Excerpt
from an article written by David Brandt Berg
How to find
real love. How to give it. How to keep it. Love and happiness are like
perfume: You cannot pour them on others without getting a few drops on
yourself.
To be genuine
and lasting, love must be based on a more enduring foundation than mere
physical attraction or fleshly gratification. It must include an unselfish
desire to protect and help and make someone else happy. It must also involve
admiration for the other person’s finer qualities.
Real love is a
spiritual thing; it’s not merely physical. It’s mostly manifested in spiritual
and mental companionship and compatibility, the likes and dislikes and habits
the two have in common.
A man or a
woman can be in love with their partner’s mind, sentiments, spiritual
reactions, and companionship – all of which have little or nothing to do with
physical beauty.
Those who seek only to gratify their flesh or that of their mate will never
find complete satisfaction and happiness.
The things of
this earth can satisfy the body, but only God and His true love can ever fill
that aching spiritual void in the heart, because He created that place for
Himself alone.
That's the
secret: Look for someone to make happy, and then happiness will find you!
“Give, and it will be given to you” (Luke
6:38).
"Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap"
(Galatians 6:7).
Those are God's
laws of the spirit and are just as definite as the laws of physics, such as
gravity. God's laws of the spirit never fail. They always work, either for you
or against you according to whether or not you follow them.
Life, liberty,
and the giving of happiness to others--these are things that only God can give
and the only things that will ever satisfy your spirit. So if you want to be
happy and make someone else truly happy, seek the satisfaction of the sprit
that can be found only in God and His love! God is first and most
important law is love --unselfish love of Him and others.
If you will
obey that law and give the love that is His and others' due, you will also
receive love, "for with the same measure that you use, it will be measured
back to you" (Luke 6:38).
God is
love! He is both the very essence of love and the Creator of love in all its
wonderful forms. And since God fills the earth, the universe, and heaven
itself, there’s always plenty of love to go around. In other words, the
problem is not with Him. The hitch is that when most people seek love,
especially romantic love, they fail to include Him. And so they muddle
through, when in fact He wants to be involved and His help is right there for
the asking.
Perhaps they
think He’s too holy or too busy running the universe to involve Himself with
such petty and carnal matters as the emotional needs of His creations.
So if you're
looking to give and receive real love, go to the Source. He's got all the
advice, answers, and love you need. His love for you is unconditional.
No matter how
weak or disheartened you may feel right now, or disappointed in yourself or
others, He still loves you. His great, perfect, marvelous, unconditional love
is not lessened, no matter what the circumstances or conditions.
He keeps
pouring it on and pouring it on without measure and without limit. His love is
so beautiful!