One of the scribes came, and heard them questioning together. Knowing that he had answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the greatest of all?”
Jesus answered, “The greatest is, ‘Hear, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one: you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. (12:28-30)
This question of the ‘greatest commandment’ is extremely important. The Father is not complicated, and His call for all humanity is very simple. He wants each human to learn to love him. The love described should encompass all you are: your heart, soul, mind and strength. In order to develop this love for the Father, you need an intimate relationship with God. From the first days of the creation, the Father wanted to dialogue freely with humans, like he began with Adam and Eve. Sin has created distance and confusion.
I came to reestablish fully the relationship between God and humanity. I came to give the example of what it means to fully love the Father. I dialogued with Him every day, I followed His directions in all I did. Today, people often confuse loving God with following a set of instructions. As Paul said rightly, the Spirit gives life, but the letter kills. If you want to learn to love us, you need a living and vibrant relationship with us.
Prayer should become a way of life for you. Don’t imagine that reading a book will be enough, even the holy book of Scriptures. Scriptures speak about me, and you need to come to us, you need to ask the Holy Spirit to fill you. This is not an option. If you limit yourself to apply Biblical principles but don’t learn to speak and listen to us every day, you will not be able to develop a strong relationship with God as a child with a father, it will be at best the relationship of a servant with his master. This is not our goal.
What we desire is fellowship with each human, we want to teach divine friendship. This is how the Father taught Abraham, who followed Him through dialogue with Him, through dialogue with me. Abraham saw my day, and he already knew me. In this way, Abraham became a friend of God. With my disciples, I taught them that they had to start by obeying me, obeying my love for them, and as they learned to welcome my words and put them into practice, they moved from the status of servants to the status of friends. My disciples could learn this divine friendship with me. This love encompasses heart, soul, mind and strength, and can be achieved only through dialoguing with me and remaining with me. Living in my presence would not have been enough, they needed both my presence and to dialogue with me.
In the same way, for you to learn to love us, you need to experience our presence, that is why I sent the Holy Spirit. By welcoming the Holy Spirit, this personal fire of love, you become able to welcome my presence and the truth that is in me, because the Holy Spirit and I are one, like the Father and I are one. This is why I said to the Samaritan woman that the Father was seeking worshippers who would worship in spirit and in truth.
As you learn to welcome the Holy Spirit, as you learn to speak to us, as you learn to ask us questions and to listen to our answers, you will become able to develop this divine friendship with us. As you learn to welcome our words, to put them into practice, you will grow in us. For developing your relationship with us, the Bible will be of great importance. Don’t use it as a tool to master knowledge, use it rather as a help to develop dialogue with us. Read a text and ask me a question when you don’t understand, then learn to listen to my answer. Sometimes, I will encourage you to simply access a study Bible that contains clarification of the culture of the Bible, often I will speak to you and accompany you in your understanding.
When you begin to read the Bible, remember that it is not a tool for introspection but for relationship with us. Therefore, make sure you first invite the Holy Spirit to fill you, that you ask the Father to send you His Holy Spirit so that you will be able to understand. Then, as you sense the presence of the Holy Spirit in you, we will want you to dialogue with us as you read, then you will learn better who we are. Some people want to speak with us and to listen to us without being serious in reading with us the Bible, and this is so often a presumptuous attitude, specially when a Bible is easily available. There are cases when we will lead people without using the Bible, where a Bible is difficult to find or dangerous to use. For those who cannot read easily, we can use others to tell them the stories of the Bible, so that they meditate these stories and learn about us, so that they can come to us and speak with us. In all this, our goal is to teach humans how to love as we love.
It is practically impossible for a wife to really learn to love her husband without a frequent communication, without hearing often from her husband - and not only read letters of the past that he had sent to her years ago. In the same way, it is impossible for my Church to learn to love me without listening to my voice. This is not an option if you want to learn to enter in my love, to learn to love us with all your heart, soul and strength. The Bible is a powerful channel of our grace, use it as you welcome the Holy Spirit, and let him guide you to fellowship with us.
Learn to spend time in prayer with us in your secret place. As you learn to do that, you will be able to progressively speak and listen to us, and you will also learn to dialogue with me during your days. Don’t forget, we are not looking for slaves but to teach you how to be our friend. For this you have to drop all that is offensive to us, all sin and impurity, and we will assist you if you are willing to follow our guidance. Then you will learn to dialogue with us, not only when you have a need, but simply because you want this divine fellowship to embrace all the instants of your days. Sometimes you will simply rejoice in our presence, at other times you will discuss with us, sometimes you will do something with us. This is a real love relationship that we want, not a theoretical relationship filled with big and complex words.
Learn, through the tender and pure Holy Spirit, to welcome our presence in you throughout your days. Learn to listen to us and to dialogue with us in times of prayer in your room as well as in the activities of your day. Then, the fire of continual prayer will be kindled and become stable in your heart and our love will spread in all you say and all you do. In this way you will become one of our many friends, you will rejoice continually and bring our fruits of love in this needy world. In this way, you will learn to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.
As you learn to be our friend, by welcoming our loving direction and obeying our guidance in all the areas of your life, your desire will be united with our desire, your will with our will, and you will discover that you can ask and it will be given to you. All you do will succeed, simply because you have learned to remain in our divine friendship, simply because you have moved from servant to friend, simply because I will be in you as you are in me. Your joy will be our joy, my peace your peace. Pride and self-centeredness will not have any more place, neither self-criticism. You will be able to remain in the flow of our grace, to know us as we know you, and you will begin to experience what eternal life is already on earth, before joining us for ever in heaven.
The second is like this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (12:31)
As you learn to welcome our love through the Holy Spirit, as you learn divine friendship, we will invite you to learn to love your neighbor and all our creation. We will guide you to desire, as we desire, to share this loving friendship with many. You will have to take the risk of loving even your enemy, simply because our love in you will compel you to do so. If anyone does not love his neighbor or even his enemy, it simply means that he has not yet learned to remain in our love.
I learned to love enemies thanks to the support and love of the Father, this is what I showed when I forgave on the cross those who killed me. In the same way, learn to forgive so that you remain in our love, so that we forgive you all your sins. Learn to forgive yourself and to love the creation we are doing in you. Learn to accept your weakness, so that we can lead you deeper in our path of love. Learn to forgive so that you let us judge rightly and don’t pretend to be a better judge than us. Learn to forgive so that you can walk by faith in us and in the confidence that we will judge rightly each person. Learn to forgive, so that you stop focusing on sin and learn to focus on grace and love.
We cannot force anyone to friendship with us, as you cannot force friendship neither. Yet, we will encourage you to do all you can to share the love that we pour into your heart with many, so that they come to discover the treasure that you have discovered, this life of peace and joy that is possible with us. This joyful life is a pearl of great price, and there is such a pearl for each human. For this pearl, it is worth giving away all that you had before. You will naturally want to lovingly encourage others to give away all of their self-centeredness and pride, in order to acquire their priceless pearl also, to acquire the Holy Spirit, to acquire our divine love and friendship, this heavenly treasure that cannot be stolen or destroyed.
Nothing in your world compares to the happiness that you can discover in the fellowship with us. This is the goal of your creation. As you live this love you will learn to love your neighbors and to do all you can to help them discover our love and peace.
The scribe said to him, “Truly, teacher, you have said well that he is one, and there is none other but he, and to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from God’s Kingdom.”
No one dared ask him any question after that.
This scribe was very sensitive to our love, and he did not try to react to my answer but chose to approve what I said. He still needed to experience this love for himself, but he already knew that it was the right direction for every believer. He was not far from the Kingdom of God.
He had understood that the burnt offerings and sacrifices were designed to bring people to this love, that they were not an end in themselves. In the same way, my sacrifice was not an end in itself, but a means toward the goal of love. It is out of love for the Father, it is out of love for humanity, that I chose to offer my life as a sacrifice for many. Nobody forced me, not even the Father. I offered my life freely, in order to open the eyes and hearts of many to the love of the Father. Love was the origin and the goal of the cross.
Never seek suffering, but don’t let neither the fear of suffering destroy your love. You cannot have two masters, you cannot learn to love and to avoid suffering. If you want to avoid suffering, you will not learn much in this life and you will have to become dead inside, you will lose all that makes humanity joyful and beautiful.
If you decide to learn to love with us as your guides, if you follow me as your shepherd toward the love of the Father, there will be sacrifices, but take courage, I have overcome the world and I will lead you to participate in my victory. In this way, you will enter fully in the Kingdom of the Father, and you will rejoice in this divine friendship for which you have been created.
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