“Freely you have received, freely give” (Matt. 10: 8). The Lord meant you to love Him, with a love that you can enjoy and be reared with while He gains nothing from you. He takes initiative in loving you so you can benefit from His love’s continuity in you, so that you become “love”; that is you become able to receive His compassion forever since His tender mercies are all what there is. You get formed if He dwells in you in the sense that He is the one who makes each of you human.
And the Lord knows you as His sons and daughters. And He has created you with that attribute and you remain children of His because His Fatherhood remains forever; and the only thing He wants from you is that you love one another so that you come into being through that bond of love and He sees you as several pieces making one necklace all coming from His good pleasure.
That is how the Creator deals with all His creation starting with Man. He gives freely and Man is not able to pay Him back with anything except obeying Him, such obedience which in fact benefits Man. “What can I pay the Lord for all what He has given to me?” That is a question which Man poses to himself after having tasted the compassions of the Lord. And after Man has realized that he can pay back nothing to the Lord He says “I accept the cup of salvation and I call on (invoke) the name of the Lord”. And the cup of salvation is from the Lord and to the Lord. And the invocation comes from Man’s heart where God dwells; in a sense the Lord is addressing Himself when Man invokes Him or calls on Him.
And the Bible says “The Spirit helps our spirit with groans too deep for words” (Romans 8: 26). That means that when you address the Holy Spirit in your prayers, the Spirit would then be addressing Himself. In other words, He would be praying in you and He would take your humanity into His divinity so that no uncleanness would cling to your humanity. In other words, the Lord “lends” you Himself so that you carry yourself back to Him then He would be at rest in you and you would rest in Him. You as a human act like a trader in matters of your piety and holiness, but God is not a trader of “things”; He trades you with Himself. You cannot appease God with anything; you can only please Him with faith; that is you give Him back what He has given you. And He gives you afresh every day and you taste Him anew because your God is always new through the Fountain that is in Him; and you, according to His grace, feel that you have become a new being as if you have been born with the dawn of each new day as if you see the Lord as your life-giver morning and evening since He does not want you to settle with a sense of “oldness” and does not find pleasure in you dwelling in spiritual death so He brings forth life (resurrects) in you as if you did not die in a sin, which He forgets and erases from His memory which keeps a record of only your “return” to Him.
And He wants you to spend yourself for people not asking for gratitude in return so that you do not end up as a trader in dealing with them. When you are poor in Spirit, you are in need of no one except God and when someone gives you something, you consider that he offers you from what God has given him. For you, it is right to thank all for whatever they give you. But when you thank them, it is not to consider yourself as owing them, but so that they would know that they owe all to the Lord. Do not forget to get people to return to the Lord. It is not acceptable that they have done you a favor (when they give you). That is trade. It is important that they believe that they have served and loved you by the Grace of God. If they know that they are God’s loved ones, they would, through giving you, be coming back home to the Lord.
We would be obeying His commandment when we love one another; and that makes us grow in Him. But the question is: whom do we love when we love? In reality we desire the others to become Godly. It is true that we make a community of those who love God. God spreads Himself, we can say, in the sense that He makes Himself present through me and you. He does not move from one place to another. He resides and dwells where He is welcomed. He does not invade, nor does He usurp. He reveals Himself in your humanity and in those He chooses. He is hidden in you and He makes you speak on His behalf. But beware of forgetting that you are “borrowing” His words which become yours in the sense that you use them out of obedience. The splendor of your course in life is His word. And the words which He said were not put in books for you to read only, but so that you become His word. On the last day, He would see to it whether you have become His word or not; and if not then you would have remained “illiterate” spiritually.
He wants us to become one “word” in love though in appearance we are many and different. And if we say that we have become one “word” then let us consider ourselves to have become one “life” in the mystery (sacrament) of communion which makes the believers all one. When such unity exists among us, God is revealed to us as one and that revelation makes us a unified humanity existing in His love, the love of Him who has given us His only beloved Son.
In that vision, Divine love becomes existent in us; that is it descends upon us from Him who first loved us and made us His. And if He made us only His, it is for our wellbeing, so that we can grow in Him and walk towards Him or better to say our walk in Him.
We do not only grow in His grace, but we become His grace. One of our Fathers said that in His love we become eternal. That, of course, is a mystery that cannot be understood by intellection, but through your belovedness you will understand all and understand that grace impregnates you when you obey, until your mind finds its home in your heart.
That was the purpose of the creation. And since God is not in need of the creation, He then created you to flood you with His love so that you become a being in His image and according to His likeness.
Would it be left for you after that to imagine a society of love? Surely that was His purpose in the creation. You have no other aim since you have no other nourishment unless you are in communion with others. Such communion you establish through the power of giving which is in you.
As such is the community of the saints of whom some have been taken up to Him and some are still on this earth, yet in His Kingdom. Those He has taken up to Himself after having reached that image, and those whom He has kept on this earth after He has sculpted them with His grace, are the sons whom He favors; and those who have not yet arrived at the beauty of that image, He has mercy on them so that they can understand and become that image. They would become that image when they realize that He has given them freely all the Beauty they have, so they thank Him; and He, in His faithfulness to Himself, profusely gives them so that they feel that they have taken freely from Him and as such they expand themselves to Him until they touch His throne; and there they remain.
Translated by Riad Moufarrij
Original Text: “المجانية” – An Nahar – 03.11.2012
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