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Meditation 10:45 am
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Oasis Rising Center 8125 West Sahara Avenue, Las Vegas, NV 89125

Enjoy another wonderful text by Rev. Phil Smedsted, minister Emeritus of Oasis Rising Center

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Phil Smedstad's texts are one of the ways Oasis Rising Center supports members.

A Positive Path for Spiritual Living

Oasis Rising Center Spiritual Center
Oasis Rising Center 8125 West Sahara Avenue
Las Vegas, NV 89125
(702) 804-8189
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“Express the Love That You Are”
`By Rev. Phillip Smedstad

The previous two Sunday lessons were devoted to self-love and self-care.  This one was devoted to extending love to others.  Both are necessary in order for us to feel good about ourselves.

What we might call the “normal” (ego based) way to look at life is that we enter the world broken and with something missing.  In this view, our biggest need is to find the right person or the right situation to “make us happy.”

What Jesus taught was the opposite point of view.  He taught that we are already whole, and that our one need is to express the love of which we are created.  He also reminded us of the “great law of circulation.”  We always reap what we sow.  As he put it, “Give and it will be given unto you, good measure, pressed down, and running over.”  In other words, the more love we express, the more we receive.

In Jesus’ day, the idea of loving everyone was a radical one.  (Of course, it still is!)  In his day, the accepted belief was that there were “pure people” and “impure people.”  The Jewish priests taught, “Be you therefore pure, even as God is pure.” 

The priests separated themselves from all those whom they saw as impure.  This list included tax collectors, the poor, women, gentiles, and anyone not physically whole.  (This practice was the point of Jesus telling the Parable of the Good Samaritan.)

Jesus taught something completely different.  To him, purity was a matter of the heart.  He said, referring the Pharisees, “You clean the outside of the cup, but the inside is full of robbery and self-indulgence.”

In contrast to the priests, Jesus said, “Be you therefore compassionate, even as your Father in Heaven is compassionate.”  He taught (by example) that we can all know God the same way he did.  He also taught that the way to be happy is to live a life of compassion and service.

Here are some other thoughts on love from the writer of 1 John.  He said in chapter four:

Verse 8:  “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

Verse 12:  “If we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”

Verse 16:  “God is love.  Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.”

Here at Unity, we agree with this writer.  We know that the way to receive God’s love is to extend love to others.

Love isn’t a commodity.  There isn’t only “so much to go around.”  We don’t need to conserve it and only dole it out to a “special” few.  Love is a component of God’s thought system of abundance.  The more I give love to you, the more we both have.  The more you give love to me, ditto.

I shared on Sunday that I have often had the thought that since God is love, and since we are God-beings, all we want to do is to love each other.  Yet we put so many barriers in the way.

Our thought is, “What if I tell someone I love him or her, and the person misinterprets?”  I encourage us all to not worry about that, but to simply love each other and say we do.

Huston Smith, the expert in comparative religions, said in one of his books, “What Jesus offered wasn’t a rule book but a way of deciding what to do in life.  What do we do?  We do whatever will let us experience God’s love.  What do we refrain from doing?  We refrain from doing whatever will keep us from experiencing that love.”

Dr. Smith continued, “The reason that Jesus’ message spread so fast was that his followers had a simplicity and a joy that people could see.”  Mostly, they just loved each other.  Also, they weren’t living “everyone for himself.” 

Rather, they practiced the idea that, “My life isn’t just for me.  It’s for everyone else too.”

The “old” way of thinking is that we give, love, and serve because we “should.”  This line of thinking says that love is a sacrifice, but we ought to be willing to lose a little bit so others can gain.  Jesus’ way of thinking is that, “We love, give, and serve because it’s how we receive God’s love.”

The more we love, the more love we have, and the more joy-filled and peaceful our lives become.

In another place, Jesus told us to even love our enemies.  Why?  Was it so we can be good people?  So we can be moral?  So we can gain God’s approval?  No to all of these.  The reason to love our enemies, said Jesus, is “so that you might be children of your Father in Heaven who makes the sun to shine on the evil and the good, and makes the rain to fall on the just and on the unjust.”

In other words, the reason to love our enemies is so we can continue to experience our oneness with God.  So, practice loving everyone in your life this week, not because they deserve it (and of course they do deserve it), but because it’s how you can live in the Kingdom of Heaven all day, every day.