LOVE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING!--By Maria
3/83
DO 1793
Maria No.5
1. THERE IS A LOT IN THE BIBLE ABOUT HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS & ABOUT HAVING LOVE TOWARD OTHERS. That's really the whole purpose for living, to love God & others--the whole purpose for everything is love, right? That's the most important thing! You may have a lot of gifts & talents, but if you don't have love it's nothing! And it's certainly not talking about love for your work! It's talking about love for the Lord & others!--And if you love God you'll love others too, because loving others is one way you show love for the Lord.
2. IF WE'RE GOING TO GROW & IF WE'RE GOING TO MATURE & BE OBEDIENT TO THE LORD, THEN WE'VE GOT TO GROW IN LOVE, NOT JUST IN FAITHFULNESS IN OUR JOB! The Lord didn't say faithfulness was the most important thing, He said love is the most important thing! Although faithfulness is important, "The greatest of these is love!" (1Cor.13:13)
3. YOU MAY DO YOUR WORK WELL, BUT IF YOU HAVEN'T LEARNED TO WORK WITH OTHERS & HOW TO LOVE THEM & HOW TO TREAT THEM, THEN YOU'RE MISSING THE MAJOR LESSON OF WHY WE'RE HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE! We need to learn to love people & how to take care of them & how to keep them happy. We need to learn that people are different & we can't treat them all the same. There are so many things written about how the Lord wants us to treat people differently according to their needs. Jesus Himself was very mindful of human weaknesses & didn't require the same kind of behaviour from everyone or that the same treatment be used with everyone.
4. WE'RE HAVING A LITTLE PERSONNEL FRICTION IN THE OFFICE RIGHT NOW, SENSITIVE HOPE IS HURT BECAUSE OF PEARL'S RATHER SNAPPY ATTITUDE OF "WHY CAN'T YOU DO THINGS RIGHT?" Pearl thinks it's all Hope's fault for being too sensitive. She may be partially right, Hope is sensitive & she does need to get some victories in that area, but the Lord will put the majority of the blame on the fact that Pearl doesn't have the love that she should have, because she's hurting Hope! With sensitive people you've got to be more gentle. I try to treat Hope with a lot less bluntness & a lot more softly than I do some others, because people are different & need to be treated differently.
5. WHY DID THE LORD PUT HOPE WITH PEARL IN THE FIRST PLACE? He could have easily put someone with her who wasn't so sensitive, but obviously He wants them to learn to get along together. He wants Pearl to learn to be more considerate & Hope to learn not to be so sensitive. Pearl doesn't seem to be very sensitive herself, & she needs to learn about being more considerate of others' feelings. Pearl is very single-minded & totally dedicated to her work, & that's good, GBH, but she's got to learn to have a little pity on others whom she doesn't think are quite as gifted as she is, or quite as righteous. But she needs to remember that she makes mistakes herself & not to be so critical.
6. A CRITICAL SPIRIT COMES FROM SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS! If you know you're such a mess yourself, you don't go around criticising other people for their mistakes, but if you think you're so righteous, that's when you start picking on other people. Dad wrote a whole Letter on this subject, about loving your co-workers. ("Appreciation", ML No.997)
7. IT JUST COMES DOWN TO LOVE & "DOING UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU" (MAT.7:12), & THAT'S THE WAY SHE NEEDS TO TREAT OTHERS! Regardless of what else she accomplishes & everything else she might do right & how much more she gets done than everybody else, if she doesn't have love & show love for others--especially those in the Lord's Family who are close to her, her neighbours, in other words--then in the Lord's eyes the good works don't really count. I didn't think about it that way until I started praying about, "Well, what can we do about Pearl's criticism?" Then the Lord showed me that the criticism isn't the problem, it's just a symptom.--A lack of love is the problem!
8. WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT INGREDIENT IN OUR RELATIONS WITH EACH OTHER? What's the thing that proves we are the Lord's disciples?--Love! "By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love for each other." (Jn.13:35) How can you love God Whom you can't see, if you can't love your brothers & sisters, the people you work & live with all the time? How can you say you love the lost whom you haven't seen, if you don't love your brother or sister whom you do see & whom you work with every day? (1Jn.4:20) Obviously it's a problem which many of us need to work on!
9. YOU'RE NOT GOING TO GROW TOO MUCH OR LEARN TOO MUCH UNLESS YOU LEARN TO HAVE LOVING INTERACTION WITH OTHER PEOPLE, & that's not easy, it takes patience, love & humility. But that's what we're supposed to be learning, to be leaders!--Leaders of people! In a way we're directing the World now through the Words, but when we really start ruling the World, I doubt that Pearl is going to be sitting at a typewriter! She's probably going to be working with other people, maybe it'll be people who are typists, but she'll be working with people!--Not typewriters! So it's important that she learns how to do it now!
10. IF SHE WANTS TO GROW UP & IF SHE WANTS TO LEARN THE LESSONS THE LORD HAS FOR HER, to learn to rule the World & be the leader God wants her to be, then she's got to learn how to love others, & she's not going to learn it just by sitting at a typewriter! She's done that for many years, she's learned those lessons. Now the Lord wants her to learn how to get along with people, especially those that she doesn't necessarily feel too compatible with or who don't really think the same way as she does or who maybe she doesn't feel are as talented or as smart as she is. She's graduated from the typing grade & now she needs to learn lessons about love & working with others, which is really the more important thing to learn.
11. I REALLY FEEL THAT WHEN YOU LEARN TO WORK WELL WITH PEOPLE, THAT IT'S A MAJOR VICTORY! IT'S SO MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THAN JUST WORKING ON PAPERWORK! Look at most of the Letters Dad writes, they're mostly about how to deal with people--how to handle people, how to talk to people. These spiritual principles are not just for the Spirit World, they're to use with people!--How to handle people & how to deal with them & how to relate to them & how to treat them! Of course, some of our relationships are direct between us & the Lord, like praise & prayer & obedience, but most of them are relationships on a personal level with each other. You can't even do much about evil spirits unless you deal with the people that they're bothering or that they're in, right? Look at all the Childcare Letters, they show how to take care of babies, how to teach babies to grow up, how to teach babies love, joy, longsuffering, all the things we're supposed to have learned, & they're all about people!
12. LOOK AT ALL THE LETTERS ABOUT THE MILLENNIUM, "Millennial Re-education", "Millennial Hospitality" etc., they all have to do with what our relationship with people is going to be! We're not just going to be sitting there meditating or looking up into the sky, there's going to be a whole World full of people to take care of. Our girls certainly will be much more spiritual & important with all they've learned--& for what? What's the main job?--Teaching people! And what are they going to teach them?--To love!--To work together in unity & harmony & love! (Amen!--D.)
13. DON'T YOU WANT TO GROW? DON'T YOU WANT TO LEARN TO BE A LEADER? Don't you want to learn to do something more than be a typist all your life or the whole Millennium? The Lord wants us to learn to be people-handlers, to be able to teach people. That's what the childcare people do! They have a real headstart because that's what they're doing all the time! They're working with people, little people, & they're teaching them, & I think they see the responsibility of learning all these lessons themselves so they can teach the children. They realise how important their own actions are, because of how it reflects in the children so much, they see it constantly every day in front of them, because every little thing they do the children imitate.
14. REAL GOOD PEOPLE-HANDLERS ARE SORT OF SCARCE, THEY'RE RARE, & IT'S PROBABLY BECAUSE MOST PEOPLE DON'T HAVE THAT MUCH LOVE! It takes a whole lot of love when you handle others. The Lord gave the simple answer of how to work with others when He said, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (Mat.7:12) It's all in that little tiny sentence, but it takes a lot of learning to learn how to carry that one little thing out--& a lot of love! But that's what we're here to learn!
15. IT'S LIKE THE LORD SAID, "HOW CAN YOU RULE THE CHURCH OF GOD UNLESS YOU CAN RULE YOUR OWN HOUSE?" (1Tim.3:5) Well, the same thing applies: Unless you can rule your own spirit first of all, how can you rule others? And it is ruling, in a way, because it's treating people with love, & when you treat people with love, they are indebted to you, & you are sort of a ruler over them. But how can we rule the Church unless we can first rule the little area that the Lord has put us in?--Not to lord it over them, but to treat them with love!
16. "AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER?" (Gen.4:9) Well, the answer is obvious. Of course we are our brother's keeper & we need to remember that some people need to be "kept" even more lovingly & tenderly than others. The Lord has placed us together, whether you like it or not, whether you like to be with the people you're with or not, & it's your responsibility to love them! The Lord evidently knows it's something you need, & if you can't get along with them He evidently knew you needed to learn to or He wouldn't have put you there! Obviously it must be possible or He wouldn't have put you in that situation.
17. WE DON'T GROW OR LEARN ANYTHING UNLESS WE HAVE A CHALLENGE. You've got to have some challenge to keep progressing & you need a spiritual challenge to progress in the spirit. It's easy to snap at somebody & say, "Oh, why didn't you do it right?"--But if you want to grow & progress the way the Lord wants you to, then you need to learn to handle the situation in love.
18. IN OTHER WORDS, WHY DON'T YOU LOOK AT IT LIKE A NEW CHALLENGE IN LIFE: "What can I do to grow in my relationship with other people, & of course, in my relationship with the Lord?" If we're growing in the Lord, then we'll be more loving toward other people, & that's what it's all about. Just open your Bible, every other verse talks about it!--And read the Letters, they talk over & over again about our relationship with people.
19. THAT'S ONE OF OUR PURPOSES IN LIFE!--TO LOVE OTHERS!--And not even just to win the lost 'way out there, but to win our brothers right here! It says, "A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city!" (Pr.18:19) There's a challenge! It's not a command right there, but obviously it's pretty important to the Lord that you love your brother who's right beside you. Jesus said to His disciples, "This is My commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you." (Jn.15:12)--There it is, it's His commandment! He ordered us, His disciples, to love one another!
20. WHAT IS LOVE? Love is not hurting, love is going out of your way to make others happy, so we are really erring if we don't love one another. Even if Pearl's perfect, even if she works 18 hours a day at her typewriter & doesn't make one mistake, she's still not learning what the Lord wants her to if she's not progressing & not showing a loving attitude toward the people she's working with.
21. NO MATTER WHAT THE CAUSE IS, THERE HAS GOT TO BE A VICTORY ANYWAY! It doesn't matter why Pearl is that way, maybe the cause is from some bad-or-whatever experiences in the past or she was born that way, but the Lord's still got a victory & it's important that she gets the victory! It's important if she wants to learn & to grow & to progress! It's also important for harmony, because the Lord says discord among brethren is an abomination (Pr.6:19). It's a hurdle she's got to get over before she can go on to other things.
22. IN THE LITTLE REALM THE LORD'S GIVEN HER, THE COMPUTER & THE WORK, SHE DOES WELL. BUT WHAT'S THE NEXT THING SHE'S GOT TO WORK ON? "This ye ought to have done & not to leave the other undone!" (Mt.23:23) The "other" obviously is right beside her, that's what she's affected by the most, the things that are right in her little kingdom or area right there, & that's where the challenge is! Obviously you don't go looking for challenges to overcome that are not even close to you. When you're in a situation & the Lord put you there, then the things that you're most affected by & that are closest to you are the things that the Lord wants you to work on. So if you want to find out what you are supposed to work on next, just look around! What area close at hand do you need to improve in? Well, that's your next job.
23. IT'S MUCH MORE DIFFICULT TO LEARN HOW TO GET ALONG WITH PEOPLE & DEAL WITH PEOPLE & HANDLE THEM & LOVE THEM & MAKE THEM LOVE YOU, than to learn how to operate a machine that doesn't talk back!--But that's what we have to learn. In other words, her typing job is a more basic elementary grade & the Lord doesn't want her to stop doing that, but He does expect her to go on to more, to learn things that are more difficult, but more rewarding in a lot of ways. Getting out the Word, of course, is rewarding, but working with people & being able to love people & deal with people has another reward all its own!
24. IN THE MILLENNIUM YOU'LL BE TRAINING PEOPLE & HAVING TO WORK WITH PEOPLE, you'll have to learn to get along with each other & work together. This could be your first step in preparation, learning to take an outgoing interest in the others around you. What's the main job the Lord's going to give us all to do?--To rule the World, to teach & train people!--But what does that mean? It means we have to teach them how to love! Love is the whole thing that everything else revolves around!
25. YOU CAN READ ALL THE BIBLE & THE LETTERS YOU WANT, BUT IF IT DOESN'T COME TO LIFE BY THE SPIRIT, IT'S NOT GOING TO DO ANYTHING! You can quote it word for word right out of the Bible, but if you don't live it in love it doesn't do any good. You can speak with the tongues of men & angels, but without love it is nothing! You can have all the gifts of the Spirit, but without love it is meaningless! You can be the tops in your field, but if you don't manifest His love to others, then it's all in vain!--Because love is the most important thing!