The Supreme Gift Read Online Free PDF Page A

often John associates Love with eternal life? When I was a child, I was not told that ‘God so loved the world that He gave his only-begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should have everlasting life.’
    What I was told, I remember, was that God so loved the world that, if we trusted in Him, we would have peace, rest, joy and safety. I had to find out for myself that this wasn’t quite true, that all those who trust in Him – that is, all those who love Him, because trust is the only avenue to Love – would have eternal life.
    The Gospels speak to us of a new life, therefore do not offer your fellow man only peace, rest, joy and safety. Instead, tell him how Christ came into the world to give us all a life abundant in Love, and therefore abundant in salvation, a life long enough for us to devote ourselves to learning to Love.
    That is the only way that the words of the Gospel can make sense and touch body, soul and spirit, and give to each part a goal and an aim.
    Many of the spiritual texts we read today are addressed only to one part of our nature.
    They offer peace, but do not speak of life.
    They discuss Faith and forget about Love.
    They talk about justification, not regeneration.
    And so we end up drifting away from the spiritual search, because it has failed to keep us on the path.
    Let us not make that mistake. Let it be clear that for us only Total Love can compete with the love of the world.
     
    To love abundantly is to live abundantly.
    To love for ever is to live for ever. Eternal life is inextricably bound up with Love.
    Why do we want to live for ever? Because we hope that tomorrow will bring us someone we can love. Because we want to live another day with the person we love beside us. Because we want to find someone who deserves our Love and who, in turn, will know how to love us as we deserve to be loved.
    That is why, when a man has no one to love him, he feels a great desire to die. As long as he has friends, people who love him and whom he loves too, he will live.
    Because to live is to love.
    Even love for an animal – a dog, for example – can justify the life of a human being. But if he loses that loving bond with life, any reason to go on living will disappear too.
    The ‘energy of life’ will go.
    Eternal life means to know Love. God is Love. John says: ‘This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.’
    Whatever your belief or faith, first seek out Love. Everything else will follow.
    Love is eternal, because God is eternal.

 
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    Love is life.
    Love never ends and life will not end while there is Love.
    That is what Paul is showing us, that, in all created things, Love is present as the Supreme Gift, because Love remains when all other things pass away.
    Love is here, it exists in us here and now. It is not something that will be given to us after we die. On the contrary, we will have very few chances to learn Love when we are old if we do not seek it out and practise it now.
    No worse fate can befall a man than to live and die alone, unloving and unloved.
    To love is to be saved.
    Not to love or be loved is to be damned.
    And he who takes joy in love already takes joy in God, because God is Love.

 
     
     
     
    I have all but finished this very long sermon, but, first, I want to propose something: how many of you would like to join me in reading this part of Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians at least once a week for the next three months. A man did that once and it changed his life completely.
    Or you could start by reading the letter every day, especially the verses that describe the kind of behaviour that goes with Love:
    Love is patient and kind; love does not envy.
    Put those ingredients into your life. From then on, everything you do will be eternal. It’s worth spending a little time learning the art of Love.
    No man becomes a saint in his sleep; he must pray and meditate.
    In the same way, any