Love Everyone As Thyself: The Greatest Commandment Ever

"But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And one of them who knew the law, asked him, testing him, Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?

Jesus said to him,

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your power, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like to it, Love your neighbor as yourself."

(The Gospel of Matthew, 22; 34-39 - The Modern New Testament from the Aramaic)

(Image credit: Wieslaw Sadurski)

"Perhaps you think that different kinds of love are possible. Perhaps you think there is a kind of love for this, a kind for that; a way of loving one, another way of loving still another. Love is one. It has no separate parts and no degrees; no kinds nor levels, no divergencies and no distinctions. It is like itself, unchanged throughout. It never alters with a person or a circumstance. It is the Heart of God, and also of His Son.

Love's meaning is obscure to anyone who thinks that love can change. He does not see that changing love must be impossible. And thus he thinks that he can love at times, and hate at other times. He also thinks that love can be bestowed on one, and yet remain itself although it is withheld from others. To believe these things of love is not to understand it. If it could make such distinctions, it would have to judge between the righteous and the sinner, and perceive the Son of God in separate parts.

Love cannot judge. As it is one itself, it looks on all as one. Its meaning lies in oneness. And it must elude the mind that thinks of it as partial or in part. There is no love but God's, and all of love is His. There is no other principle that rules where love is not. Love is a law without an opposite. Its wholeness is the power holding everything as one, the link between the Father and the Son which holds Them both forever as the same.

No course whose purpose is to teach you to remember what you really are could fail to emphasize that there can never be a difference in what you really are and what love is. Love's meaning is your own, and shared by God Himself. For what you are is what He is. There is no love but His, and what He is, is everything there is. There is no limit placed upon Himself, and so are you unlimited as well.

No law the world obeys can help you grasp love's meaning. What the world believes was made to hide love's meaning, and to keep it dark and secret. There is not one principle the world upholds but violates the truth of what love is, and what you are as well.

Seek not within the world to find your Self. Love is not found in darkness and in death. Yet it is perfectly apparent to the eyes that see and ears that hear love's Voice. Today we practice making free your mind of all the laws you think you must obey; of all the limits under which you live, and all the changes that you think are part of human destiny. Today we take the largest single step this course requests in your advance towards its established goal.

If you achieve the faintest glimmering of what love means today, you have advanced in distance without measure and in time beyond the count of years to your release. Let us together, then, be glad to give some time to God today, and understand there is no better use for time than this.

For fifteen minutes twice today escape from every law in which you now believe. Open your mind and rest. The world that seems to hold you prisoner can be escaped by anyone who does not hold it dear. Withdraw all value you have placed upon its meager offerings and senseless gifts, and let the gift of God replace them all.

Call to your Father, certain that His Voice will answer. He Himself has promised this. And He Himself will place a spark of truth within your mind wherever you give up a false belief, a dark illusion of your own reality and what love means. He will shine through your idle thoughts today, and help you understand the truth of love. In loving gentleness He will abide with you, as you allow His Voice to teach love's meaning to your clean and open mind. And He will bless the lesson with His Love.

Today the legion of the future years of waiting for salvation disappears before the timelessness of what you learn. Let us give thanks today that we are spared a future like the past. Today we leave the past behind us, nevermore to be remembered. And we raise our eyes upon a different present, where a future dawns unlike the past in every attribute.

The world in infancy is newly born. And we will watch it grow in health and strength, to shed its blessing upon all who come to learn to cast aside the world they thought was made in hate to be love's enemy. Now are they all made free, along with us. Now are they all our brothers in God's Love.

We will remember them throughout the day, because we cannot leave a part of us outside our love if we would know our Self. At least three times an hour think of one who makes the journey with you, and who came to learn what you must learn. And as he comes to mind, give him this message from your Self:

I bless you, brother, with the Love of God, which I
would share with you. For I would learn the
joyous lesson that there is no love but God's
and yours and mine and everyone's."
(ACIM, Workbook Lesson 127)

We are reaching a critical turning point in the maturing of the human mind. An identity crisis of untold magnitude is now plainly manifest. The human race is distancing itself from clear thinking and seeing, placing its power and identity in the increasingly complex forms and images of this world. Join us now in an experience of enlightenment; the uniting of your mind with the clarity and vision of Jesus Christ. Salvation requires an all encompassing awakening that includes reason, simplicity and the spontaneous action of healing. Your awakening will transform the world through you.

"A problem cannot be solved if you do not know what it is. Even if it is really solved already you will still have the problem, because you will not recognize that it has been solved. This is the situation of the world. The problem of separation from God, which is really the only problem, has already been solved. Yet the solution is not recognized because the problem is not recognized."
(Excerpt from Lesson 79, ACIM)

Thank you from the Miracles Healing Center

"The only thing man should pray for is forgiveness. He has everything else. Now take this personally, and listen to Divine logic:

If, when you have been forgiven, you have everything else, and
If you have been forgiven,
Then you HAVE everything else."
(Urtext of A Course In Miracles)

All you need is forgiveness. You have been forgiven. Now you have to give it in order to receive it. Is that OK with you? Let's look at lesson 46 from A Course In Miracles:

God Is The Love In Which I Forgive.

"God does not forgive because He has never condemned. And there must be condemnation before forgiveness is necessary. Forgiveness is the great need of this world, but that is because it is a world of illusions. Those who forgive are thus releasing themselves from illusions, while those who withhold forgiveness are binding themselves to them. As you condemn only yourself, so do you forgive only yourself.

Yet although God does not forgive, His Love is nevertheless the basis of forgiveness. Fear condemns and love forgives. Forgiveness thus undoes what fear has produced, returning the mind to the awareness of God. For this reason, forgiveness can truly be called salvation. It is the means by which illusions disappear..." (Complete the lesson from the workbook of A Course In Miracles.)

"Love your enemies, bless them that curse you,
do good to them that hate you, and pray for them
which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
Be ye therefore perfect,
even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."
(Matthew 5:44-48)