• Editor’s note: “Spiritual leaders answer on…” is a weekly column inviting Kaua‘i’s religious and spiritual leaders to share their doctrines’ perspectives on a suggested subject. Every Friday a topic is printed, inviting a response. Submissions are edited for content
• Editor’s note: “Spiritual leaders answer on…” is a weekly column inviting Kaua‘i’s religious and spiritual leaders to share their doctrines’ perspectives on a suggested subject. Every Friday a topic is printed, inviting a response. Submissions are edited for content and length. Thoughts or suggestions for future topics are always welcome. Next week’s topic is peace. The topic at the end of the column is for the following week.
Pastor Wayne Patton
Anahola Baptist Church
If we could only draw one picture in all the world to depict the concept of love, it would not be a wedding ring or a sensual embrace or a romantic candle or a sacrificial act of kindness. It would be the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 John 4:9, 14 says: “This is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. … And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.”
We can rely on His love when things go wrong in our lives and when things go right in our lives. We can rely on that love at the crucial junctions of life. We can rely on that love when our strength fails, when our friends die, when our hearts break, when our minds reel, when our hopes are dashed, when our health is gone. We can rely on God’s love, and His love is embodied in Jesus Christ.
The Lord God of heaven wants us to stop what we are doing and look at something He wants to show us. He wants us to see what kind of love the Father has given to us. John put it this way in 1 John 3:1, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God? And that is what we are!”
Love is the message of Christmas. God’s love is spelled out in the person of Christ and is available to fill the Christmas stockings of our hearts.
Kahu James Fung
Lihu‘e Christian Church
Jesus taught, “As I have loved you — you also love one another (John 13:34).”
The kind of love that Christ talked about is a deeply spiritual kind of love, which is characterized by respect, strength, endurance, encouragement, a willingness to sacrifice and a way of seeing and treating a stranger and even an enemy as someone of invaluable worth. The “normal” way of loving works like this: We get to know someone and if we like that person, find her or him attractive — we might decide to love that person. In contrast to this, the Christian way is that we love someone, everyone — because each person in the world is a child of God and loved by God, and therefore ought to be loved by those who consider themselves to be followers of Christ. And as we love someone — that love has a transforming influence on that other person and on us as well.
Christian love is not about mere sentiment, feeling or emotional attraction. It is about a commitment to regard the other person with kindness and consideration. Our faith challenges us to love those who have been neglected, mistreated, discriminated against, rejected, abused, abandoned. And not only to have loving feelings for them but to make Christ’s love for them tangible through loving behaviors.
Jesus spoke about how easy it was to love those who love you. There’s nothing outstanding or impressive about that. But to love those who don’t love you — now that’s what makes life an adventure! And when we do that it can trigger a flow of endorphins within that bring a sense of exhilaration and well-being. Loving is in itself rewarding, but the surprising by-product of that activity is a deep sense of inner peace and joy. Try it!
The Baha’is of Kaua‘i
“Know thou of a certainty that love is the secret of God’s holy Dispensation, the manifestation of the All-Merciful, the fountain of spiritual outpourings. Love is heaven’s kindly light, the Holy Spirit’s eternal breath that vivifieth the human soul. Love is the cause of God’s revelation unto man, the vital bond inherent, in accordance with the divine creation, in the realities of things. Love is the one means that ensureth true felicity both in this world and the next. Love is the light that guideth in darkness, the living link that uniteth God with man, that assureth the progress of every illumined soul. … Love is the spirit of life unto the adorned body of mankind, the establisher of true civilization in this mortal world, and the shedder of imperishable glory upon every high-aiming race and nation.”
The above quotation from the Baha’i writings beautifully describes the importance of God’s love to our existence. However, the following quote elaborates that unless we reciprocate His love we cannot appreciate or fully benefit from the bounties of God’s unconditional love.
“O son of being! Love Me, that I may love thee. If thou lovest Me not, My love can in no wise reach thee. Know this, O servant.”
Lama Tashi Dundrup
Kaua‘i Dharma Center
There are two kinds of love, conditional and unconditional. Conditional love is based on human needs; mental, physical, emotional and spiritual. It is extended to love of self, others, nature, things and god. This can produce happiness or suffering and is based on karmic causes and conditions. Most humans have this kind of love.
Unconditional love is based on concern and altruistic compassion for all those who have suffering. Secondly, it’s basis is an experience or realization of the open clearlight all expansive nature of one’s mind or heart. This experience naturally produces compassion, insight, knowingness, power and the bliss of lasting happiness. This experience is only attainable through meditation or yoga and has five intrinsic qualities: unity, positive action, clarity, equanimity and unconditional love. We call this Buddhahood or enlightenment, and only humans can develop this.
Topic for two weeks from today
• Will you speak to us on laughter?
•Spiritual leaders are invited to e-mail responses of three to five paragraphs to afrainier@thegardenisland.com.
• Deadline each week is 5 p.m. Tuesday.
