The Supreme Gift Read Online Free PDF
Author: Paulo Coelho
improvement, in any direction, requires preparation and care.
Address yourselves to living a life that is a full and proper one. If you look back, you will see that the best and most important moments of your life were those in which the spirit of Love was present.
When we look at our past – and ignore the transitory pleasures of life – we will see that the important moments of our existence were those in which we experienced Love, unnoticed acts of kindness that we did for those around us, unimportant things sometimes, but which, for a fraction of a second, made us feel as if we had already entered eternal life.
I have seen almost all the beautiful things that God created. I have enjoyed almost all the pleasures a man can experience. However, when I look back at my past, there are only four or five brief moments when I did something that was a poor imitation of God’s Love.
Those are the moments that justify my existence. Everything else is transitory. Any other good or virtue is mere illusion. Those small acts of Love that no one noticed, that no one knows about, justify my life.
Because Love endures.
* * *
Matthew gives us a classic description of the Final Judgment: the Son of Man is seated upon a throne and, like a shepherd, is dividing the sheep from the goats.
At that moment, the most important question for a human being to ask will not be: ‘How did I live?’ but ‘How did I love?’
The final test of every search for salvation will be Love. What we did or believed or achieved will be of no account.
None of that will count. What will count is how we loved our fellow men and women.
The mistakes we made will not even be remembered. We will be judged by the good we neglected to do, because to keep Love locked up inside us is to go against the spirit of God, it is proof that we never knew Him, that He loved us in vain, and that His Son died in vain.
Not loving means saying that God never inspired our thoughts, our lives, and that we never came close enough to Him to be touched by His exuberant Love. It means:
‘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 before God that the nations of the world will be reunited. It is in the presence of all men that we will be judged.
And each man will judge himself.
Gathered there together will be those we met and helped. Also present will be those we scorned and denied. There will be no need to call for witnesses, because our own life will be there as evidence of what we did.
No other charge – apart from a lack of Love – will be laid upon us.
Be quite sure, the words we will hear on that day will come not from theology, not from the saints, not from the churches.
They will come from the hungry and from the poor.
They will come not from creeds and doctrines.
They will come from the naked and the homeless.
They will come not from Bibles and books of prayer.
They will come from the glasses of water that we gave or did not give.
* * *
Who is Christ?
He who fed the poor, clothed the naked and visited the sick.
Where is Christ?
‘Whoever receives a little child in my name receives me.’
And who is with Christ?
‘Whoever loves has been born of God.’
* * *
By the time the young man had finished speaking, the sun had already set. The people got up in silence and went to their houses. They would never forget that day for as long as they lived. They had been touched by the Supreme Gift and wanted that afternoon to be remembered for a very long time.
‘Although, of course, it will not be remembered for ever,’ thought one of them. For as the young man quite rightly said: ‘Only Love endures.’
About the author
H enry Drummond was born in Scotland in 1851. When still a young man, he decided to travel the world in search of the meaning of life. Although he had been preaching to small communities
Address yourselves to living a life that is a full and proper one. If you look back, you will see that the best and most important moments of your life were those in which the spirit of Love was present.
When we look at our past – and ignore the transitory pleasures of life – we will see that the important moments of our existence were those in which we experienced Love, unnoticed acts of kindness that we did for those around us, unimportant things sometimes, but which, for a fraction of a second, made us feel as if we had already entered eternal life.
I have seen almost all the beautiful things that God created. I have enjoyed almost all the pleasures a man can experience. However, when I look back at my past, there are only four or five brief moments when I did something that was a poor imitation of God’s Love.
Those are the moments that justify my existence. Everything else is transitory. Any other good or virtue is mere illusion. Those small acts of Love that no one noticed, that no one knows about, justify my life.
Because Love endures.
* * *
Matthew gives us a classic description of the Final Judgment: the Son of Man is seated upon a throne and, like a shepherd, is dividing the sheep from the goats.
At that moment, the most important question for a human being to ask will not be: ‘How did I live?’ but ‘How did I love?’
The final test of every search for salvation will be Love. What we did or believed or achieved will be of no account.
None of that will count. What will count is how we loved our fellow men and women.
The mistakes we made will not even be remembered. We will be judged by the good we neglected to do, because to keep Love locked up inside us is to go against the spirit of God, it is proof that we never knew Him, that He loved us in vain, and that His Son died in vain.
Not loving means saying that God never inspired our thoughts, our lives, and that we never came close enough to Him to be touched by His exuberant Love. It means:
‘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 before God that the nations of the world will be reunited. It is in the presence of all men that we will be judged.
And each man will judge himself.
Gathered there together will be those we met and helped. Also present will be those we scorned and denied. There will be no need to call for witnesses, because our own life will be there as evidence of what we did.
No other charge – apart from a lack of Love – will be laid upon us.
Be quite sure, the words we will hear on that day will come not from theology, not from the saints, not from the churches.
They will come from the hungry and from the poor.
They will come not from creeds and doctrines.
They will come from the naked and the homeless.
They will come not from Bibles and books of prayer.
They will come from the glasses of water that we gave or did not give.
* * *
Who is Christ?
He who fed the poor, clothed the naked and visited the sick.
Where is Christ?
‘Whoever receives a little child in my name receives me.’
And who is with Christ?
‘Whoever loves has been born of God.’
* * *
By the time the young man had finished speaking, the sun had already set. The people got up in silence and went to their houses. They would never forget that day for as long as they lived. They had been touched by the Supreme Gift and wanted that afternoon to be remembered for a very long time.
‘Although, of course, it will not be remembered for ever,’ thought one of them. For as the young man quite rightly said: ‘Only Love endures.’
About the author
H enry Drummond was born in Scotland in 1851. When still a young man, he decided to travel the world in search of the meaning of life. Although he had been preaching to small communities
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