You can’t say you are giving and loving and make anyone believe it, unless you demonstrate that giving. It is by your works that you are known, not by your intentions…Loving is active. Loving is giving the God that lives within you to the God that lives within all people everywhere. Loving is sharing yourself. – John-Roger
This article by John-Roger was originally published in the Movement Newspaper, December 1979.
We celebrate Christmas each year and very appropriately so. We celebrate Christmas because of that one who brought forward the Christ energy 2,000 years ago and who brought from within his consciousness the gift of the Father, which is the gift of the Christ within–our most precious heritage. No one on this planet should be excluded from that inheritance. It belongs to all mankind.
The Bible teaches us that, whatever the situation or circumstance, you can ask, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and it will be done. His grace extends to all…regardless of any outer situation. The Bible doesn’t say that you have to belong to any particular church or live in any particular location or wear any certain type of clothes or anything. The Bible says the grace of the Lord is available anywhere, anytime, in any situation.
At Christmas time we often get very preoccupied with the giving and receiving of presents…and that can be very truly giving. There is a difference between giving a present to someone and giving that person this gift of your giving, which is the gift of your loving heart. And there is a difference between getting a present from someone and giving that person the gift of receiving their loving heart. Too often you awaken to Christmas morning and package-opening time, and you look at what they got. And you start lining up your energy of how Mom or Dad loves you in comparison to how they love the others. And you determine and evaluate their love based upon the gifts they give…and that is certainly a questionable approach. If you are an adult, you may still find yourself weighing the value of the gift somehow in your mind and equating it with the giver’s love for you. You sell yourself short if you do that…and you sell them short.
Sometimes I find myself looking at gifts that way, too; and then it’s a challenge for me to move beyond that consideration and say, “Wait a minute! What was the heart of this giver feeling and experiencing when they got this gift for me?” I hold their gift in my hand and a lot of things come to mind: sometimes I see the store that they bought the gift in and I see who they talked to and who they bought it from; and I can pick up conversations and know the loving that went into the choice of the gift. But mostly I feel the warmth of the loving that was present with them as they traveled and searched to find this unique item to present to me as part of their gift of giving.
I look at the gift as an extension of their heart and I don’t come close to valuing the gift as much as I value this heart of the giver. My heart just floods over with the loving and the support that I am given. Then I look back inside of me and think, “Good God, what is it within me that urges the giver inside of them to give to me?” And I know that they give to me because they see their love mirrored through me, and they see my love extended back to them; and they give to me because they see a promise that they have forgotten in themselves. The openness of my heart that allows me to receive their gift physically allows them to also send their heart into my heart spiritually. That’s where the Christ Mass takes place–in the loving heart.
I will sacrifice ANYTHING to get to that loving heart, to awaken you to your loving heart, and to have you open your heart to the divine melodies that sing inside of you. Those divine melodies sing joy to the earth, peace and goodwill towards men. They sing of the Light of God. They sing of truth and of honesty…and of justice. And often I hear them singing, “Mercy, mercy.” The divine melodies of God sing of the loving heart. The loving heart encompasses all the rest; it encompasses peace, joy, Light, justice, truth…and the grace of the Lord. The loving heart loves unconditionally. It holds back nothing.
The Bible tells us, “Greater love hath no man than this…that he should lay down his life for his brother.” That’s a very profound statement of sacrifice. Can you imagine yourself coming to that state of sacrifice where you lay your life down–not for principle or cause–but for your brother and sister? Can you imagine so much love that you would say, “Take my life and spare theirs”? The depth of that loving goes way beyond my vocabulary. It is supreme sacrifice.
I look back 2,000 years and see what Jesus the Christ did. He said, in essence, “Take my life and save all of theirs. Take me in place of them. Dump all the arma on me; I’ll take it with me and clear it through my sacrifice.” I look at that action and say, “Lord, how did he do it? It’s such a gigantic job.” He did it because he had the gift of giving and the gift of receiving, and his loving heart encompassed all mankind and made his loving sacrifice and service the greatest reality of all.
It’s easy to say, “Lord, I’ll lay down my life for you anytime.” So the Lord says, “Now.” And you say, “Not tonight, I’m going to the movies.” You see, there are a lot of ways to lay down your life for your Lord. One way is to go and minister to people, because everyone you meet is a manifestation of the Lord. If you deny one person, you have denied your Lord. The greatest commandment is to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. All the rest of the Bible is a commentary on how to do that. Sometimes you say, “I love my neighbor,” but you won’t help him push his car out of the ditch. Love is a nice idea, but it doesn’t live unless it is manifested through loving.
Let me say it this way: You have blood in your body, and in that blood is life. If there is blood in your body and life in your blood, it’s nice to know that you can give life by giving of your blood. And it is when you give your blood that you have moved “love” into loving. Prior to that it’s a nice idea. The loving gives it life.
Give yourself the gift of giving yourself to others and give yourself the gift of receiving from others that part of you that is yourself. That is loving made active and alive. God lives inside of you, as you; and you can receive from yourself that personal experience of God every moment. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if by this time tomorrow the earth could be renewed and Christ could reign personally inside of you with your full awareness? It can happen. It can take place right now–it doesn’t even have to wait until tomorrow. It is happening. It is happening all over the planet; and it’s not necessarily being called Christ. It’s being called many names.
What is the love inside of you unless you give it away? Giving is the manifestation of loving. Without giving, you may be living, but living without loving is only existence, and existence often is a state of lack and an empty hope that someone will come along and save you from all the things that are happening “to” you. Loving fills the lack and opens the awareness of the inner wisdom and the knowledge that you are the creator of your universe and that nothing happens to you that you do not create, promote or allow. Loving is that active, dynamic part of you that accepts responsibility for all that you are and will be and lives in a state of open awareness.
The only thing that I can give you, this Christmas or any time, is the Spirit inside of me. I give that to you willingly. I give that freely because that’s all I have. Everything else is part of this physical world and, therefore, is transitory and impermanent and will decay and fall away in time. The Spirit is eternal and is a gift that will endure forever. Spirit is free, and that means that you can be as free as you are willing to give Spirit away. That willingness to share all of yourself–all that you are–is your freedom. If you try to grab a hold of Spirit, you defeat yourself; and you lose yourself. Give it away and you will find it returned to you in more ways than you can imagine. You can’t fake it. You can’t say you are giving and loving and make anyone believe it, unless you demonstrate that giving. It is by your works that you are known, not by your intentions. People are very perceptive. You can’t fool them. Words of love are not necessarily loving. Loving is active. Loving is giving the God that lives within you to the God that lives within all people everywhere. Loving is sharing yourself.
Give yourself a gift of loving. Give yourself a gift of completing each day as it comes to a close…and of awakening to the newness in you as each new day dawns. Use your time wisely. Live in the now. Be loving to yourself and be loving to one another NOW. Don’t wait another instant. As you reside in your loving heart at each and every moment, you find that you reside permanently in the Christ and that you will never be separated from His grace and His presence. And you will experience the living Christ as your Beloved.
My Beloveds, Merry Christmas,
John-Roger
WATCH A SHORT VIDEO WITH JOHN-ROGER
