order to show love for the Lord. We also know that the Lord does not command people to do more than they are able. And for this reason He asks great and noble things of angels, lesser things of people on this earth. And, of little children, He asks very simple things that are within their strength and their ability to understand. By doing these little things, children learn to love the Lord, and, when they love Him, He can slowly make them wiser and stronger, so that after a while they will be able to do greater things.

Thus we learn to love the Lord by keeping His commandments, and by keeping them in the way which He intended for us, whether we are little children, grown men and women or angels of heaven.

When the Lord was on earth He especially taught His disciples to love one another. "This is My Commandment," He said, "that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends" (John 15:12-13).

This is the secret of really serving the Lord. We cannot serve Him directly. We cannot see Him in this world; we can only think of Him and picture Him in our minds. And, as we think of the Lord-who created the whole world, who rules over all men, and to whom all things both in heaven and on earth belong-we see that there is nothing we can do for Him. What can we give Him that He does not already have? We have nothing except what He gives us. All that we have is already His. To give Him this, as we would give a gift to one of our friends, is nothing. It is nothing, first, because it already belongs to Him. And it is nothing, in the second place, because, compared with all the many, many things He has, it is so small, so little, that it could not possibly make any difference to Him. So we cannot serve the Lord directly. But, still, He has made it possible for us to serve Him by helping one another.

To help others is to perform a use. And the whole world is made up of uses. Everyone who is born into the world is able to perform some use to others, a use that the Lord will use to help us and others come into heaven. And this really helps the Lord, because He loves to bring people into heaven more than anything else. The Lord does not want anything for Himself. The one thing He wants is for people to become happy and live happily in heaven forever. So, when we do something to help others become happy-when we give them things they need and perform some service for them that will give them joy and pleasure-then the Lord Himself is delighted, and it is as if we had done something for Him. You know that when you love a person very much you feel happy when that person also feels happy. If he receives something that he has long wished to have, you rejoice with him. This is the truest happiness, because it is like the Lord's own happiness, which He feels when people are made truly happy.

And so the Lord has created the world in such a way that we can all help one another. Every person is dependent upon many other people for the things he needs. If you want a house, you cannot build it yourself. You must hire people who know how to build houses to do it for you. If you need clothes, you must buy them from people who have spent time and labor in making them. You cannot raise all the food you need to eat for yourself, but others do it for you, and you can buy it from them. And so it is with all things. Other people are doing things for us all the time, things that we need, things without which we would suffer hunger, cold, pain and distress. All these things that they do for us are called uses, and because others do these uses for us, we should love them. Our love for them should be like the Lord's love. We should love them because they help to make others happy. We should not think only of what they do for us, but also of what they do for many other people. And because of this, their work, we should be thankful to them and should try to do something ourselves to help them and make them happy.

This is especially true of adults. All grown people have some work, their use, whereby they serve others. And each one of you, when you grow up, will also have a use, whereby you will serve others. In doing this use, the Lord will give you some of His own happiness-the happiness that comes from seeing others benefited.

But there are also uses that you can perform now, as children. Think of all the things that your parents do for you every day, providing the things that are necessary to make you happy. Both your father and your mother work very hard, just to give you the things you need. Your teachers also work and study to give you the instruction you receive in school. For these and many other blessings you should be thankful to them and should try to serve them also.

How can you do this? There are little ways in which you can serve them. You can do little things to help them, from time to time. You may feel that you are still small and cannot do very much. But there is one way above all others by which you can really serve them and, in doing so, learn to love them, even as the Lord loves you. That is by learning the things they want you to learn. These things are what will make it possible for you to do some great use for others when you grow up. They will prepare you to do some still greater use in the other world, when you have been called by the Lord to heaven. Unless you learn many things, you cannot perform a use. Nobody can do anything without first learning how. And the more you can learn, the greater the use you can perform. But to learn many things takes time. And the time that the Lord has provided for this is while you are growing up from little children to become men and women. This is the reason why you go to school at this time. This is your use, the work that the Lord gives you now, so that in doing it you may learn to love one another as He loves you.

For this reason, there is nothing that makes your parents or teachers happier than to see you do well in the schoolwork that is given to you. They are glad because they see that when you grow up, you will be of great service to the Lord, by helping others. And if you do this work well now, because you look forward to the day when you can become strong enough and wise enough to perform a use like other people, then your progress will give you happiness also. It will teach you how to love others, and in so doing it will teach you how to love the Lord.

If you have the ambition to do a great work in the world, not for the sake of yourselves, but for the sake of others, then will you eager to learn; you will study carefully and well. And this spirit of hard, honest work, established now, while you are children, will make you fit to do great work later on. And with this comes the greatest happiness that anyone can know. "These things have I spoken unto you, that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full" (John 15:11).

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