How do you become an expert on something? Isn't there a kind of pattern? If you want to be an expert at golf, isn't it highly effective to observe the best, the professionals -- to seek out lessons and practice, practice, practice? Is it not good to continually monitor yourself and/or have experts check your progress and the elements of your game? Yes. This same strategy for excellence in any given endeavor can be utilized to acquire and nurture the most important thing in the universe and throughout eternity. -- expressing and being the pure expression of Love! There is nothing higher. It should permeate everything you do, every decision your make, all responses to that which comes into your experience. We are each given a talent of Love. We have it by reflection of Him who is Love. Jesus instructed that we do not "hide" our "talents" but take them in hand and work to multiply them (Matthew 25:14-30). It has been the purpose of this recent series of blogs to analyze this "greatest thing in the world" (Drummond) and perhaps inspire its multiplication.
Henry Drummond explains that talent "develops itself in solitude— the talent of prayer, of faith, of meditation, of seeing the unseen;" while "character grows in the stream of the world’s life. That chiefly is where men are to learn love" (14). He also notes that while the elements of Love can be analyzed for deeper understanding, "love is something more than all its elements— a palpitating, quivering, sensitive, living thing" (14). So to multiply this talent of love, we must first desire to let it take over our being, study it, and then consciously work to assimilate this living thing as seen in perfect expression in the life of our Master, Christ Jesus. Just as one who would become an expert at golf, or tennis, or another language, or in cooking, or anything else, must study the masters in these fields, we must observe Jesus' practice of love, as preserved in the Gospels and in the writings of Paul and early church fathers. He is the Way-shower and illustrates what this thing, Love, looks like in our present experience. Through spiritual sense we can discern the pure unselfish thought and motive behind his words and works, and make ourselves like him. Practice, practice, practice love. Meditate in prayer on this precious living thing. We each have this love within by reflection, as "image and likeness" (Gen. 1:26).
Drummond elaborates this point with the passage,We love— because he first loved us (
I John 4:19). He continues, "Look at that word “because.” It is the cause of which I have spoken. “Because he first loved us,” the effect follows that we love, we love Him, we love all men. We cannot help it. Because He loved us, we love, we love everybody. Our heart is slowly changed.
ACTION STEP: Today, choose a portion of the writings about Jesus, and look for how love is expressed in your selected passage(s). Next, keep the lesson of love, the way he expressed it in the verse(s), and find a parallel in your experience today in which you can actively follow that example. Before going to sleep tonight, think over his example of love and review how you did with it during the day. What did you do that was like it, what could you have done better, and what opportunities might you have improved? Pray to feel Love and ask that His angels be with you to better express it tomorrow. Make a habit of love. This is the "greatest thing in the world," and the most healing and comforting.
Drummond, Henry (2011-01-01). The Greatest Thing in the World, Experience the Enduring Power of Love (p. 14). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
