Loving others is loving God
by
Andrew Benner
Jesus taught that in order to love God, we must love
our neighbor.
We become confused because we think that there is a distinction between
loving others and loving God. We may think that there is another person
living far away who’s name is God. That he is an entirely separate
identity, situated in space and time just like us.
But if we are trapped in this notion of God, we will not be able to see
the presence of God in others. All we may see is an enemy. We may try
with all our might to love God, but because we have not understood the
teachings of Jesus, we cannot seem to.
Through Jesus Christ, God sent to us the Holy Spirit. This is the
connection between God and ourselves. If we are unable to see Holy
Spirit in others, we will be caught in the illusion that God is
somewhere else. If all we see is an enemy or a person that we hate, we
will not be able to love God.
But if we are able to love our enemy's, they suddenly are not longer our
enemys, and we become free. We must be willing to see the truth of the
other person, not just some idea of him that we have boxed them into. If
we immediatly think of certain painful words that this person said to
us, and that is all we percive, we cannot love them no matter how hard
we try.
But if we look deeply, we will see that this person to suffers greatly.
He or she may have had all types of negativity spoken of their lives,
and now they cast it onto others. If we see this simple truth, we will
feel love for the other person, and they are no longer our enemy.
Once we are able to love them, we can love God.
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