There are those in mortality who think love is a weakness. Love is not a weakness. Love is strength.
It is definitely true that to those who love much, much can be forgiven.
This love can be cultivated until it rises above every trial and every temptation. It is power released that can endure all things, rejoice in all things and glorify all things.
To him who has perfected love there is no such thing as fear. He has overcome the very power of fear. To such a one there is only a love of God so great and all-inclusive that it is all there is left. And this love builds a wall of light around the individual that is pure, penetrating glory. For such a one there are no evils, for they no longer can touch him. If evils should come to one who has perfected love the evils are instantly transmuted into blessings and glory and light, such is the power of love. One who has perfected the great gift of love deserves God's will to be done more than he wants anything else in existence, every personal desire vanishes before a love so great. Even a desire to be freed from suffering, no matter how great that suffering is, is completely banished. He wants only God's will to be done to the extent he has no other desires in his soul. This is the pure, divine, Christ-like love that is completely exalted.
When one has this perfected love he can endure any suffering, any heartbreak or seeming calamity. In the most excruciating pain or torture he can lift himself above it through his love. The pain can be the same, throbbing with the same intensity, but through his love he can detach himself from it. He will be aware of it still; can even analyze it and accept it, for it can still remain a part of the physical body. He can know it is there. He does not deny it any more than Christ needed to deny the crown of thorns, nor the reality of the cross. But by the great gift of love he can rise up above the physical, and from the spiritual observe the suffering, and praising God for it, can heal it forever. This is the power of healing -- and the great healing will follow as the day follows the night. It is transmuted into added strength and power.
It was the great power of this divine love that Christ used when he stood in such majesty while a crown of thorns was crushed upon his brow, while he was mocked and jeered, spit upon and crucified, then said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." This is the love that every individual has the right to. This love perfected is the majesty and power of God.
Few understand that it is man who receives the great blessing when those two first and great commandments are fulfilled literally. It is man's ills that are healed. It is to him the great strength comes, and to him the power is given. It is to the one who learns of the great love, and perfects it right within his own soul that the complete healing comes -- the great renewal.
When he fulfills the second great commandment, to love his neighbor as himself, then comes the power to heal one's neighbor.
These two commandments cannot be fulfilled in a minute, nor a day. It takes time to plant the desire for this great love. And even before the desire there must be a partial vision and an understanding of it. After the desire is planted it takes more time to cultivate it until it is perfected. That great love must be practiced constantly until the heart, the soul and the mind have learned to co-operate in vibrating with it and then in sending out. And it is when this love has become the very meaning and purpose of existence that life begins to have the divine powers made manifest and can shake off mortality and ascend into the realms of light.
It is when one has so perfected this love that there can be no more discord, no more confusion, no more weakness or fears that one realizes how completely his heart has become softened. And it is then the veil of unbelief is rent.
It is then that one not only perfects this great love. He actually becomes it. He is love.
There is no possible way to express the magnificent power and glory of such a condition. One can only begin to comprehend it when he has planted the desire to fulfill it in his own heart.
The clearer one's vision becomes in viewing this love and the wonder and power of it, the keener becomes his desire to fulfill it. When the acquisition of this great, unspeakable gift becomes the one and only aim, when it has become a burning obsession that can no longer be denied, then it will be fulfilled.
To the one who perfects this divine gift of love the realms of Light open wide and all powers will be bestowed -- beauty in all its Celestial perfection, health in all its full magnificence, divine strength in its purified rhythm of majesty, and power in its illimitable fullness.
This is the love of God. This is the love beyond all gifts. This love is perfection in its fullest extent and scope. "Pray to God with all the energy of heart that ye might be possessed of this great, divine, Christ-like love." Let this love begin to sing as a melody of thanks in your heart. Worship and praise and adore and let your hearts be lifted up continually in songs of everlasting joy and the love will be yours -- yea, all things and all powers will be yours, whether in heaven or on earth.