What They Said

“But what is the love that is the whole of the will of God?  Do we really understand it?  Do not many of us think only of its earthly side? We like to be loved, that is, to have other people love us and live for us and do things for us.  We like the gratifications of love.  But that is only miserable selfishness, if it goes no further.  It is a desecration of the sacred name to think that love, at its heart, means getting, receiving.  Nay, love gives. Getting is earthly; "as it is in heaven" is giving.  That is what God's love does — it finds its blessedness in giving. "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son."  That is what Christ's love did—it poured out its very life-blood to the last drop.  The essential meaning of loving must always be giving, not receiving.”

"If love is the sum of Christianity, surely those things which overthrow Christian love, are exceedingly unbecoming Christians.  An envious Christian, a malicious Christian, a cold and hard-hearted Christian, is the greatest absurdity and contradiction.  It is as if one should speak of dark brightness, or a false truth!”