Love is Humanity

"Love is the fulfillment of everything that makes us human." (David Benner, Surrender to Love, p. 96).

"Love is who we are. Love is not, first and foremost, something we do." (p. 97)

"The point of being human is to learn love." (IBID)

"We are in the school of love." (IBID)

One of the blessing of being human is that we can love. Hopefully that balances that other human attribute - not being perfect! We fail. Thus, we need love.

Don't know love? Learn love. Now's the time.

"It is in loving (or not loving) that we are (or are not) human. It is in heeding the call of love - in making life-affirming connections - that we become human...Loving is not merely one thing among others that we are called to do - and extraordinary achievement, a heroic gesture that completes ordinary acts and raises them to a higher level. Love is not an additive, a spiritual supplement reserved for saints...Loving is the essence of being human, the connective tissue of reality, the oxygen of life." (David Benner in Surrender to Love, page 97, quoting James Olthuis from the The Beautiful Risk: A New Psychology of Loving and Being Loved, p. 69)

Learning Love

"Learning love is a journey back to the reality of the First Love...

Learning love is accepting the invitation to reclaim the truth of our belovedness...

Learning love is letting ourselves be loved fully...

There is nothing more important than learning love, because this is learning that counts for eternity."

(David Benner, Surrender to Love, p. 98)

But lest we think we should just be students of love, Benner points out, "Growth in love is not an accomplishment but the receipt of a gift." (p.100)

He concludes, "Learning to love is learning to live." (p. 101)

Great God - Great Lovers

"He [GOD] wants us to be known as great lovers because love is his way."

That's how David Benner tells it in Surrender to Love (page 90).

If "God is love" (I John 4:8,16) this only makes sense, that He would want us to lovers!

It's not our idea, it's His way.

What are you known for?

What should you be known for?

Love is a Yes and a No

"Love always involves not just saying yes to someone but also saying no to self." (David Benner, Surrender to Love, page 91)

There is a 'yes' to love, and a 'no' to love.

You say yes to one thing, and at the same time you are saying no to something else.

You can't choose to love one thing and not ignore another.

Love is a decision. It does make a choice.

Make a good choice today.

Say no to yourself today so you can say yes to someone else.

Love & Surrender

"Love is dangerous precisely because it invites surrender." (page 44, Surrender to Love, David Benner)

But he goes on to say, "Surrender to anything other than love would be idiocy." (page 59)

Love is a giving over to another. Love is a giving up.

Surrender is not something we should take lightly. Surrender should only be to something more important than us.

Love as Glue

"Love is the glue of connection." That's what David Benner called it (p. 12, Surrender to Love).

Thinking of love as glue is a great picture. I can get my fingers caught in glue! That's what I usually do. I use it to put pictures in the scrapbook. I use it to hold broken pieces together. I use it to hold things together that perhaps don't want to stay together on their own (like my shovel handle and shaft)! Glue is a wonderful thing to have handy. How much more is it to have glue in our relationships. Use some today!

Love as an acid test

"Love is the acid test of Christian spirituality." (David Benner, Surrender to Love, p. 90)

That's what David Benner thought and expressed in his book.

What do you think is the acid test of true Christianity?

Is it keeping the law, acting well, going to church, not sinning?

It's something to consider, and it's something to test in ourselves.