“Human love is small, no, actually, it is evil.”

This is what Meishu-sama says.

   
Meishu-sama

God’s love is absolute. While human love is small, God’s love is big. Among the various types of human love, the one that is directed toward oneself is selfish love—this is the smallest love. When this love is expanded a little more, it turns into the love for one’s family, that is, the love for one’s spouse and children and so on. When it is expanded even more, it turns into the love for one’s clan or group. All these loves are ordinary loves. When it expands a bit further, there is the love for others. Then, there is the love for one’s class. For example, communists try to improve the condition of the lower classes while attacking the middle and upper classes. This kind of love is also a limited love. Next comes the love for one’s country—war criminals belong here. They think about the good of, say, the Japanese only and ignore that of the Chinese or Koreans. The loyalists during the war were the same. Their love was limited love. God’s love not only extends to all of humanity but even to beasts and tiny insects. That, I say, is God’s love.

Sermon
December 18, 1948

 

   
Kyoshu-sama

Love comes from God, who is the source of everything.

God loves all humanity, and His love envelops all creation, all elements and all the natural world.

Meishu-sama’s divine work of saving all humanity, his divine work of constructing a paradise on earth and all of his teachings are the manifestation of truth and, at the same time, of God’s love.

What is the purpose or the will of God’s love?

It is to make us human beings His true children.

God prepared an infinite number of divine spirits in order to fulfill this purpose.

In this way, God’s love is poured into us, into everyone, without any discrimination.

Paradise on Earth Service
June 15–16, 2009

 

When we say love, we usually think about the love we give to and receive from other human beings, don’t we?

In this world, we say things like “his love is strong” or “I want to be loved more.” We are able to say these things only because God imparts a fraction of His love to us and lets us use it as if it were ours.

But this love we give and receive doesn’t often turn out as expected, does it? Sometimes it goes well, but sometimes we end up hating each other or we meddle in things we shouldn’t, believing that we are doing it out of love. I mean, in the end, human motives take over love, don’t they?

Or sometimes we feel that we want to give love to this person but never to that other person. These things happen, right? Or we sometimes simply demand love from others, don’t we? Or we sometimes complain when we are not properly rewarded for the love we provide. We are never satisfied with anything, are we? That is how human love turns out, isn’t it?

But still, God allows us to have this feeling of love, doesn’t He? To me, I think God allows it in order for us to know how deep the love of God is.

Meeting with the executives
February 21, 2013

 

   
Masaaki-sama

We casually use the phrase “God’s love,” but what is it? That’s the crucial point, right?

When we hear the word “love,” the most we can do is to imagine someone caring for others, isn’t it? But as I have been telling you this whole afternoon, even though God gave us absolutely everything, we have taken possession of all of it and utilized it all as if it were ours.

We’ve been living our lives saying “I need to love others,” “I need to be grateful for everything,” or “I have to do good deeds” as if we had the power to love, to be grateful and to do all sorts of things.

Everyone, love and gratitude actually belong to God. This means that until today, we have been stealing things that are actually God’s.

When you hear this, you may want to say, “Okay, I understand. From now on, I will express gratitude knowing that gratitude actually belongs to God.” But it’s not that easy. What you should think is this: “O God, I am truly sorry. I mistakenly thought that I had the power to love someone, care for others and be grateful for things.” The question is whether a repentant heart like this begins to grow within you or not.

To have this kind of repentant heart is the conclusion we should come to. Our conclusion must be repentance, and nothing else.

Otherwise, we’ll drift away from the path we should be taking and start to say things like “Love and gratitude belong to God? Okay, I see. But since God granted us love and gratitude, let us cherish those feelings from now on. Let us love and be grateful for everything even more.” If you go in this direction, it would be the same as what we have been doing. This really is a common pitfall.

You have to realize one thing. God is not saying to us “You have to be grateful for everything” or “You have to give your humanly love to others.”

Rather, He is saying to us, “Repent.” “Repent and accept My forgiveness.” And “Accept My forgiveness and be My child.” This is what He really wants us to realize.

We’ve been stealing from God, but still, God is saying to us that He is going to forgive us. If you ask me what God’s love is, I say that it is this forgiveness of God.

We stole from God. We stole everything that was in the house of God and ran away from Him and His house.

We took things like gratitude, love and everything else, ran away from His house and have been living under the illusion that we are independent. We have been living our lives saying, “I can be grateful,” “I can love.”

But now, at this moment, God is saying to us: “Weren’t all those things in My house? You have to bring them back. Return gratitude and love to Me.” That’s what He is saying. . . .

God is saying “I forgive you.” “I forgive you, so come back.” This is what God’s love is.

If you don’t accept this forgiveness and try to practice “love for others” or “be grateful for everything,” there is no forgiveness there. For you think you have the power to love and be grateful.

There, you do have “human love” and “human gratitude,” but you don’t have God’s forgiveness and His love.

The love of God is His forgiveness, everyone. Until today, we’ve been saying “Let us love others” or “Let us be grateful for everything.” Now, it is time to stop that and acknowledge the fact that we’ve been stealing God’s love and gratitude. It is time to receive the forgiveness of God through the name of Messiah, which is one with Meishu-sama. That’s my advice to all of you.

If you do that, you will be filled with plenty of God’s love and grace. Think: forgiveness is God’s love. That is, the more you realize that you were a thief and an existence that needs to receive God’s forgiveness, the more you will be filled with the love of God. . . .

In the end, what you should do, no, what you must do is to accept the name of Messiah. Isn’t that the name Meishu-sama taught us?

Initially, it was the name Kannon. After Kannon, it was Komyo Nyorai and Oshin Miroku. After Miroku, it was Messiah. In this way, Meishu-sama taught us the divine names, right? He taught us the names of the divine soul each one of us possesses.

And Messiah was the very last name Meishu-sama taught us. This means that the only thing left for us to do is to offer our old self to God through the name of Messiah, which is one with Meishu-sama, and also return love and gratitude to Him through that name.

Some may want to say “Return them? Okay. But what do we do after we return them?” You are not in a position to say things like that. That’s exactly the kind of thing we’ve been saying to justify what we’ve been doing until today so that we can continue with what we’ve been doing.

The only thing left for us to do is to repent and return everything to God. That is the only conclusion there is. If you do that, God may say to us, “I already forgave you. I welcome you into My house.”

This kind of world is waiting for you, really. See? It is right in front of you. Can’t you see it? Can’t you see that it is shining brilliantly right before your eyes?

To staff ministers of Japan in charge of youth members
June 23, 2017

   
Published in Glory, no. 28, May 1, 2022