The Joy of Love
Greetings and good morning 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 will ponder our lives as we seek to understand the meaning of the joy of love.
And now, sit back and listen to today's message.
The Joy of Love
Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, that you shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and you shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy." John, Chapter 16, Verse 20.
Brothers and sisters, in today’s broadcast, we explore the joy of love. When a woman is in labor, she is filled with the anguish of pain and suffering, but when the child is born into the world, she is filled with the sweetness of joy. The labor of love is joy, and the object of its work is no less than the uplifting of all who sit in spiritual darkness. Love flows from the highest height, even the heights of Paradise perfection, from the Father of all, even the source of all. Having left the heights of glory, it descends to the lowest depth, even the depths of sin. It returns back to the heights of Paradise glory, taking with it all those souls who have been embraced by it. This is the endless cycle of love.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Father delivers them from all of them, one by one. But how can we lead someone if we don’t know the way, and how can we show someone how to do something if we don’t know how to do it ourselves? Thus it is seen that even in the depths of darkness, there must be someone who knows the way to lead the repentant evildoer out of darkness. And there is.
This love must flow through the will union of Jesus and us. Jesus is the pattern, and we copy the pattern. And as Jesus only does that which he sees the Father do, we only do that which we see the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of Truth, do. Stated another way, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. We, the sons and daughters of the heavenly Father, follow. The Father sent his Son, Jesus in the form of man into the darkness of this world to reveal his matchless moral character and his spirit nature. What a pity that the world could not comprehend this marvelous light as it shone so lovingly and merciful upon it. “He was in the world, but the world did not know him. He came unto his own, but they did not receive him.” And this is the condemnation: “That light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For every one that does evil, hates the light and does not come to it, least their deeds should be reproved.” “But as many as received him, he gave them the power to become sons and daughters of God, even to those who believed in him.”
This Son perfectly demonstrates the way of love from the very bottom to the very top. Having conquered the darkness of sin with his life of love, he now assumes the position with his Spirit of Truth to assist all who would climb from the chaos of darkness to the brilliant order of light, and it does not matter to what depth of darkness they may dwell in. Such is the power of divine love and mercy. Jesus has completed the training of love, and now enjoys the complete joy of love, even as you and I must complete the training of love in order to enjoy the joy of love.
The training of love goes something like this: Before love finds us, the darkness is so great that we are not even aware that we are in darkness. How great is that kind of darkness? During this phase, we pursue the false gods of the flesh: selfish ambition, lust, jealousy, envy and a host of secret evils.
During this phase of the pursuit of false gods, we suffer disappointment, pain, and sorrow, but feel that the remedy for these failures is to intensify our loyalties to these false gods. This pursuit of the false gods may go on for an indefinite period of time, but finally we reach that eventful day when our false gods die. And when our false gods die, then we dies too. It is at this point that love finds us whose despair at this point is well nigh ultimate, if not bordering on absolute. At this point, we must choose eternal death or begin the long journey of love from where we are, and as we are. The training of love now begins in earnest. Mercy also begin to function as it opens the eyes of our understanding.
We now understand that we have been living in darkness, and this knowledge is terrible to bear, but it must be borne. We receive a glimpse of the light. We can not receive the full exposure since it will blind us as we have been in the thick darkness. But this light guides and sustains us through the awesome and supreme training of love. This love has a peculiar nature; it is not selfish, and can only uplift us as we allow it to flow through us. This love is also peculiar in that it requires us to show love, patience, mercy and forgiveness in spite our present pain, sorrow, and disappointment. No time is allowed for us to engage in a pity party; we begin training right away as we learn to love our brothers and sisters. And we finds relief from our pain, sorrow, and disappointment just to the degree that we allow this love to flow through us. And so it is, the pain, the sorrow, and the disappointment drives us forward while we are pulled upward by the joy of love by loving our brothers and sisters unselfishly, even as Jesus loves us.
This concludes today’s message on understanding the meaning of the joy 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.
Your Kingdom Come; Your Will Be Done!
Inspirational Messages of Light
By Dr. James Perry
The Joy of Love
