3272 Commandment to love one's neighbour.... self-love....

September 27, 1944: Book 42

The commandment of neighbourly love should put a stop to self-love, for this is the death of the soul. A person is only allowed to love himself to a small degree, i.e. he should be careful with God's gift of grace insofar as he protects his life from wanton harm and does everything that preserves this life, because it is not given to him without purpose. However, as soon as he loves himself excessively he does not fulfil his actual purpose of earthly life, for self-love does not ennoble the human being but degrades him. But love for one's neighbour must inevitably reduce self-love, and that in the same measure as love is practiced for one's neighbour. And since the human being has the opportunity to practice neighbourly love in the most extensive way, he will soon be able to surpass self-love many times over, yet it always requires an overcoming to do good to the neighbour if love has not yet kindled into a bright flame in the human being's heart. And that is why God gave the commandment of neighbourly love, because the person who has love within himself does not need the commandment. But where self-love still predominates, man must be stimulated by the commandments to fight against the former, he must first be accustomed, so to speak, to pay less attention to himself for the sake of his fellow human beings. If he forces himself into active neighbourly love, even if initially without an inner drive, love will nevertheless soon ignite in him and he will then carry out the works of love out of an inner drive to help and please.... And then self-love diminishes and yet he does the greatest work of love in himself, for he saves his soul without selfish thoughts, for he practices love for the sake of love and goodness.... And thus love for God also grows in him, which is expressed in love for his neighbour.... For loving God with all your heart means keeping His commandments, and His commandments demand love.... love for everything God has created, but in an unselfish way, for selfish love only seeks self-interest and is therefore not divine love. And if the human being does not fight selfish love he will constantly go backwards in his development, for divine love will then remain alien to him, but this alone will bring him redemption. Ego love wants to possess everything, however, it only seeks earthly goods and thus hinders the development of the soul, for only the giver will also be allowed to receive. But anyone who loves himself more than his neighbour will not want to hand out anything and therefore will not be able to receive anything either. But since God measures according to the human being's will to give, he must first be urged to give through commandments, and as he now complies with the commandments he will also be considered by God. And thereby he is slowly educated to love activity, which can then also become more and more unselfish the more the human being fights self-love. And only then will he also recognize the blessing of neighbourly love, because it makes him all the more happy the more it is the instinct of his heart. And the more the human being awakens to life, whereas self-love causes him to fall prey to spiritual death.... Love must be practiced if the spirit is to come alive in the human being. And this is why God gave him the commandments, for the human being is constantly in danger of losing himself to the opposing force if love for himself prevails, whereas he comes ever closer to God the more he gives himself up, thus overcomes self-love, for love for his neighbour earns him God's undivided love which seizes him and unites with him and makes him the most blissful being on earth and one day in eternity....

Amen

This proclamation is used in the following themebook:

Themebook	Title	Download
133	Risk Of Self-Love And Lack Of Love	ePub   PDF   Kindle

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