Love—a Divine, Eternal Principle
165
Love Not an Impulse but a Divine Principle—Supreme love
for God and unselfish love for one another—this is the best gift that
our heavenly Father can bestow. This love is not an impulse but a
divine principle, a permanent power. The unconsecrated heart cannot
originate or produce it. Only in the heart where Jesus reigns is it found.
“We love Him, because He first loved us” (
1 John 4:19
). In the heart
renewed by divine grace, love is the ruling principle of action.—
The
Acts of the Apostles, 551
(1911).
Love—Intellectual and Moral Strength—Love is power. Intel-
lectual and moral strength are involved in this principle, and cannot
be separated from it. The power of wealth has a tendency to corrupt
and destroy; the power of force is strong to do hurt; but the excellence
and value of pure love consist in its efficiency to do good, and to do
nothing else than good. Whatsoever is done out of pure love, be it
ever so little or contemptible in the sight of men, is wholly fruitful; for
[207]
God regards more with how much love one worketh than the amount
he doeth. Love is of God. The unconverted heart cannot originate or
produce this plant of heavenly growth which lives and flourishes only
where Christ reigns.—
Testimonies for the Church 2:135
(1868).
Love a Fragrant Atmosphere—Every soul is surrounded by an
atmosphere of its own—an atmosphere, it may be, charged with the
life-giving power of faith, courage, and hope, and sweet with the
fragrance of love. Or it may be heavy and chill with the gloom of dis-
content and selfishness, or poisonous with the deadly taint of cherished
sin. By the atmosphere surrounding us every person with whom we
come in contact is consciously or unconsciously affected.—
Christ’s
Object Lessons, 339
(1900).
Uproots Selfishness and Strife—The golden chain of love, bind-
ing the hearts of the believers in unity, in bonds of fellowship and
love, and in oneness with Christ and the Father, makes the connection
perfect and bears to the world a testimony of the power of Christianity
that cannot be controverted.... Then will selfishness be uprooted and
unfaithfulness will not exist. There will not be strife and divisions.
There will not be stubbornness in anyone who is bound up with Christ.
Not one will act out the stubborn independence of the wayward, im-
pulsive child who drops the hand that is leading him and chooses to
stumble on alone and walk in his own ways.—
Letter 110, 1893
. (HC
173.)