{"id":21836,"date":"2022-11-17T09:50:54","date_gmt":"2022-11-17T14:50:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=21836"},"modified":"2022-11-17T10:23:07","modified_gmt":"2022-11-17T15:23:07","slug":"a-movement-of-devine-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=21836","title":{"rendered":"A Movement of Devine Love"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SbfPJWL7ykc\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>For Father\nRichard, God\u2019s unconditional love is itself a movement that transforms us:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This whole human project pivots around Divine Love. <strong>Because our available understanding of love is almost always conditioned on \u201cI love you if\u201d or \u201cI love you when,\u201d most people find it almost impossible\u2014apart from real transformation\u2014to comprehend or receive Divine Love.<\/strong> <strong>In fact, we cannot understand it in the least, unless we \u201cstand under\u201d it, like a cup beneath a waterfall<\/strong>. When we truly understand Divine Love, our politics, our anthropology, our economics, and our movements for justice will all change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If we are to believe the biblical revelation, it seems that God does not love the people Israel <em>if <\/em>they change (as they first imagine), but <em>so that they can change. <\/em><strong>Divine Love is not a reward for good behavior, as we first presume it to be; it is a <\/strong><em><strong>larger Life, an energy and movement that we can participate in<\/strong><\/em><strong>\u2014and then, almost in spite of ourselves\u2014we behave differently.<\/strong> It seems few of us go there willingly. For some reason, we\u2019re afraid of what we most want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The prophet Hosea tells the people of Israel poetically and succinctly, \u201cI will love Unloved: I will say to No-People-of-Mine, \u2018You are my people,\u2019 and <em>then <\/em>you will answer back, \u2018You are my God\u2019\u201d (Hosea 2:24). That is the divine pattern, although we almost always get it backwards. <strong>For some reason, we think that <\/strong><em><strong>if <\/strong><\/em><strong>we love God, God will love us. When, in reality, it is <\/strong><em><strong>because <\/strong><\/em><strong>God loves us that we can return the compliment. God does not love us because we are good; God loves us because God is good.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Up to the time of the Babylonian exile in the sixth century BCE, the Jewish people believed\u2014as so many of us do today\u2014in retributive justice. \u201cTit for tat,\u201d we might say. <\/strong>It went something like this: mistake \u2013&gt; punishment \u00ad\u2013&gt; conversion \u2013&gt; consolation\/salvation. Most people accept that logic to this day because it makes God and the world feel fair and just. Reward and retribution are in our hardwiring. They are the plot line for almost everything\u2014except for the evolving biblical story, beginning with the Torah and evolving through the prophets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During and after the exile, the prophets started seeing a clearly different pattern at work in God\u2019s dealing with people. <strong>The new pattern looks like this: mistake \u2013&gt; consolation\/salvation \u2013&gt; conversion. It is a total turnaround of consciousness! As Isaiah is able to hear from God, \u201cThe shame of your youth you shall forget . . . My love shall never fall away from you\u201d (Isaiah 54:4, 10). It seems that inside the Divine logic the answer to failure is, in fact, more love!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Divine Love is the interpretive key to everything. <strong>Unloved people do bad things. Loved people do good things. It is that simple.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>___________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sarah Young<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is no condemnation for those that are in Me. I died to set you free, live freely in Me. You live in Me when you surrender, connect and are living out of Me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Psalm 23:1-2  <br><strong>The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing<\/strong>. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Isaiah 30:21  <br>Your ears will hear a word behind you, &#8220;<strong>This is the way, walk in it<\/strong>,&#8221; whenever you turn to the right or to the left. And whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you: \u201cThis is the way. Walk in it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>John 10:27  <br>My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Romans 8:1-2  <br>Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life \u2026 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For Father Richard, God\u2019s unconditional love is itself a movement that transforms us: This whole human project pivots around Divine Love. Because our available understanding of love is almost always conditioned on \u201cI love you if\u201d or \u201cI love you when,\u201d most people find it almost impossible\u2014apart from real transformation\u2014to comprehend or receive Divine Love. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21836"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21836"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21839,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21836\/revisions\/21839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}