His Love rather than yours

"Learn to relate to others through My Love rather than yours...

Let my Love envelop your outreach to other people."

(p. 139, Jesus Calling, Sarah Young)

Love Personified

"The story of Jesus is the story of love personified. We miss the point when we simply try to do what he tells us to do. And we miss the point when we merely try to follow the pattern of his life. His life points us back to the his own Source. His life is intelligible only when it is understood as the personification of divine love...genuinely encountering Love is not the same as inviting Jesus into your heart, joining or attending a church, or doing what Jesus commands. It is the experience of love that is transformational...Jesus came to lead us back to Love. He came to play the central role in the world's greatest love story...He was the Son of Love who came to show us the love that is our destiny, our healing and our fulfillment."

(p. 25,26,27, David Benner, Surrender to Love)

Despoiled Love

"All of us live with love despoiled. It appears to be the best we can experience and the best we can give. The love we receive from others is always limited by their brokenness and finitude. And the love we give to others is always contaminated by our self-preoccupation. We long for perfect love but easily become discouraged about the possibility of ever deeply experiencing it."

(p. 24, Surrender to Love, David Benner)

Love Pervades Every Aspect

"God's bias toward us is strong, persistent and positive. The Christian God chooses to be known as Love, and that love pervades every aspect of God's relationship with us."

p. 16

David Benner

Surrender to Love

The First Step in becoming great lovers

"There is nothing more important in life than learning to love and be loved...

And it is about knowing ourselves to be deeply loved by God as the first step in becoming genuinely great lovers of others and God...Love invites surrender, and surrender is at the core of spirituality...Love speaks the language of the soul."

p. 11

David G. Benner

Surrender to Love

Love by Choice

My New Spirit Filled Life Bible says in a footnote on page 1439, referring to Matthew 5:43-48 and Luke 6:27,28,32-36: "Love by choice, not by circumstance."

If we are to love our enemies, and even bless them, and do good to/for them, and pray for them, this will be a huge choice we make. Circumstances will not lead us there.

If there is no incentive or reward for loving others, then circumstances will not compel us to love. It must be a choice that you choose now, not later, not due to circumstances or rewards.

Life is all about choices. Make them good.

"But only one thing is needed and Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her." Luke 10:42

Laws of Logic & Arithmetic

"By all the laws both of logic and simple arithmetic, to give your self away in love to another would seem to mean that you end up with less of yourself left than you had to begin with. But the miracle is that just the reverse is true...To give yourself away in love to somebody else --- is to become for the first time yourself fully...is in a new way to come fully alive..."

(p. 161, 162, Listening to Your Life, Frederick Buechner)

To be Holy & Human

"Make us holy and human at last that we may do the work of thy love."

p. 157

Listening to Your Life

Frederick Buechner

Another Way of Looking at it...

"Another way of saying Love your neighbor as yourself is to say Love yourself as your neighbor. That doesn't mean your pulse is supposed to quicken every time you look in the mirror any more than it's supposed to quicken every time your neighbor passes the window. It means simply that the ability to work for your own good despite all the less than admirable things you know about yourself is closely related to the ability to work for your neighbor's good despite all the less than admirable things you know about him. It also means that just as in this sense love of self and love of neighbor go hand in hand, so do dislike of self and dislike of neighbor. For example (a) the more I dislike my neighbor, the more I'm apt to dislike myself for disliking him and him for making me dislike myself and so on, and (b) I am continually tempted to take out on my neighbor the dislike I feel for myself, just the way if I crack my head on a low door I'm very apt to kick the first cat, child, or chair unlucky enough to catch my bloodshot eye."

Frederick Buechner

Listening to Your Life

p. 182

Through Eyes of Love

David Benner in his book The Gift of Being Yourself, is trying to convey the love of God for His people.
He exclaims, "God cannot help seeing you through eyes of love."  (p. 49)
He explains, "Divine love is absolutely unconditional, unlimited and unimaginable.  (ibid)
He expounds, "Our being is grounded in God's love."  (ibid)
He elaborates, "The inextinguishable love of God is the only hope for our fulfillment.  Love is our identity and our calling, for we are children of Love.  Created from love, of love and for love,
our existence make no sense apart from Divine Love....it must become the basis for our identity...when we think of who we are, the first thing that would come to mind is our status as someone who is deeply loved by God."  (ibid)

Acting Accordingly

Thomas Merton wrote, "We must know the truth, we must love the truth we know and we must act according to measure of our love.  Truth is God himself who cannot be known apart from love and cannot be loved apart from surrender to his will."   (p. 8, The Ascent to Truth)

Acting according to the measure of love in you?
Does that scare you?
Don't worry, it's not your love but His that we need.
Act according to the love He has poured out into you.
If we act according to ours, we will be found short, and they will be shortchanged.  

Awakening to Intentional Love

Dr. David Benner writes eloquently about the intentional way we need to love to awaken us from our mundane lives.  Here is an excerpt from his blog:

http://www.drdavidgbenner.ca/test-post/

He calls us to live above the slumber of lazy living and loving into the fullness of life and relationship.

Know God through Love

"Because God is love, God can only be known through love.  To know God is to love God, and to love God is to know God (1 John 4:7-8)."  (p. 35, The Gift of Being Yourself, David Benner)

This sounds like the bumper sticker:  Know God - Know Love.  No God - No Love.

LOVE, BLESS, PRAY, GIVE

In Luke 6 after Jesus gives his "Blessed are..." and "Woe to..."
He concludes with "But I say to you who hear:  LOVE...BLESS...PRAY...GIVE... (verses 27, 28, 30)

If only we could remember that small little advice.
Everyday, try to call to mind to Love, Bless, Pray, and Give.

If we keep this advice, we will be better people, and those around us will be as well.