Using the Power of Love
Let’s face it, it can be challenging to love. It can be challenging to face all that we have going on in our lives and the life of humanity and still find our way into love. Yet we can always return to knowing that love simply is.
Love is a power that is not only within us, but it is also actively being used by us. As the writer invites us to ask ourselves, what is the “right use and development of this power”? How can we lean into this innate power within us and use it to its highest potential?
Asking ourselves this question is key to living a life of joy and, in many ways, living into our divine purpose. In 1 Corinthians 13:13, “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love,” we are invited to trust unwaveringly in God, hope devotedly, and love extravagantly. But as Jesus said, the greatest commandment is to love one another and love God.
Love Is the Key
It unlocks the shackles we have created for ourselves and others and reveals our true nature. By developing the power of love within us, we release ourselves and others from our judgments and the limited definitions we have placed on each other. It brings us into greater harmony with the truth that we are all one. It binds the whole human family because it sees no separation, and through our experience of it, we realize that it heals our perceived notions that we are separate from each other.
Love does not appear after healing takes place; love is what brings about healing.
Perhaps this is why we are told that love is the greatest of that which is in us. Protestant theologian John Calvin once said that “faith and hope are our own: love is diffused among others.”
As we share our love, it lifts up others. It not only allows us to see others as the expression of the Christ, but it also lets others feel themselves as the Christ. Love not only breaks down the walls between ourselves and others, but it also breaks down the walls others have built between themselves and their own Christ nature.
It is through this that love “opens the door to experiences of God’s good, above and beyond anything we have ever thought was possible.” The good we experience is in us and with each other. One of my favorite Bible verses is Matthew 18:20: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” It tells me the Divine is in our relationships. What better way to honor that Presence than by unleashing the full power of love within them?
Love and Healing
Our relationship with the realization of our own divinity can be difficult. Our relationships with others can be filled with even more challenges. Rather than thinking we must work on such relationships to bring us into a greater sense of love, we can recognize our ability to call forth the power of love to bring about the healing. Love does not appear after healing takes place; love is what brings about healing.
Let our direction be guided by love. Let us see the Christ within others and within our experiences. And let us fully accept the power of love as it brings us into greater unity with others and within us.
Have faith in love and place your hope in love. Trust it, because love never fails. Love is.
This article first appeared in the Unity booklet Love, Healing, and Abundance: Bringing Spiritual Wisdom to Life.