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THE NATURE OF GOD
THE LOVE OF
GOD |
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CEDOMIL VUGRINCIC, M.D., Ph.D. |
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"God is love"; therefore His only personal
attitude towards the affairs of the universe is always a reaction of divine
affection. The Father loves us sufficiently to bestow His life upon
us. "He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain
on the just and on the unjust." It is wrong to think of God as being coaxed into loving
His children because of the sacrifices of His Sons or the intercession of his
subordinate creatures, "for the Father himself loves you." It is in
response to this paternal affection that God sends the marvelous Adjusters to
indwell the minds of men. God's love is universal; "whosoever will may come." He would "have all men be saved
by coming into the knowledge of the truth." He is "not willing that
any should perish." The Creators are the very first to attempt to save man
from the disastrous results of his foolish transgression of the divine laws.
God's love is by nature a fatherly affection; therefore does He sometimes
"chasten us for our own profit, that we may be partakers of his
holiness." Even during your fiery trials remember that "in all our
afflictions He is afflicted with us." God is divinely kind to sinners. When rebels return to
righteousness, they are mercifully received, "for our God will abundantly
pardon." "I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own
sake, and I will not remember your sins." "Behold what manner of
love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of
God." After all, the greatest evidence of the goodness of God
and the supreme reason for loving Him is the indwelling gift of the
Father--the Adjuster who so patiently awaits the
hour when you both shall be eternally made one. Though you cannot find God by
searching, if you will submit to the leading of the indwelling spirit, you
will be unerringly guided, step by step, life by life, through universe upon
universe, and age by age, until you finally stand in the presence of the
Paradise personality of the Universal Father. How unreasonable that you should not worship God because
the limitations of human nature and the handicaps of your material creation
make it impossible for you to see Him. Between you and God there is a
tremendous distance (physical space) to be traversed. There likewise exists a
great gulf of spiritual differential which must be bridged; but
notwithstanding all that physically and spiritually separates you from the
Paradise personal presence of God, stop and ponder the solemn fact that God
lives within you; He has in His own way already bridged the gulf. He has sent
of Himself, His spirit, to live in you and to toil with you as you pursue
your eternal universe career. We find it easy and pleasant to worship one who is so
great and at the same time so affectionately devoted to the uplifting
ministry of His lowly creatures. We naturally love one who is so powerful in
creation and in the control thereof, and yet who is so perfect in goodness
and so faithful in the loving-kindness which constantly overshadows us. When we observe the Creator Sons and their subordinate
administrators struggling so valiantly with the manifold difficulties of time
inherent in the evolution of the universes of space, we discover that we bear
these lesser rulers of the universes a great and profound affection. After all, we all, including the mortals of the realms,
love the Universal Father and all other beings, divine or human, because we
discern that these personalities truly love us. The experience of loving is
very much a direct response to the experience of being loved. Knowing that
God loves us, we should continue to love Him supremely, even though He were divested of all His attributes of supremacy, ultimacy, and absoluteness. The Father's love follows us now and throughout the
endless circle of the eternal ages. As we ponder the loving nature of God,
there is only one reasonable and natural personality reaction thereto: We
will increasingly love our Maker; we will yield to God an affection analogous
to that given by a child to an earthly parent; for, as a father, a real
father, a true father, loves his children, so the Universal Father loves and
forever seeks the welfare of His created sons and daughters. But the love of God is an intelligent and farseeing
parental affection. The divine love functions in unified association with
divine wisdom and all other infinite characteristics of the perfect nature of
the Universal Father. God’s love is evident in His man(infestations) in the
universe. The greatest manifestation of the divine love for mortal
beings is observed in the bestowal of the Thought Adjusters, but your
greatest revelation of the Father's love is seen in the bestowal life of his
Son Michael as he lived on earth the ideal spiritual life. It is the
indwelling Adjuster who individualizes the love of God to each human soul. At times we are almost pained to be compelled to portray
the divine affection of the heavenly Father for His universe children by the
employment of the human word symbol love. This term, even though it does connote man's highest concept
of the mortal relations of respect and devotion, is so frequently designative
of so much of human relationship that is wholly ignoble and utterly unfit to
be known by any word which is also used to indicate the matchless affection
of the living God for his universe creatures! How unfortunate that we cannot
make use of some supernal and exclusive term which would convey to the mind
of man the true nature and exquisitely beautiful significance of the divine
affection of the Paradise Father. When man loses sight of the love of a personal God, the
kingdom of God becomes merely the kingdom of good. Notwithstanding the
infinite unity of the divine nature, love is the dominant characteristic of
all God's personal dealings with his creatures. Reference: The Urantia Book, Paper 2, Section 5 (edit/modif.) |
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