The Inspiration of Love
Greetings, brothers and sisters. This is Dr. James Perry continuing with our series where we seek to
explore the deeper meanings of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Over the years, the heavenly
Father has revealed many revelations of spiritual truth to me, and I want to share them with you. This
morning we seek to grasp the meaning of the inspiration of love.
And now, sit back and listen to today's message.
The Inspiration of Love
"But there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding
Job, Chapter 32, Verse 7.
Brothers and sisters, we know that God is love and God reveals this love through his Son, Jesus, who
is the personal revelation of the Father. But the Father also sends his spirit to indwell the minds and
souls of his mortal children. This spirit personalizes the love of God for each of his children so that
each individual has a distinct fragment of God living within them. This knowledge itself is proof of
the goodness of God and His eternal concern for his mortal children. This spirit is also the guarantee
of our salvation, as it creates our souls. God is love, and this is the greatest spiritual reality known.
This love is also the inspiration for struggling mortals on earth. This love is of such a nature that,
once bestowed upon its devotees, it causes an immediate stimulation in our minds and souls to
become perfect even as the heavenly Father is perfect.
This love stays with us throughout all experiences; it guides and encourages us in our struggle to
attain perfection of existence. The inspiration of love is one and the same time the initiator, the
sustainer, and the consummator. As the popular saying goes, "If you feel love, you can make it." No
experience can throw a shadow over this magnificent light of divine affection. Though we are
constantly experiencing this divine affection, our lack of understanding and thus our perception of
it is oftentimes deficient. We cannot have too much understanding of this divine affection as it
functions in our lives.
We are two-fold creatures, material and potentially spiritual. Our material selves are subject to the
material laws governing material reality. We are also self conscious beings and are therefore aware
of what happens to us materially. We have emotional feelings and reactions to the material things
we experience. Our material hopes and aspirations, our physical suffering and emotional agony, our
anxieties and depressions are all the results of being self conscious beings. When we experience
something material that hurts or disappoints us, something that we have no control over, we have
strong reactions to it. Sometimes we can have so many of these experiences or they can occur before
we have acquired the psychological framework for accommodating them that they can permanently
distort our material viewpoint of life. We are often tossed and turned by the tides of adversity. Such
is the material life. This being the case, it is paramount for us to understand first the divine plan and
second, divine affection.
The Palmist asked the question, "What is man, that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man that
thou visiteth him, for thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with
glory and honor?" The Father gives us his spirit to live and work in us, to implement the divine plan.
The Father has commanded us to be perfect even as he is perfect. Being the lowest of his free will
creatures we are also the farthest removed from him in actual divinity, and according to the plan we
are in the process of achieving perfection. This process starts from the very beginning so that we
appear on the planet completely devoid of knowledge. Every fact of knowledge, all wisdom, has to
be earned.
The result of the lack of knowledge and wisdom leads to pain and suffering, and it is this pain and
suffering the serves as the stimulus for acquiring knowledge and wisdom. While divine love beckons
to us to move forward, pain and suffering is the actual stimulus that drives us forward. But why a
plan that involves so much pain and suffering? While we may ignore the forward call of divine love,
we do not ignore the scourge of pain and suffering. We act to remove our suffering and in the
process acquire knowledge and wisdom. Without pain and suffering, we make no progress towards
the Father's command to be perfect even as he is perfect.
On the worlds of time and space, there is quite a bit of pain and suffering involved in the growth
towards maturity. We see this in our human children, who through lack of understanding do not
recognize the goodness involved in certain acts that are essential to their well being. Though the
child does not recognize it, the parent is being actuated by love for the child. And so it is with the
divine Father. The Father is being actuated by our grasp of divine affection. This spiritual affection
is defined as the "desire to do good to others" and is applied to the potential aspects of the self, the
priceless soul. This soul--like the mortal child--does not at first recognize or appreciate the love of
the Father. It must grow and develop under this very influence of love before it can begin to
appreciate the magnificent bestowal of this divine love in the form of the divine spirit. The Father's
spirit constantly urges us to "attempt to master the material and present existence in light of the
spiritual and future career."
This divine love is also the source of truth, beauty, and goodness. And as the revelation of truth
continues, liberating the soul so that it becomes free to appreciate and enjoy divine values and
meanings, the soul is filled with joy and peace. Now we realize that the material aspects of life are
continuing. This spiritual realization has no effect upon them, nor upon the reactions to the material
life, but underneath it all is the all-encompassing love of the Father. This prevents despair and
hopelessness. Indeed it is the source of hope and encouragement. But what is the connection of
material consciousness to spiritual consciousness? Spiritual faith, living faith, that faith that can
grasp the divine values and meanings not only in the sunrise of material living but also in the sunset
of material living and all intervening periods of material life. There is no night of despair and
hopelessness that is so dark that the light of living faith cannot penetrate it, nor no day of material
joy and happiness so bright that the light of living faith cannot outshine it. And wherever the living
light of faith shines, there will be revealed the precious love of the heavenly Father.
Why is it that we do not simply give up and end all this interminable struggle? What is it that keeps
us driving down the road of pain and suffering? What value has this kind of attraction and power?
What meaning has this kind of satisfaction? It is the value and meaning of divine love that holds us.
Even though we may not even be consciously aware of it, we enjoy the benefit of it. And we are
mightily moved in our souls and minds when we consciously discover this benign affection. We are
inspired and filled with an acknowledgment of the goodness of God. Is it strange that the Father's
love through His Son, Jesus, should have this power of inspiration? Is it strange that we should
respond to the Father this way? No, it is not strange that divine love should have this power of
inspiration or that we should respond to the Father this way. After all we are created to respond to
divine love this way. It is the one thing that equips the striving struggling mortal creature transcended
in his soul to conquer the delays of time and the handicaps of space and appear in the actual presence
of the one who sent it in the first place: the heavenly Father.
This concludes today's message on the meaning of the inspiration of love. We hope you find
something in this message to ponder and pray about as you go about your day.
Until next time, this is Dr. James Perry.
Inspirational Messages
By Dr. James Perry
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The Inspiration og love
