What could be this ‘will of God’ that millions of believers mention when they recite “Our Father in heaven” the prayer Jesus dedicated to humanity? Would it not be ‘to love’ as Jesus invited his disciples to do: “A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13: 34)?
Jesus did nothing else on earth than what he saw his heavenly Father do, who is love. Jesus too raised the sun (his love) on the evil and on the good, and sends rain (his blessings) on the just and on the unjust (Matthew 5: 45). By loving, Jesus accomplished to perfection the law God gave to humanity to avoid its self-destruction by imitating Cain, who, by killing his brother Abel (Genesis 4:80), committed the first murder recorded in the history of mankind.
If no one could have made Jesus guilty of sins, it is because he loved unconditionally, in every circumstance, even when the religious leaders accused him of transgressing their religious laws and traditions. It works in the same way for all those who are born of God. Even if they don’t always respect the religious traditions, they can’t sin because the seed of God (his love) remains in them (1 John 3:9). As it was impossible for Jesus to sin, it is also impossible to sin by practicing this new commandment: “Love one another like I have loved you.”
Whoever loves never demands! He desires and lusts after nothing that belongs to another, to his neighbor. To love begins where ends the tenth commandments: “You shalt not desire … nor any thing that is your neighbor’s (Exodus 20: 17).” Whoever loves, gives! Love expresses but in one-way: always in the direction of others. Love gives and gives without counting! It gives and gives endlessly! This is why ‘God is Love’ and Jesus Christ the personified love.
In 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 the apostle Paul describes what a man is able to do without having received the divine love. Nothing can stop him to speak with tongues of angels, to prophesy, to understand all mysteries and knowledge, to have all faith, to distribute all his goods and even to deliver his body to be burned. He is able to do all these ‘positive’ things without having love, because he expects to receive approbation and honor from man. Such actions are a result of a kind of human charity behind which those who thinks of themselves only hit their egoism.
Divine love is never egocentric. It too is only directed in one way, but always towards others, it thinks about others and forgets itself. This is what the apostle Paul reveals in 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7 where he writes: “Love envies not, vaunts not itself, puffs not up, behaves itself not unseemingly, seeks not her own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil, rejoices not in iniquity.” On the contrary! “Love suffers long, is kind, rejoices in the truth (especially the word of God), bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things.”
No one can do the will of God and love without renouncing to all demands. “Love” that demands, envies or seeks his own is a carnal behavior that works against the divine love who does nothing but give, give, and give.
One who prays: “may your will be done” expresses (most unconsciously) the necessity to renounce everything. He is then in this favorable position where he can accept Jesus’ invitation to the multitude that followed Him to benefit from his goodness and answer: “Here I am, ready to renounce my life (all demands), and to charge me of my cross (to die on it) (Luke 14: 25-27).”
It is then the faith in the words of Christ that gives him not only peace with God but also the capacity to be his disciple, what, above the forgiveness of sins, enables himself to receive that grace of the Holy Spirit pouring the divine love out in his heart (Romans 5:5). In fact, it is by fleeing the corruption (conceit) of this world, that we become by the most precious of the promises, participating in the divine nature (2 Peter 1: 3-4). Then the will of God realizes in us in a way that it will be possible for to love on earth as in heaven.
Kurt WOERLEN
jan 18
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