How we relate to the person we love provides an exceptionally clear and precise mirror of how we relate to ourselves.
Authentic love is singular; how we love is how we love everything. Jesus connects the two great commandments of love of God and love of neighbor, saying they are “like” one another (Matthew 22:39). We often think this means to love our neighbor with the same amount of love we have for ourselves. However, what it really means is the Source of love for our self, for our neighbor, and for God is one and the same.
This is not, however, the way most people understand love, compassion, and forgiveness—yet it is the only way love will ever work. As Jesus said, “cut off from the vine, you can do nothing” (John 15:5). In and with God, we can love all—even our enemies. However, many try to obey the second commandment without the first.
There is a direct connection between love and suffering. If we love anyone deeply and greatly, we will certainly suffer because we have given up control to another, and the price of self-extension will soon reveal itself. This is why we are told to be faithful, because long-term loyalty and truly conscious love will always lead us to necessary pruning (John 15:2) of our narcissistic self.
Until we know "Love, which is beyond all knowledge” we will keep trying to figure out life and death with our minds. Authentic love, which is always more than emotions of the heart, opens the door of profound awareness, where suffering for that love is fully embraced.
Ephesians 3:17-19 “May Christ dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power… to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
