Our happiness will only be found in the experience of following the plan of God. God wants to align our plans with His plan. In Is. 48:18-19 - "If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your well-being like the waves of the sea. Your descendants would have been like the sand, your children like its numberless grains; their name would never be blotted out nor destroyed from before me.”
This will only happen If we live according to His plan. In Jer. 29:11
– “I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to give you prosperity and not disaster, plans to bring about the future you hope for.”If man would be able to discover where happiness can be found, there would be changes in his life. Only through God can happiness be found. Happiness is found by following God’s path. Happiness is found in humility. Happiness is found when we forgive. Happiness is found by nurturing a pure heart. Happiness is found by going against the flow. Happiness is found through the passionate love for God and others.
What is passionate love? It is a love on fire, a love no one can set apart.
What is harder, to love God or to love our neighbor as ourselves? Mk. 12:30-31 says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
Why did God say, love yourself? Here, God has assumed that we love ourselves. Anybody here who doesn’t love himself? In what I have read, man was born self-centered. We do not want to get hungry. We don’t want to be humiliated, neither do we want to inflict pain on ourselves. That is being self-centered. Jesus assumes that the people He is talking to love themselves. Do you love yourself?
Once we love ourselves, we won’t allow ourselves to go hungry, we won’t let others humiliate us, we wouldn’t want to suffer, we wouldn't kill ourselves. We need to rest, sleep, fill our stomach because that is what our body needs. What you want for yourself is the same thing that the Lord wants us to do for our neighbors.
Eph. 5:29
– “After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church.”Jesus summarized the commandments into two, to love God wholeheartedly and to love others as ourselves. If we do this, we will be happy and will have a sense of fulfillment. Especially, if we don’t ask something in return.
Obedience is very important. It is very difficult to obey God. Jn. 14:15 – “If you love me, keep my commands.” Let us try our best to obey God’s plan for us so we can obtain the real happiness He wants for us.
The story of Mother Teresa is an example of how she found true happiness, by taking care of the abandoned, destitute and dying people. It was a greater calling by God to serve the less fortunate and that she did by establishing the Missionaries of Charity.
It is through the corporal acts of mercy that we show love to others. If we are doing this out of passionate love, then we can truly say that we have found true happiness.
The secret of true happiness is by giving ourselves to God and by loving other people. It’s not bad to pray at the adoration chapel, to learn more and increase our knowledge about God. But if there is no corresponding works for others, it’s useless. That’s why, we have the cross – vertical, our relationship with God; horizontal, our relationship with others.
It is in giving that we find purpose in life; from it we find true happiness.
1 Jn. 3:11-15
- "For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer."1 Jn. 4:7-18
– “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. ”
We should be mature disciples of Christ. We should give our best and without hatred. Love is made perfect in us.
Loving others is the fruit of loving God. Love for others originates from God. God’s love for us is an invitation to love others, and by loving one another, we glorify God. Our love for neighbors increases our love for God.
It is not just an ordinary love that we must give to God and others. It must be passionate love – deep, on fire, consistent.
Let your love for others be as deep as your love for God. I hope that you are as close to God as you are to your neighbors. If you love yourself, you will likewise give the best for others.
