on Love

On Love

“One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” 
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.  
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’  
The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” 
Matthew 12:28-31

Here I believe is a universal truth. Love God and love your neighbour as yourself. If we are truly loving someone we cannot hurt. Paul writing to the Corinthians said,
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 
Love never fails....
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”  
                                                                                            1 Corinthians 13:4-8a,13.
This to me is true love. Thus if we are practicing true love we will not hurt anyone.
You don’t have to be a Christians to practice true love.
Love, true love, can change the world around you. Love is all about giving.
Anne Frank a young Jewish Dutch girl who spent most of World war two in hiding from the Nazis and later died in a death camp wrote,
“Give of yourself, give as much as you can?  And you can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness!  If everyone were to do this and not be as mean with a kindly word, then there would be much more justice and love in the world.  Give and you shall receive, much more than you would have ever thought possible.  Give, give again and again, don’t lose courage, keep it up and go on giving!  No one has ever become poor from giving!”                                                          Anne Frank
It is when we stop giving. When we stop loving that things go wrong.
During World War two love throughout occupied Europe was in short supply. Countries that could have helped persecuted Jews around the world, turned their backs on helping them.
Leaving it to individuals to show love and at the risk of their own lives to protect Jews from the death camps.
We only have to look around the world today to see love is in short supply. Christians are dying at the rate of one every four minutes for their faith. Others are dying simply because they are from the west.
Love in areas occupied by terrorist groups is fading away in favour of hate.
Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver
“There is one other fundamental difference between love and hate.  Love is always a refuge.  Hate is never a refuge.  Only a mentally sick person can find refuge in his hates.  But love is the enduring sanctuary of life.  Life may rob you of many things.  It often does.  But it can never bereave us of love itself.  That remains.
-Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver, rabbinic leader, from a December 22, 1940, sermon,    quoted in Therefore Choose Life: Selected Sermons, Addresses and Writings of    Abba Hillel Silver, Volume One, edited by Herbert Wiesner (1997)
Think about it.