without love we cannot know God St John writes that he who abides in love abides in God and God in him love is the essential quality of being a disciple of Christ without love we can't even begin to call ourselves Christian love is that essential sign the essential quality of the heart it is a sign of who Christians are and in the early church those outside the church were able to recognize this love within the community of Christians the way they treated each other and so we must ask ourselves do I really love as God commands me what is This Love that God calls his disciples to have and this this question requires discernment of us that must be very careful how we think and understand what love is because the world teaches a very different kind of love to the love that Jesus teaches and commands us to have the world will have us believe that love is something very different to the love that God commands us to have men have distorted the very idea of Love distorted the very idea a of Love they've done this to suit their own desires the world will teach us that love is about fulfilling ourselves that satisfies our own desires too often the concept of Love is used even as an excuse to sin love in the eyes of the world can be used in the exact opposite way of true love real love it can be a means of satisfying our selfishness our own desires the very opposite of real love the love that Jesus taught and commands us to have is sacrificial it requires something of us it it requires self-denial self-giving love is not cheap or easy and it certainly has nothing to do with a a sense of contentment or a sense of fulfillment for ourselves and if we seek these things if these are the purpose the motives for our actions then we are without love Elder Ephraim of Manos and Arizona taught that love isn't even measured by what we give it is not what we give he says but how we give think of the The Widow's Penny it is how we give it is the the condition of the heart this is what God is concerned with this is what God will judge the condition of the heart as we give St Paul writes in two Corinthians that God loves a cheerful Giver it sounds such a throwaway easy line God loves a cheerful Giver that is the heart that is filled with Mercy the heart that is consumed with care for other people is what God seeks in us not the not The Reluctant Giver the the heart that is cold and un unloving but performs these mechanical acts of giving as a necessity as a requirement but bristles and secretly wishes that it didn't have to give that is filled with resentment at having to give even if we were to give away a vast Fortune if we did it without gladness without love and such an offering has no value before God this is not how the world teaches us it is not before God a matter of the ends justifying the means never if the means by which we reach the end are not filled with love and Holiness and obedience then the ends are worthless worthless no matter what the world will say the consequences are we cannot achieve holy things by Unholy means it is the condition of the heart that God judges we read in the church fathers that the soul that is filled with love is truly a reflection of God our soul becomes a reflection of God himself when it is consumed by love when it is filled with love in 1 John 2 we read he who loves his brother abides in light if we wish to abide in the light of God then we must love our brother love our neighbor love our family members love our work colleagues and yes we love our enemies the soul that is filled with love becomes filled with God's light and when the heart truly loves when the soul is filled with the light of God that light then shines into the lives of other people we may become a light in other people's Darkness we may share this love this light of God and the more we are filled with God's presence the closer we come to God and the more we are filled with his presence the more we are enlightened and the more radiant the soul becomes but a soul lacking love a soul that rejects This self-sacrificial Love that God commands us to have becomes ever darker becomes ever more empty it becomes darker because it rejects God for God is love and when we reject love we reject God and we lose any light that Christ May place within us our soul may may plummet to very depths of Darkness this is the condition of the heart that refuses to love and we may struggle we may find it hard hard to forgive we may find it hard to love of course there are times when every one of us will struggle to love but it is that willingness to try that willingness to try to forgive that God calls us to that God will grant his grace and blessing in response to but the heart that is closed like a stone that is hard that refuses love also refuses God's grace refuses God's blessing refuses the transformation of the presence of the Holy Spirit human history of course and and these modern times that we live in are filled with men who have tried to change the world through violence through Force but the only way that we transform and conquer men's Hearts is through love and without love real love there is no human achievement that is any true value or ultimate purpose nothing nothing that we do in this life has any ultimate purpose if it is not performed in love love of of God first and love of neighbor love requires that we forgive that we that we become blind to the to the Splinter in one another's eyes love St Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13 is is patient patient to suffering it it doesn't seek itself its own its own desires its own fulfillment and we who are Christians know that we are called to participate in spiritual warfare this is the nature of our lives and if we wish to be Victors in every spiritual battle that we enter and to be ultimately Victors in the spiritual warfare then we must learn to love we must try to love but we remember that love is always always a crucified love the love that God calls us to is a crucified love it is the way of the cross it demands sacrifice and the sacrifice is a costly sacrifice it is not cheap or easy but God assures us he promises us that the soul that tries that is willing to be filled with love is honored with Heavenly treasures and the Heart the soul that bears love is honored with these Treasures yes both in the next world but also in this world through God's presence As He makes himself known to the heart that loves all