必须冒着心碎的风险 must risk your heart

 

生活会击垮你。没有人能保护你免受这种伤害，孤独也不能，因为孤独也会用它的渴望击垮你。你必须去爱。你必须去感受。这就是你来到这个世界上的原因。你必须冒着心碎的风险。你来到这里就是为了被吞噬。当你被击垮、被背叛、被抛弃、被伤害或死亡离你太近时，让自己坐在一棵苹果树旁，听着苹果在你周围成堆地掉落，浪费它们的甜味。告诉自己，你已经尝了尽可能多的苹果。~路易斯·厄德里奇 

（书：《彩绘鼓》

 https://amzn.to/47ojLIx）Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and being alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You have to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes too near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could. ~Louise Erdrich 

(Book: The Painted Drum https://amzn.to/47ojLIx)

End days church countdown: how Jesus has defined love

Reading the book of John I found the love that God talks about. I always thought that the Bible does not talk about love. Not of the kind of love we know as humans. But Jesus talks about love a lot. This is the true love we need to know and practice.

______________As children of God, love of God is natural.
John 5:42 But I know you, that you do not have the love of God in you. John 8:42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me.

______________Loving God and loving His words are synonymous: those who practice this truth abide in God's love 
John 14:15 [ Jesus Promises Another Helper ] “If you love Me, keep My commandments.
John 14:21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”
John 14:23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.
John 14:24 He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me. John 15:9 [ Love and Joy Perfected ] “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. John 15:10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

________________Loving God results in loving His people naturally.
John 13:34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. John 13:35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 15:12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. John 15:17 These things I command you, that you love one another.

_______________Loving God means being separate from the world. God's love is costly. Jesus paid His life for it.
John 14:31 but that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, so I do. Arise, let us go from here.
John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.
John 15:19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
John 17:26 And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

_______________Loving God means being demanded and prepared to pay a price too.
John 21:15[ Jesus Restores Peter ] So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Feed My lambs.” John 21:16 He said to him again a second time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Tend My sheep.” John 21:17 He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?” And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” Jesus said to him, “Feed My sheep.