What Love Is

The following is a transcription of the monk’s thoughts: “The problem is always that we mistake the idea of love for attachment…we imagine that the grasping and clinging that we have in our relationships show that we love. Whereas actually, it is just attachment. Because the more we grasp, the more we are afraid to lose, then of course, we are going to suffer.

“Attachment says: ‘I love you, therefore I want you to make me happy’, and Genuine Love says: ‘I love you, therefore, I want YOU to be happy. If that includes me, great! If it doesn’t include me, I just want your happiness.’ And so, it’s a very different feeling.

“Attachment is like holding very tight. But Genuine Love is like holding very gently, nurturing, but allowing things to flow, not to be held tightly. The more tightly we hold on to others, the more we will suffer. But it’s very hard for people to understand that, because they think that the more they hold on to someone, the more it shows that they care about them, but it’s not. It’s really just that they’re trying to grasp at something, because they’re afraid that otherwise they themselves will be hurt.

“Any kind of relationship which imagines that we can fulfil ourselves through another is bound to be very tricky. Ideally, people should come together already feeling fulfilled within themselves, and just therefore appreciating that in the other, rather than expecting the other to supply that sense of well-being which they don’t feel on their own. Then there’s a lot of problems.

“And also with the projection which comes through romance where we project all our ideas, ideals, and desires and romantic fantasies onto the other, which the other cannot fulfil. Once you get to know them, you recognise that it’s not Prince Charming or Cinderella, but just a very ordinary person who’s also struggling. And unless one is able to like them as well as feel desires for them, and to also have loving kindness and compassion, then it’s going to be a very difficult relationship”.

The subject she addressed and her thoughts on it were correct and true. The challenges she highlighted are parts of the fallout of the afflictions of our fallen humanity. I remember that long before now, I used to try and get this particular message across to my wife since most spouses, relying on natural and carnal knowledge that are largely being disseminated, both in the world outside and in the largely unspiritual church world, often believe that their personal happiness and joy depends solely on the other person in the union.

While there are obligations on our parts especially in a marriage union to make clear allowances for our spouses’ happiness especially in the way we make them feel loved, there must be clear understanding that before any human relationship, there is and must be God. Our relationship with Him takes precedence over the ones we have with ourselves. Originally, fellowship with God predated any other kind of relationship.

God, and not another fellow human being must be the source of our joy and happiness, so much so that if men withdraw their own supply of love and affection, I don’t lose my own joy. In fact, I have more to offer than I want to receive, because my supply comes directly from the boundless source. Relying on another being for our joy, apart from the obvious implication it has as idolatry, is also placing an unhealthy demand and burden that cannot be unfailingly fulfilled on that other individual who is just another limited being as us.

If two people want to love themselves unfailingly, they must learn and receive the grace to love God first. When we first love God, then we can love any fellow human in an unending and in a balanced way. If I love God as I should, the power of the eternal God to love also resides in me, and if I love anyone with that love, it means it cannot be exhausted and is unconditional. The natural human’s ability to supply a quality resource as pure, true love is limited. They will soon be drained as the other party continues to draw on their very finite store of “love”. And more so, what will be offered is a soulish, emotional kind of love that is based on ephemeral motivations.

That is why a basic salvation truth is the requirement that everyone be made whole before entering into a relationship as crucial and as fundamental to God’s kingdom initiatives, as marriage. Ideally, the reversal of the fallen state leading to restoration to the pre-Fall state of man through the radical appropriation of the truth of salvation in Christ is a vital precondition for being able to understand and live every aspect of life in all of its correctness. When two people bring their wholeness into a marriage union, the spiritual synergy and strength create a forward movement and momentum that can only thrust them continually into the deeper purposes of God, rather than constitute a drag influence on each other.

Marriage was not ordained originally for fallen humans, but for a being whose spiritual senses were still pristine and intact. His (the original man’s) expression of love to his spouse within the union was not soulish romance (i.e. primarily from the soul), but one predicated and  sourced from the very nature of God. It emanated from the Spirit of God into the spirit of the human, and expressed through a sanctified soul.

The question then is: how is this attained? Every ability, every competence that are true and genuine must come from God. They are exclusively the products of spiritually determined relationship through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. They must not come through any kind of astral travels, transcendental soulish journeys or meditations, the stuff of which Buddhist monks typify or embody and preach.

This is the reason why we cannot, and must not reference them in any way and under any guise, regardless of how true their gospels sound. We must source all of our lights from the True Light of men and of the world. The reason the person who spoke in that video accessed that truth which is originally our own heritage as heirs of the Kingdom of God, is because Satan who once dwelled close to our upper realm position knows these things. He’s illegally giving the knowledge to his own priests, and hoisting or brandishing them to us and the world as emblems of false spirituality. They are booby traps and seducing influences that are going to profane the understanding of many even among the elect. Although true, they are inherently corrupt, having been sourced from a lawless spirit. Once anything, including a truth, starts in darkness, it cannot end or result in light. Those humans like the monk, inspired by negative spirit beings, are radiating false lights that are drawing many in the nations as we speak. In the western world, many of these eastern religious movements are drawing many into their folds because they brandish knowledge beyond natural confines.

The battles of these end time are battles of sight and blindness. The terrain is going to be very muddled for many who are not discerning. Fellowshipping with dark understanding or knowledge under any guise has a corrosive effect on the spirit of the believer. We must scrupulously avoid them. The sources upstream from where these rivers of knowledge flow are dark and death-ridden. They do horrific damage that are not immediately noticed to the spiritual sight of a believer. The Spirit of truth Who lives within us cannot stand them. He shrinks away at their sight.

In the kingdom of God, everything is about foundation. Once the foundation of anything is dark or suspect, it must be wholly rejected. God is not interested primarily in how many things we get to know or the size of our revelation. Of bigger concern to Him is how we get them. How did we know what we came to know? What was our process? Jesus had to dismiss the the man with a lot of manifestation credentials and told him that He did not KNOW him even though everything he claimed to have done was true. God is more interested in how our YOKING with Him through a  life-changing, kingdom relationship becomes the basis of our light, the singular factor responsible for our arrival at the destination we are in.

Satan, we are warned sometimes, masquerades as an angel of light. The light such as the one being radiated by this monk is from the dark realm. If anyone goes ahead to ask her what was the way to getting the sort of knowledge she was talking about, she would never point you to Christ or God. At best, they’ll counsel you to reach into your inner self. “Man know thyself”, rather than know or reach out to God as a means of accessing true knowledge.

Whatever truth they have to dispense belongs first to our God and is our inheritance. We cannot learn it from them, but from the pure source that is our God and His Spirit. Long ago, I used to rebuke believers who are addicted by Nollywood movies on the spurious excuse that they learn some wisdom from them. I always asked them that would the world, least of all a portion of it that is so debauched, teach you any wisdom that the Holy Spirit cannot teach you? Who taught them what you are going to them to learn – is it God? If it’s isn’t God, are you then interested in carnal, street wisdom? Is the source of all wisdom not the God you claim to come to serve in church?

I have come across relatively mature Christians who are espousing certain frontiers of new understandings, claiming that they are exploring practices like yoga, whose emphasis is exploration of the resources in the soul through meditation, in order to gain mastery over the body.

The CROSS is our singular, authentic route to the resurrection life, and thus the only basis for insights into the mysteries of life. Christ our Lord tells us that He “is the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father but by Me.” (Jn 14:6). The Father is the fountain of all wisdom, knowledge and insight. He is our destination, the One to whom we are coming or going. Arrival in Him is the ultimate in life’s fulfilment. No one gets to that destination except through,

 the doorway that is Christ.

In John 10:1-2:, Jesus said: “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.

“But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.”

v.9-10: “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.

“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”