Love must be exercised.

February 26, 1984

God surrounds each of your lives at this moment with great light and an intense warmth. Indeed, the warmth that God radiates around each of you is being reflected to us, and we are in turn warmed and enlightened. It is important that you maintain your awareness that each of you is living lives which are converging on common grounds. You have been touched by the lives of others, and you are intensely aware of the reality of transition to our existence. 

There is much that you shared this evening of yourselves either in joy or concern, but it is important that you recognize that what each of you is experiencing, has experienced recently, or shall experience provides grounds for mutual support. Many times we have said there will be occasions when one of you will have special needs which need response from the rest of you. But it is a matter of the present that many of your needs which you face are in common. 

You spoke about the benefits to be derived by those who have very specific concerns relating to their own help. Those benefits of mutual sharing apply equally to this group, for you all are all sharing the experience of life in transition to life, the act of moving from one life to another—the broadening which takes place for all people. In a more intense manner and time, such as now, you can become more aware of the reality of our function in your lives, for when you know of others who are close to a point of transition, it is easier to relate to those of us who have made the journey. 

There are many whom you know of who have joined our form of life, and many of those serve as guides to those individuals who are still within their earthly shell. The continuity is unending. The love continues. There are times when God chooses a soul to be the personal guide of another who is loved in earthly life. The bond is there. It is frequently easier for the person in human life to feel the presence of another spiritual power. This is not always the case. There have been times when children have become the guides of parents or parents the guides of children. It is a very natural association, but not always the case. But whatever the relationship between your guide and you as an individual, judged from the human plane, the presence of an intense love must always be recognized. Guides do not serve through a sense of responsibility, but through love. You do not meet together in communion with your guides merely through a sense of responsibility, but through love: with love for one another, love for your guides, and love for God. 

Much has been said or written about love. We have communicated much about love in prior messages, but despite all that has been discussed, each of you understands very little about love, either its power or its influence, its potential, its beauty. Love never stops. It is not separated when two individuals separate physically. It does not stop when one moves to our life. It is absolutely continuous. It is the one thread which genuinely unites all generations of humankind since the beginning. The presence of love now is more powerful than in previous centuries, for more have experienced it. More have grown through their earthly lives and have learned to exercise it in their spiritual existence, and that exercising in turn influences subsequent lives. This thread, this strand of continuity uniting virtually all of humankind is ultimately beyond your comprehension. However, we emphasize its presence because you must come to understand that it is the only enduring attribute which one carries from one life to the next. Its strength as achieved in human life has a large effect on the character of its development in the next life. 

Your lives should serve as an opportunity for the exercise of love. When you perceive God, the first concept which comes to your mind is love, even more than power or light or forgiveness, for the power comes from love, the light is an evidence of love, and forgiveness is the exercise of love. But all there is is love. The only thing there is is love ultimately. 

As you grow spiritually, you grow in your capacity to exercise love, for love must be exercised. It must be used. It is not unlike a muscle which when left unchallenged or unused becomes functionless. For those who do not exercise love, life is empty, life is unsettled, and life in the end is void of meaning. If you look back upon your life and find evidence of the exercise of love, then you must feel that your life has had meaning, has had direction, has been important. If you accomplish many things and have not loved, your life is vanity. If you accomplish little of a material nature and yet respond to the world with love, then your life achieves its purpose. It achieves God’s purpose for you. 

The objective in life, therefore, is in the growth of love, its use and its acceptance. We emphasize the acceptance of love, for too often one hears the continual refrain that love is to be given, and that is true. But if it is to be given, it must be received. If another offers you love, you must ultimately receive it. God’s grace in living human life is seen both in the capacity to give love and in the humility of receiving it. 

You may ask, “How does one receive love? Is it enough merely to recognize that it has been offered?” The answer is a resounding, “No.” Life or love must be actively received just as it is actively offered. You actively receive love when you accept gratefully the actions of others offered in your support. You may not agree in principle with the kind of support which is offered, but that is not important. It is important that you openly accept the giving, openly recognize when another reaches out. Both forms of dealing with love are essential in providing meaning to your lives. 

You may feel at times separated somehow from God, but if you reflect upon those moments in your life when you have offered love to others and been the recipient of love from others, you will then recognize that you have been both the hand of God and the recipient of God’s touch. That recognition should help you to understand that God really never leaves one alone, that God is continually there. It is only the form of God’s presence which may at times be different one moment to the next, but never the fact of God’s presence. 

We suggest that as you continue through your lives individually and as a group, you actively reflect upon those moments when you have both offered and received love. You will then sense an inner peace with the recognition of God’s continual presence, and you will also sense greater fulfillment in your lives, conviction that your lives are meaningful, and that your lives have purpose and direction. You will find a reordering of priorities of which we have so often spoken. 

Putting God first in life does not mean praying in the morning before the day begins. It means putting the recognition of love in life first. All else is of lesser significance. Your activities then take on an orderliness and an appropriate significance according to God’s wishes for each of you. 

We bless you with God’s love. God offers love to you constantly and we do also. All of us, you and we, are fully united now and always through love. 

Amen.