God is Love! Therefore, everything that God creates is Divine Love, and created for Love! Every moment, every free being (both humans and angels) is Divinely Loved! But to feel Love, one must Love! The more one loves, the more one is loved and feels love for oneself! People seek love for themselves (while being in the ocean of Divine Love!!!) – they argue, fight, hate, kill, searching and demanding love for themselves (when they are already Loved by God – so much so that nothing can be added to this Love: no one can love you more than you are already loved! You have the fullness of Love for yourself! More Love simply doesn’t exist!!!); they accuse each other: you don’t love me! I don’t get anything I want from you! I am unhappy (unhappy), lonely – while all tenderness, all warmth, all affection, all Divine attention surrounds me, ready to enter, to flow into me (the fullness of the Holy Spirit)! The problem is not outside of us – not in our neighbors, not in Others (who are God’s Gift to me, God’s Love for me), but within us – we do not love, and therefore do not feel Love (there is no communication, no communion in Love), and do not strive to love! Do you want to feel love for yourself?! Compel yourself to love! Do you have no love?! But want to have Love, to Love?! Do deeds of love, even without love, and God will give you (humble, poor in love) Love (the Holy Spirit)! Like attracts like! Do you want to feel love, “to be” loved – love, compel yourself to love!
To feel Love, you need to accept It, and to accept Love, you need to have space within yourself to contain It! To feel Love – you must be able to feel: if you are blind, how will you see Love?! If you are deaf, how will you hear Love?! If all your organs of perception are atrophied, sick, mutilated by evil – sin, – how will you feel, understand, if you cannot feel?! The problem is not that you are not loved (you are divinely loved at every moment, you are in the ocean of Divine Love, you are loved by God every moment, and everything that comes to you from outside (is given to you) is a manifestation of this love for you, loved by God), but that you cannot feel love, accept love, contain love! And we only hear: you don’t love me, no one loves me, no one hears me, no one understands me, etc. But the problem is actually in me (the egoist): I don’t love anyone, I don’t hear anyone, I don’t understand anyone!!!
“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God, feel His Love, know It, contain It within themselves!” The more one loves, the more one is loved, the more one feels love for oneself! It is said about the apostle John the Theologian that the Lord loved him (“This is the disciple whom Jesus loved”) – this is because John loved the Lord Jesus Christ the most! According to the law: the more you love, the more you receive, feel love! Therefore, whoever wants to be loved, that is, wants to feel love for himself – let him compel himself to love more!
“He who loves Me keeps My commandments!” Love is a Divine Gift given to the humble, and humility is attained by zealously compelling oneself to love, that is, zealously fulfilling all God’s commandments, which are the essence of love, the expression of love!
For if you do not love – how can you enjoy love, feel the joy of being loved, how can you perceive it?! If you do not like (do not find joy in) loving (= love), you love no one, serve no one, do not do good, do not thank, do not give good, do not serve Others with good deeds, how can you feel pleasure, joy, happiness from love, if you hate it within yourself? In this world of sin, love manifests itself as a cross (the sick must first be treated – causing pain to heal from pain-suffering; therefore, the one who loves causes pain, love manifests itself in the gift of the cross (in giving a ticket to Golgotha, not a vacation to the Canary Islands or the Maldives, or some other tour trip) – a means of healing from the disease of egoism-pride). For example, if a child has a toothache, a loving father will not take her to the zoo, or to attractions, or to the sea, or delight her with tasty-sweet things… but will offer the cross – suffering, pain, that is, he will take her to the dentist, where the child will be hurt (or even the father himself, who loves the child, if he is a dentist, will hurt his beloved child), and when the child screams, cries from the pain, he will continue to treat – to hurt the one he loves! Pain conquers pain! This is necessary for healing! Through the cross comes the joy of the whole world! And only then – attractions, the sea, ice cream, and all the pleasant-lovely things!
Therefore, to enjoy (and we are created for this!), to feel love, one must love! The more you love, the more you enjoy what you like, what you love (that is “love”, “to love”). This is the way to feel love: to deny yourself, take-accept with gratitude-joy your cross and follow Christ (zealously fulfill all His commandments, that is, love the Lord), and then the Lord will heal us, and as we heal, we will become capable of feeling the unspeakable love for ourselves, that is, with a humble heart we will accept the Holy Spirit (Who gives Love, the power to Love), we will become love!