Expert: Tom Schott - 12/12/2006

Question
I've been asking about love.  I'm confused.  Christ said to love God, your enemies and yourself; how can you love God if you an never truly know Him?  Loving your enemy is hard for a different reason.  Loving yourself also may present a difficulty.  Can you explain?  What is this Love?

Answer
Marc,

The first epistle of John says "No one has ever seen God." And we can certainly agree with that. So how does one come to know God if this is true. We come to know his through his revelation of himself in his creation, and especially in other people. That is the only way we can know God. He is the source of all beauty and all goodness. What we see and love in others is what we know of God. You're right that we never truly know him until we see him face to face, but we can know enough about him to love him now.

Loving self and enemies comes from the same source. In order to love yourself, you have to recognize that you are child of God, his son, created because He loves you. You are infinitely precious in his sight just like all his other children. And who would that be? Everyone else. Everyone you see, everybody in the world, is a child of God, including our enemies.

This "love" of which ask about is grace, Marc. It's a grace in our lives to be able to love as Jesus loved. No one said it would ever be easy, or that we would totally understand it. But that's what our faith is all about. Without faith, none of this makes sense.

Don't feel alone. Every thinking person shares your questions.

Deacon Tom