Love

By Linda Mihalic

Love is an affection of the mind excited by beauty and worth of any kind, or by the qualities of an object which communicate pleasure, sensual or intellectual. It is opposed to hatred. love between the sexes, is a compound affection, consisting of esteem, benevolence, and animal desire. love is excited by pleasing qualities of any kind, as by kindness, benevolence, charity, and by the qualities which render social intercourse agreeable. In the latter case, love is ardent friendship, or a strong attachment springing from good will and esteem, and the pleasure derived from the company, civilities and kindness of others. Between certain natural relatives, love seems to be in some cases instinctive. Such is the love of a mother for her child, which manifests itself toward an infant, before any particular qualities in the child are unfolded. This affection is apparently as strong in irrational animals as in human beings. We speak of the love of amusements, the love of books, the love of money, and the love of whatever contributes to our pleasure or supposed profit. The love of God is the first duty of man, and this springs from just views of his attributes or excellencies of character, which afford the highest delight to the sanctified heart. Esteem and reverence constitute ingredients in this affection, and a fear of offending him is its inseparable effect.Webster’s American Dictionary
  To love is in a general sense to be pleased with; to regard with affection, on account of some qualities which excite pleasing sensations or desire of gratification. We love a friend, on account of some qualities which give us pleasure in his society. We love a man who has done us a favor; in which case, gratitude enters into the composition of our affection. We love our parents and our children, on account of their connection with us, and on account of many qualities which please us. We love to retire to a cool shade in summer. We love a warm room in winter. we love to hear an eloquent advocate. The christian loves his Bible. In short, we love whatever gives us pleasure and delight, whether animal or intellectual; and if our hearts are right, we love God above all things, as the sum of all excellence and all the attributes which can communicate happiness to intelligent beings. In other words, the christian loves God with the love of complacency in his attributes, the love of benevolence towards the interest of his kingdom, and the love of gratitude for favors received.Webster’s American Dictionary


“Love is the glue that holds Creation together.”—Edna Lister


The world defines love as a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude, a feeling of intense desire and attraction, (Oxford English Dictionary) but love is so much more. Love is an emanation of Light from the Godhead, the substance, the foundation, the framework, the matrix of all things. Love, with Wisdom and the Logos (as selfless joy) forms the absolute trinity of the emanations that are the ruling vibrations of the universe.

In addition to being an emanation of God's Light, love is also an absolute principle of being, and the great law of being. We are destined to become the Love of God, being as He is. Love is a law of doing: Our solemn yet joyous obligation is to learn to love as God loves. Love is omnipresent as Substance, faith and every nourishing and sustaining expression of the feminine Mother-aspect of God. Love is the very Substance of which we are formed, the carrier wave of Light, Mind and Power. Love, with Wisdom and Power, forms the eighth lesser trinity of Via Christa Degrees, whose keynote is action.

Love ignites suns and fuels their burning radiance. Love is the cohesive power of attraction that holds solar systems and galaxies in their places, endlessly orbiting the Primal Source of All Light. Love is the glue that holds Creation together as magnetic attraction. You are drawn to God through love, acting on your soul as paradise gravity.

Desire, fully matured in the soul, becomes Love divine, the most aggressive, cohesive power in the universe. Love nourishes and sustains every being and body in the universes. Love sent you out here, and Love will take you home, when you let it.

Love is the fulfilling of the law. Love operates the endocrine system (glands and hormones). Wisdom operates the central nervous system (neurotransmitters). This insight causes you to perceive all laws in their rightful and perfect place.















Edna Lister on Love

What each mind knows eventually permeates the whole universe through Mind overall. So always send love to cover what else you may have sent forth. When you declare, Love now goes out over every line of contact I have ever established, you add a cable of Light over which love is riding directly to everywhere you have ever been. Thus, you become a center of life, through which love may be transmitted to all. Declare, Lord, please increase my capacity to love, to release the power of love for Thee. Please, increase my loyalty to principle.
  You cannot escape God’s love. Love’s fire burns up imperfections and consumes all dross.
  Love always builds a bridge from the seen to the unseen, from the visible to the invisible, from the manifest to the unmanifest.
  The power of love is always an instrument of expression. If you radiate the power of love, you lift everything you touch.
  If you remain armored in love, you are protected and immune to anything inimical.—Edna Lister, January 16, 1933.


You can get to God only through love, the key, the wand that opens the way.—Edna Lister, January 20, 1933.


The love you pour forth is your protection. Not the love you demand, but the love you give prospers you.
  Pour out love to melt, dissolve, absorb and transform the whole reaction of the law, including the debt you owe the law, into the spiritual perfection.—Edna Lister, January 31, 1933.


The more love you pour out, the more your capacity increases, and the more you will find to pour out more love upon.—Edna Lister, February 2, 1933.


Love is the "open sesame" to invisible reality; it builds a bridge from the seen to the unseen.—Edna Lister, Imagination, March 1, 1934.


What you love becomes your law, your guide. You take your self into what you take into your self, what you hear, see, and accept.—Edna Lister, The Law of Attachment, August 24, 1934.


Love for God requires willing, loving sacrifice of the little self.—Edna Lister, January 16, 1935.


Love is eternal and an undying flame.—Edna Lister, June 9, 1938.


Give God that mead of love untrammeled by negligence, lukewarmness or lack in faith.—Edna Lister, August 25, 1938.


Loving one another will feed and fully satisfy you.—Edna Lister, September 6, 1938.


Live your life by love alone, for you can release enough Power only through love.—Edna Lister, September 29, 1938.


Love heals all mortal ills.—Edna Lister, October 27, 1938.


Love sustains all your creations.—Edna Lister, November 14, 1938.


You cannot misuse Power when you preface your declarations with let in love and joy, but you must combine the love and joy in selflessness, or Power cannot act. Only love fulfills law and bonds substance to principle. Love opens all doors and joy’s power drives substance through to fill the mold.—Edna Lister, December 14, 1938.


The love of God is the all-compelling, attractive power in the universe, the greatest power in creation. Only in love can you open all doors or can your own return to you. Love in the fullness of God’s love, and use only the power of God’s love.—Edna Lister, December 26, 1938.


Pour out that love whose source and strength is pure understanding.—Edna Lister, January 13, 1939.


The price to enter the kingdom is to love one another, but when you hold darkness against another, what you give God is not love.
  Love ever more perfectly and greater revelations shall come.—Edna Lister, January 19, 1939.


Daily you must add a little more love and praise to your creations to do the work.—Edna Lister, January 23, 1939.


Love fulfills the whole law. Love overcomes all hate. Love overcomes all unkindness. Love burns away all self-erected barriers. Love burns out all self-created dross of illness, weakness, darkness and self-indulgence. Love consumes all unlike unto itself. Love manifests as life to fill a weakened heart and a weakened intellect. Love is substance to fashion into thine own creative ideas and desires. Love is faith to go forth and lift all whom it touches. Love is Light to burn and shine and to make all paths plain and easy to follow. Love is Power to melt and dissolve all hardened hearts and all hardened bodies. Love creates peace above all misunderstanding, yea, even above all understanding also does it create the peace of God.
  Tenderness means to "tender" love always.—Edna Lister, February 3, 1939.


Love, praise, faithfulness, standing, and knowing produce results.—Edna Lister, September 13, 1939.


Love shall cure this sin-sick world. Stand in the Light of love so that only love may meet and conquer the hate.
  Love is all-embracing in its power to release you from every bondage of earth. No earthly bondage can resist unquenchable love, backed by unconquerable faith, to melt, dissolve and absorb it now!—Edna Lister, September 15, 1939.


These actions will fulfill the law of love in your life: Walk softly before God. Speak gently before men, and wisely to defend truth, not self. Maintain golden silence about high things. Hearken to God’s Voice. Heed all commands and laws. Follow the Master in sacrificial service under all circumstances. Give.—Edna Lister, November 8, 1940.


The Mother’s mysteries of love reveal the process of Creation itself.
  Love contains seven vital qualities you must become—purity, humility, compassion, empathy, sincerity, loyalty and gratitude
  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind—Mark 12:3 means loving with the whole living soul.
  When the love of God becomes the law of your life, you are no longer conscious of a need to love.—Edna Lister, A Design for Ascension, 1941.


A little more love, a little more praise, a little more joy are very simple, fundamental laws of expression of the full, rich Christ-life, and will build anything for you.—Edna Lister, January 15, 1941.


Love closes the mouths of lions.—Edna Lister, January 22, 1941.


God’s Love is both kindness of compassion and love, which covers all transgressions for others.—Edna Lister, January 28, 1941.


Unquenchable love is that soul vision that can see no darkness anytime anywhere, or in anything or anyone.—Edna Lister, May 29, 1941.


In love stand; understand in love.—Edna Lister, A New Account With Life, October 9, 1941.


Let’s be so cohesive in love that even a gnat can’t creep between us.—Edna Lister, November 3, 1941.


Let love censor every thought, emotion and picture of imagination until you stand with God.—Edna Lister, November 11, 1941.


Love is perfect and considers everyone and everything as itself: perfect. Love is the only miracle. Love expresses only love. Love contemplates only love. Love creates only love. Love creates in its own image and likeness only. So, you can know whether you truly love. Law cannot fulfill itself. Only love can fulfill law. Law cannot create love, but love can create through law and fulfill itself in perfection. You cannot create by using law. You can create by letting love fill all law full of itself. So, much more love, much more praise, and much more prayer is all you need.—Edna Lister, November 12, 1941.


Hold the love of God aloft as a beacon. Love, love, love! You just haven’t yet loved enough to cure everything.—Edna Lister, December 30, 1941.


Earnestly seek to better your disposition, your ability to love, and lift any unlikeness to God instantly.—Edna Lister, January 26, 1942.


You will not always find the Master’s Path easy as you carry his cross of love of service, but peace will fill your heart. Love each other with his mighty love and his Light will make you safe and secure forever.—Edna Lister, February 2, 1942.


Let the law of unquenchable love burn away all remaining barriers before you.—Edna Lister, July 29, 1942.


The further you go, the greater your conviction is that love is all there is to know or to be or to do. Enough love deposited in God means plenty of everything else to draw out. All you need to do is to love all barriers away.—Edna Lister, August 26, 1942.


No barrier stops love.—Edna Lister, December 16, 1942.


Love is an essence, the fragrance of happiness in another’s joy. It is a deep desire always to take the blame if possible, to smooth another’s path. It is a conviction that others’ mistakes should be covered with Light so they be hidden from the world. It is a deep, heart-felt desire to do anything asked of me, to give someone even a moment’s happiness. Love is a delight in being instantly obedient to the Father’s desire, not waiting for Him to put His desire into words of an order or command.
  Love is the honor the Father has given to the Master, honor so great that he would willingly face even death in joy to carry out an order, even when utterly misunderstood on earth. Love is honor in expression here on earth because God’s honor is an exact, perfect blend and balance of Love, Wisdom expressing as selflessness at all times, under all circumstances.
  Love is incapable of forgetting to love regardless of any condition earth can produce. Love is the soul’s Light, giving itself up to God and out to men. This is only a beginning, an individual soul choice, not to be commanded, copied or bought. Love’s honor must be earned through the travail of experience in surrender of self, enduring all things in joy. We find such love ensampled in our Master, Jesus the Christ.—Edna Lister, December 22, 1942.


When brotherly love reigns, you forget the self in service, forget hardships in love of the cause served, and face death without fear in a sacrifice of love, not hatred.—Edna Lister, "The Voice of Peace, Life in a Nutshell, 1943.


Love works the only miracles. Love is the only key to open closed doors. It seems hard to accept blame yourself when doors stay closed, but it must be so. It isn’t that you’ve grown lukewarm compared with your past loving, but that you are very lukewarm when compared with your future ability. The only way to become ever greater in Power lies in knowing that last month’s love is not great enough to fill this month’s creations. It is God’s only way of reminding you that much more Power is available for you to draw on and release, much more love to use.
  Without enough love, you have all manner of delay because the world’s lack of love also affects you. The world’s hate and indifference are ice that cools your pure love from the white point of heat. So, you must love more. Faith is unconquerable. Yet faith without works is dead, and love is the ’works,’ the leaven to vitalize, to quicken, to fill, to full-fill your creations. Love is the Crown of Creation now.—Edna Lister, September 16, 1943.


Love gives you the key, opens all doors and supplies you with an earning place now.—Edna Lister, August 3, 1944.


The only way you can overcome is to love God. Hold fast to love. This is the secret formula.—Edna Lister, August 5, 1944.


Self will cause darkness. Love will forever build Light.—Edna Lister, August 10, 1944.


If only you could understand love, and hold love high enough as your ideal. If only you could remember to lift everyone else when they seem to stumble. Love enough will make all things Light. Love enough will cover all transgressions, no matter how great. Love enough will hold any situation or soul high in Light. Love enough will cast out all fear and doubt. Love enough will make all things new. Love enough will forgive, and give enough love to heal anything or anyone. Love enough for each other will make you both beautiful. Love enough will make each of you good, and make everyone else very happy.—Edna Lister, October 16, 1944.


The soul’s capacity for love never reaches a limit. Both love and the capacity to love go on and on in an ever-ascending spiral of glory. When you even begin to comprehend what love is, then you’ll truly have miracle after miracle and miracle upon miracle in your life.—Edna Lister, October 17, 1944.


Stand firm in love and praise with no complaint or resentment.—Edna Lister, November 30, 1944.


Let love fulfill all law for you. Wisdom gives you law. Love fills it with life. Love nourishes law.—Edna Lister, December 7, 1944.


Love God first and always, for nothing excuses failing in the love of God.—Edna Lister, December 11, 1944.


The laws of love are perfect and exact. A sacrifice as small as a mote in the balance calls forth the power of love, substance and ideas greater than you have room to receive.—Edna Lister, January 2, 1945.


Love is the law of creation to bind Creation together as one.—Edna Lister, May 5, 1945.


Be prepared to let the law of love fulfill itself through you.—Edna Lister, June 4, 1945.


Let love control you fully.—Edna Lister, June 8, 1945.


You are strong to fulfill all law. Let love be your law. When you depart from love, you have departed from perfect law. When you return to love, you return to the law.—Edna Lister, June 18, 1945.


Love is your true life, your trueness of expression. All else is born of that final gasp of self’s darkness, which seeks to take what it may devour with itself to oblivion.—Edna Lister, July 6, 1945.


Mother love is that consuming fire able to burn out all dross of self. The dross in the embodied appetitive soul lies hidden until the Oversoul seeks to ascend it. Then it boils up to the surface, thus allowing itself to be cleansed into Light, as it was in the dim beginning of time, before the appetitive soul evolved. When the rational soul lifts appetitive soul’s desire and will without succumbing to its clamoring for power, then the body ascends with the rational soul in the full stature of the Christed One. Yet when the rational soul listens to the appetitive soul’s plausible vaporings, it adds to its power until it boils underneath, corroding, dry-rotting, or crystallizing them.
  The law of the consuming fire of Mother love is that it shall either burn out the dross or burn out and consume all darkness. Unless you surrender the self, the body itself becomes the battleground of the war between Light and dark when the ever-ingressing consuming fire of Mother love enters. Obedience to the laws of letting and lifting will consume the dross unto the complete purifying and full ascension of the body with the soul. So, let all hidden dross come to the surface of the conscious mind. It’s time to look your self in the eye and conquer all petty self.—Edna Lister, July 25, 1945.


Love is potent only when it flows freely from within the golden silence. Then it can remove mountains of obstacles, and move mountains of fear and doubt.—Edna Lister, August 2, 1945.


Stop trying to love what people do. Love them for what they are, God’s children. Turn from a condition you cannot love, and love God. He will send enough Power to change the condition through your love. The full love of God, pure and undiluted by the self, must flow through you freely to fulfill the law of your life. Let the law of love do the work.—Edna Lister, August 24, 1945.


True love is the emotion of the creative gods. You can release love through praise and singing in joy.
  Love just because the Love of God so possesses you that it must express as you, forever pouring more on everyone, even those who despitefully use you! You cannot love enough.
  The world thinks that to be impersonal is to be cold, yet to love impersonally, one must love without regard to where the love seeds fall, on fertile soil or stony ground. To love impersonally, one must always love more.—Edna Lister, September 27, 1945.


Be sure your love is great enough to stand firm upon justice. Love draws from the hidden places what you have buried for ages, and will bring you safely through the waters of self.—Edna Lister, March 18, 1946.


Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.—Matthew 22:37. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.—Matthew 22:39. Pray for Light on these laws of love. Use them.—Edna Lister, April 22, 1946.


Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.—Matthew 22:37-39. Giving love is the practical application of all law. You pay your soul debts by obeying this commandment. Love thy neighbor as thyself refers to confidence in your own ability. Give your neighbor the same credit you give yourself. Love puts the Golden Rule to work.—Edna Lister, April 29, 1946.


God is love. Love is the end, as well as the beginning. The unity of love is a complete circle, which leads back home, and we must enfold all, according to God’s great plan, through love. Devotion to God is constant, mindful service, and love is giving not getting. Love feeds upon itself, nothing else, so you may seek no selfish interest in love. Your love is either self, or true love. If it is true love, it has no self in it.—Edna Lister, May 13, 1946.


Love fulfills the law. Love opens all doors. Love supplies you with an earning place now. Love gives you the key. Love is the door wide open to success. Love is the way of life. Faith is all-conquering when backed by love of God. So love, love, love is your watch word, your sustenance and barrier-melter, where all else is melted, dissolved and Light reigns king. Go forward, upward.—Edna Lister, August 14, 1946.


You must stand in love as love, never plunging on over broken hearts, dead bodies, neglected duties or contrary personal ideas of family or friends.
  Know the need to become the living ensample of the full Love of God. Surrender to be possessed by the full power of love.—Edna Lister, June 2, 1947.


Make yourself a chalice of love, for love is the keynote, the beginning and the end of all law. Love is your tower room of power. From the fortress of love you sally forth as love, to live and to let love’s power use you.—Edna Lister, July 5, 1947.


Let your love of God be your defense.—Edna Lister, July 15, 1947.


The only way to pay a soul debt is to act as if it were your last good act on earth, even when you know the results will be neutral. No soul debt accrues where love is the reason for a love-relationship, even when the pair pay a fancy price for disregarding honor and going outside the laws of convention. Yet misuse always destroys the bloom on love.—Edna Lister, August 24, 1947.


Everything in life is waiting for the magic touch of love. Love is the open sesame.—Edna Lister, December 13, 1947.


Love is never bondage, but an empathetic understanding. Love holds nothing but love, and the greatest of all love’s laws is to love one another. Enough love will cover a multitude of sins. Who is brave enough to follow love all the way? Only love can lift you ever higher. No separation or darkness is possible where love lifts each burden into the glory of the Light. Love will fulfill or fill full. Love does the work through you. Love is the only ascension now and evermore. Love with a deathless and abiding love that casts out all dissension of darkness. Loose all others to live life as God gives it to them. Let Him be the judge as to actions, as to debts contracted and as to right or wrong. Let Him do the work to His glory through you. Go to Him with clean hands and with pure heart. The secret of full release of Power lies in love for one another.—Edna Lister, January 26, 1948.


When you walk into a room as the love of God, Light melts and absorbs any darkness there.—Edna Lister, July 26, 1948.


Love fulfills the law. No power can resist full love. Faithfulness in love is the backbone of truth. —Edna Lister, June 9, 1949.


The Father will send you what you want according to the price you are willing to pay. How much do you love? Love is the "money" with which you pay. Love your body into beauty and strength and power.—Edna Lister, July 1949.


Defend principle only by standing in love. You never need to defend personality.—Edna Lister, August 10, 1949.


"I love you, God" takes you directly to the Source.—Edna Lister, August 15, 1949.


Love is the one magic word in the universe that God cannot resist.—Edna Lister, December 5, 1950.


Experiment with love’s power in stressful times. One cannot experiment with souls, their faith or personal expression, but to stand and watch love do its perfect work is a glory beyond compare. The more trying the condition, the greater the ecstasy to see love do the work.—Edna Lister, December 5, 1950.


Rewards of full spiritual seeing and full hearing are yours, whenever you can surrender completely to be possessed by love only. Love is the creating Power when you use it only and never dilute or pollute it.—Edna Lister, April 27, 1951.


Light, which is love, cannot tolerate anything different from itself. Convert all past hatred into love.—Edna Lister, May 3, 1951.


Love to me is an essence and a fragrance of happiness in another’s joy. It is a deep desire always to take the blame if smoothing another’s path is possible. It is a conviction that you should cover the mistakes of every other one with Light, and as hidden from the world. It is a deep heart desire to do anything asked of me, to give even a moment’s happiness to someone else. It is a delight in being instantly obedient to a desire of the Father, not waiting for Him to voice His desire as an order or a command. Love is an honor, given to the Master by the Father, so great that it would willingly face even death in joy to carry out an order, even when they entirely misunderstood it on earth. Love is honor in expression here on earth because God’s honor is an exact, perfect blend and balance of Love, Wisdom expressing itself in Selflessness always and under all circumstances.
  o me love is incapable of forgetting to love despite anything earth can produce. Love is soul itself, giving itself up to God and out to men and this is only a beginning, an individual soul thing. It cannot be commanded or copied or bought. It must be earned through the travail of experience in surrender, enduring all things in joy. We find it ensampled in our Master Jesus the Christ, and each must be like unto him to know and express joy, love.—Edna Lister, May 10, 1951.


Love is the only magnet earth has. The whole travail of life is to reach true love, to reach the point where all else is added, to step into the Source of magnetic attraction that is pure Love, the second Emanation. Love is a great mystery of life. Pure love draws everything to itself, and turns everything into itself, even selfish love. To be possessed of pure love is bliss, but you do not get it by going off into a corner. You must add action to love to be love in action. Love is the Open sesame.—Edna Lister, June 17, 1951.


Love God first. If you try to love the person, you see him upside down, or self first.—Edna Lister, July 15, 1951.


Love is timing, and the rhythm of the whole universe is set to love’s timing. A lack of timing in the body is a lack of love, which sets every cell in tune or in time with the others. A continuous state of grace sets the timing for a miracle of healing.—Edna Lister, July 30, 1951.


Love is your magic charm. You are privileged to stand with love, to watch love in action, to seal your lips from idle words, to watch your actions and thinking. Charge your creations with enough of the love of God, in which is no darkness of self. You become absorbed in Light to the point of ecstasy, until no sound or dissonance can penetrate the magnetic walls of love. That point of lifting, which changes malformations in the twinkling of an eye, is the cohesive Power of the universe.
  He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do.—John 14:12. You can do the greater works, if you seek God. God is in charge. The credit is God’s. You are His instrument. Love is the fulfilling of the law.—Romans 13:10. Love is the universal timer within you. Love’s clock has just one hand, pointing to the hour of now. As you go forth, love times every situation, if you love enough. If you are loving, you are listening to the inner voice for warnings and all things. What is that to thee? Follow thou me.—John 21:22. Self love holds you down and you accomplish little. When you love God, you can accomplish much. Look at darkness and say, You are good.—Edna Lister, November 29, 1951.


Your capacity for love has increased so tremendously that its action is almost instantaneous. To experiment with the power of love in times of stress is perfectly legal. You may not experiment with souls, their faith or personal expressions, but you may stand and watch Mother Love use you to do its perfect glorious work. Stand ready to experiment with love. The more trying the condition, the greater the ecstasy to see how love does the work.—Edna Lister, December 3, 1951.


If you still have enemies, you don’t love enough.—Edna Lister, Success Through Divine Action, July 14, 1953.


Do you believe that love is a flame and fire that burns forever? Love fulfills law. Love is Light. Love is joy and fulfills all law. If this is so, how can you find fault with anyone on earth, condemn another or think negative thoughts?—Edna Lister, August 10, 1953.


Love always wins.—Edna Lister, December 7, 1953.


You can’t hold a position when you are sometimes up, sometimes down. You must earn love, not be loved "in spite of." You are either worthy of your position or not. Do you love because of God or not? Do you want credit or do you not? Do you want credit here or in heaven? If you can’t meet the challenge with love, you haven’t learned your lesson.—Edna Lister, December 9, 1953.


“If you can’t meet the challenge with love,
you haven’t learned your lesson.”—Edna Lister



To follow the love of God in its perfection of action leads to consciousness that is ever higher. To follow love, joyously praising and rejoicing, blazes a trail of glory for others to follow the Light.—Edna Lister, I AM Joy, 1954.


Love is the ultimate weapon. Love is irresistible.—Edna Lister, From a student’s notes, February 8, 1954.


Rid your thoughts of self-condemnation. You gain the true point of high balance between self-condemnation and self-exaltation by holding fast to the love of God always. To love God enough in complete constancy will give you such balance. Spend no time on self. Thus, will you be a perfect instrument of all Power.—Edna Lister, February 24, 1954.


When the love you send forth offends, you have not sent out enough love. Being dragged into love is easier than into hate.—Edna Lister, May 24, 1954.


You do not love sin, but love the sinful one into the Light; when you have loved God enough, he will be healed.—Edna Lister, The Golden Silence, June 18, 1954.


Let your love of God be brisk.—Edna Lister, June 20, 1954.


The power of love released to us now is as magnificent and great as our whole atomic universe. It is as unconquerable as God is unconquerable. Use the greatness of His almighty love as He would have you do in all great ways. Love, love, love is your question and your answer. To do the next thing next as it presents itself with all your heart, all your mind used in firmness of the love of God. Remember, the love of God is no soft thing to be blown away by a breath. It is a solid, firm wall and foundation always. What you must do, you can do in the love of God, firmly and lovingly, while standing for justice and rightness for all, not just for one. God’s love is ever greater in its power to act for you, through you and as you.—Edna Lister, January 10, 1955.


Your love for God must change to the love of God.
  Give up the idea of wanting someone to love you.
  Love, the universal magnet of attraction, is the only quality of the soul that when undiluted is potent enough to find and touch with its magic power every life spark you have ever released and bring them home to you.
  Send lifting love into the world to absorb evil wherever it may be, to free everyone you have ever contacted as the little self me. When you free others of the pressure of your thoughts about them, you reclaim your own misused soul substance, returned cleansed, and you grow into a sense of completeness.
  When you can loose the other fellow and let him go to find his own way back to God, it means that you are at last possessed with the love of God forever.—Edna Lister, Eternal Youth, 1955.


Love each who comes to you best and most to expand and increase your capacity for love.—Edna Lister, July 10, 1956.


The fire of God’s love must have new fuel. True love feeds on itself.—Edna Lister, January 24, 1957.


The grouches and possessors squeeze the life from love.—Edna Lister, February 20, 1957.


When no thought of self colors your love for your neighbor, only harmony can reign.—Edna Lister, I Accept, Keys to the Kingdom, February 27, 1957.


You dare not use force or make demands upon the law; you can live by the full love of God only by letting.—Edna Lister, I Accept, Keys to the Kingdom, February 27, 1957.


If you waited until you were 100 percent love, you would never do it. You can make your love as lavish as you choose now.—Edna Lister, September 5, 1957.


Love your least favorites with the universal Love of God.—Edna Lister, The Brain, Your Instrument of Power, September 24, 1957.


Only love directs and controls Power, or Power is misused as force. Only love can direct and control love. Love is the only principle you can use safely. When love is great enough, time is shortened.—Edna Lister, December 19, 1957.


"Love is the fulfilling of the law."—Romans 13:10. Love your neighbor as yourself, love God with all your heart, and love your fellow man.—Edna Lister, January 2, 1958.


To love is to let the power of love move through and give the other person freedom to choose.—Edna Lister, February 17, 1958.


If you force another to live beyond his level, he reviles you. The quantity and quality of our love is our armor; it pushes the other fellow into a corner. You may only pray that the love of God shows him the way.—Edna Lister, March 6, 1958.


Sacrifice of self increases the love moving through you, while sacrifice of things increases the wisdom.—Edna Lister, Revelation, the Seventh Seal, May 6, 1958.


When you love God enough, Light leads you by pushing you along a beam.—Edna Lister, June 3, 1958.


It is illegal to invest your life with your love; this means you may not tell those whom you love what to do. Love feeds upon itself and not upon the loved one.—Edna Lister, June 10, 1958.


Let love use you. Make yourself an instrument of love to be a conveyor of perfection.—Edna Lister, August 7, 1958.


Love your place and position. They cannot make you great, but you can be great.
  Love is not unworthy unless it is self-love.—Edna Lister, December 1, 1958.


The law of attachment says that what you love becomes your law, your guide. Take yourself into what you take into yourself.—Edna Lister, April 5, 1959.


Love’s language is giving.—Edna Lister, Idealization, May 10, 1959.


A Humpty Dumpty, whose crust of darkness love has cracked, tries to crawl back into his empty shell. He may hate the Power that cracks his shell, for he feels naked and exposed until love overcomes hate.—Edna Lister, May 11, 1959.


You can increase the power of your prayer with undiluted, completed love that solidly ties your earth to your heaven so they mingle. You know not how great you are or how great is the work done through you.
  Love is always worthy and lifting. Love is never unworthy, even when it is not returned. Sometime, somewhere, love will enter the heart of the one who expresses negatively. Those who do not return your love are your teachers in how to love more. You must give love, not cut it off, for it burns when it is withdrawn. When you understand what true love is, the world will be a beautiful place.
  Love is the healing power. If the whole world would join in Christed love at once, all darkness would cease to exist. God gives you enough love from the Source to hold you, yet not too much. Great Power can destroy you if you fall from the highest joy vibration.—Edna Lister, May 17, 1959.


A reprimand without the fullness of love is a barren, unproductive thing. Results come not from forcing law on another, but from the love that enfolds, fills and lifts.—Edna Lister, April 9, 1960.


Love has brought you this far, and it will take you the rest of the way.—Edna Lister, May 5, 1960.


You can raise the vibration of crystallized cells only under a dedication to love, the cohesive substance from above. Anything that earth can produce will yield where the love is love and not just thinking about it. When you love God enough, God is the miracle.—Edna Lister, What Is a Miracle? May 6, 1960.


You must give love for every debt you have charged to others.—Edna Lister, What Is a Miracle? May 24, 1960.


You apply the law of attraction by drawing your kingdom of earthly creations home to the kingdom of heaven through love.—Edna Lister, How Can I Apply Law to My Life? June 7, 1960.


Combine spiritual seeing and hearing to equal perfect balance. The power of visualization makes an impression on memory cells that creates perfect balance for simultaneous hearing and seeing. True love is always poised in Light.—Edna Lister, June 19, 1960.


You must visualize your prayer mold properly and love it enough; love the people connected with your mold. Love it because you already have it spiritually, mentally and emotionally, otherwise, you starve it.
  Love is the adhesive, cohesive Power of the universe that brings together the life sparks and inflates them to become solid, visible form. Love is in you as substance, but the living soul, which has the power of conscious direction and control, must express. Thus, "nothing" truly can become visible through love.—Edna Lister, Is Faith Enough? June 21, 1960.


Love is the "open sesame" that opens the spiritual world.—Edna Lister, How Do I Wait Upon the Lord? June 28, 1960.


Love is firm when it is Godlike, but any other kind is sentimentalism!—Edna Lister, August 22, 1960.


Love is the ruler. Love is the guard. Love is the substance. Love is the action. Love is the faith. Love is the beauty of God manifest. Love is deathless, ageless and abiding. Love is enough to rebuild all form hourly. Love enough causes a stream of Unconquerable Faith to move forth and the conclusion is inevitable.—Edna Lister, September 8, 1960.


Don’t just sit in the lap of love—arise and walk as a pillar of Light.—Edna Lister, September 23, 1960.


Love, which is the basis of all desire, cannot be killed. Love considers no object unworthy of itself, for its one idea is to amalgamate everything. Nothing can resist the amalgamating power of love; it is all cohesion. This is the Light of Love you should touch when you pray. If you are closed, it pours over you—you don’t sense it, but it still envelops you.
  The Light of love is a substance as much as the air about you and the Word of God. All things are made of the substance of love. All things are gradations of love, whether you see them in shadow or sunlight. It is your choice.—Edna Lister, December 18, 1960.


All the Father asks of you is to be a purveyor of love, a catalyst, a mediator who draws disparate elements together as one. Love is the catalyst that causes no blow out. When you find someone who is determined to lose his temper, ask the Father to fill him with Light and glory in its place.—Edna Lister, January 12, 1961.


True love is the only integrative power that can establish your identity with God. Prayer holds your identity, your oneness with God. If enough people pray as creators to work out God’s ideas in love, they save the world from crisis. Let us establish our personal identity with God to lift the whole world.
  Love, the only coordinator in the universe, can smooth conflicts of body, heart, mind, and soul.
  Hatred grows when you recognize it as hate, but decreases and disappears when you term it love. To declare, This is changed into love, consumes hatred.
  Love liberates energy. Love can liberate enough energy to carry you through each day when you express it with fervor. Unless love expends itself, it crystallizes and you stagnate.—Edna Lister, The Integration of Soul and Spirit, June 6, 1961.


You must learn to stand and love enough, for love is a fire that melts crystallization from the body sheath, giving the lightness to ascend. Giving more love is the only way to increase Light from above. This is demonstrated by compassionate love, which is firm, yet all glowing and energetic.—Edna Lister, June 9, 1961.


Hate that is demanding to the self can bury love.
  Each soul has a certain capacity for the power of love to use. If you fill that capacity with self, Power cannot work.—Edna Lister, July 19, 1961.


Without love and praise, life is incomplete, creations are imperfect.—Edna Lister, Integration, September 5, 1961.


Love much, for it is the open door to strength, your fortress, your secret place of hidden riches.—Edna Lister, The Sixth and Seventh Churches of Revelation, October 31, 1961.


Some people measure their love in drips and dabs, but when you really love, you do not measure it. A measured-out love is adulterated, a just-thinking-about-it love. When you think you are giving love unworthily, you are thinking about love, not loving. The little bit of love that seeped through on that vibration is perfect. The only imperfection is just thinking about it. Love is always worthy. The more darkness in the individual, the more surely he needs unadulterated love. You can never give love unworthily and you can never love enough. Love does not approve or disapprove. If you adulterate love with disapproval, it touches no one. All that returns to you, the giver, is the adulteration.
  You cannot think love into being, but can only become loving. Learn to love God enough. Let love be your keynote. True love cannot take itself back, cannot stop giving or loving. You cannot reclaim what you have given freely in love. It is no longer yours, but belongs to the person to whom you gave it. Love goes on and on, creating and paying dividends for eternity. If you loved a car, for instance, all love you poured out on it goes into the forms of other cars. Love from the universal storehouse goes on creating and filling molds throughout the eternities.—Edna Lister, This One Thing I Do, November 26, 1961.


Love is your measuring rod. Inventory your love moment by moment, daily.—Edna Lister, December 10, 1961.


Being established in the principles complete of love and wisdom is necessary. Love, standing alone, grows sentimentally soft. When love is not balanced with wisdom, it is weak and turns upon itself. But when love is balanced with wisdom, you know that the Father does the work, that He sends the Power through you, and you speak in the name of Jesus the Christ, "all things shall be added unto thee." Love is brisk and eternal, love is firm and wavers not.—Edna Lister, March 28, 1962.


Godlike love is brisk and firm. Any other expression is sentimentality.—Edna Lister, Fourteen Stations of the Cross, April 17, 1962.


Endeavor to express full love for humanity always.—Edna Lister, What Is Illumination? May 13, 1962.


True love is an etheric-magnetic current. You must love enough to conjoin the etheric current descending and the magnetic current ascending in balance, putting you in tune with the Power of the living God.—Edna Lister, May 20, 1962.


If you hate, condemn or criticize, you are disloyal to the absolute principle of Love.—Edna Lister, Power to Transform, December 4, 1962.


Love is a quality of soul, the brooding, yearning, compassionate mothering principle, absorbing all except that which one holds out with the little self. Love is all-comprehending, all-compassionate, all-pervading, all-permeating, all-leavening. It is the activity and heat of the universes. Love expressed on earth is illustrated in the worrying, travailing, yearning, all encompassing, protecting quality in man. Love is not something you can define, love is!—Edna Lister, July 5, 1963.


The love of God is brisk and strong, doesn’t cry or whine, but is a foundation to stand on and hold fast to.—Edna Lister, December 9, 1963.


Wisdom is the Father of principle. Love is the Mother of personality. Principle represents all Power. Personality represents all action. Wisdom is all law. Love is all law as action. The mating of Love and Wisdom gives firmness and boldness to all action. When Love and Wisdom are one, they become Nonresistance, which is the greatest, most powerful of all absolute laws.—Edna Lister, February 7, 1964


Love the unlovable or it is no love at all.
  Love turns everything into itself. When you pour love on a person, his healing begins.
  Let no one or anything get past your love barriers.—Edna Lister, Deity and Divinity, October 6, 1964.


Love is a principle, absolutely solid and dependable. It is firm, it is final and covers everything.—Edna Lister, November 27, 1964.


Real love is a soul-disciplined love that is firm and brisk.—Edna Lister, Seven Life Ages of Man: From Birth to the Star’s Descent, November 22, 1966.


Reach out with arms of Light. Bring in your loved ones, anything that needs lifting, and think up into the Light. You are not reaching up from earth, but reaching down from above. This is more than a mental thing. It must partake of the yearning, brooding quality of universal love, not a personal love. Remember that you yourself are your own measuring rod. You know whether the love you extend is greater than it has been. It should grow. Love is expansive. It expands faster than planets, stars and the universe, 22 times faster than visible light can go. Your thought is tenfold faster than light. That part of you that loves is tenfold greater — a thought, a word could circle earth five and a half times before it touches the walls of a room, if you were truly up in consciousness. You have no idea how great love is.—Edna Lister, December 11, 1966.


Love, administered without justice, turns to evil.—Edna Lister, May 26, 1967.


Love is the greatest thing in the world. All good things come as a response to love. Great thinkers have called prayer the mightiest force in the world, yet prayer is a response, an active response prompted by love. Your love and concern for humankind instigate prayer. Your prayers of supplication for others come from your love, great or small. Yet your prayers of praise and adoration, which open many doors, come from your love for God.
  Love is the amalgamating, cementing agent in your life. A person who feels the lack of the love of others lashes out at the world; his outlook is clouded, his attitude, largely negative. God does not ask you to give of your personal love, but of His Love. Focus your love on the unloving souls, and pour into them a love so sincere, so godly that they must respond because they just cannot help themselves. You cannot see the inner workings, the inner struggle, but rest assured, each pouring out of God’s Love excites a response, imperceptible though it may be, perhaps not today, tomorrow or next week, but someday.—Edna Lister, October 15, 1968.


The six laws of comprehension begin the initiations on all phases of Love:
   Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you.—Matthew 6:33.
  Agree with thine adversary quickly whiles thou art in the way with him.—Matthew 5:25.
  What is that to thee? Follow thou me.—John 21:22.
  Abstain from all appearance of evil.—1 Thessalonians 5:22.
  I, if I am lifted up from earth, will draw all to me.—John 12:32.
  This is Good. Let there be Light.—Genesis 1.
  The initiations of love involve disintegration—under the death ray—of all old thinking, emotions and imagination.—Edna Lister, Religion in the Ancient World, October 22, 1968.


What is that to thee? Follow thou me.—John 21:22 refers to action on the other end. The most brutal rejection of your love is a sign that love has driven in the wedge of Light.—Edna Lister, November 4, 1968.


One way to pay a debt is to love God more.—Edna Lister, June 30, 1969.


Use the Declaration of Unquenchable Love every day as your thermometer, to register the temperature of your love.
  Pure love is an investiture but becomes bondage when tainted with grief or blame.—Edna Lister, December 7, 1969.


You must reach a certain point in conquering self before you can love completely.—Edna Lister, May 20, 1971.


Only love can fulfill law anytime, any place, for any reason, for anyone.—Edna Lister, Undated Papers, 1933-1971.

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Love Enough

Enough love will free you from all bondage, from that which is born of darkness, whether in your mind or heart.—Edna Lister, January 9, 1939.


Enough love and trust in God’s faithfulness to perform shall bring all your desires to fruition.—Edna Lister, January 12, 1939.


Love enough reaches the giving pinnacle and covers others’ transgressions.—Edna Lister, October 21, 1941.


You must fill law with love to fulfill it. Love enough is all you need.—Edna Lister, August 22, 1944.


Love enough will make all things Light. Love enough will cover all your transgressions, no matter how great. Love enough will hold anything or anyone high in Light. Love enough will cast out all fear. Love enough will make all things new. Love enough will cast out all doubt. Love enough will pay all debts you owe law. Love enough will forgive, give love for anything or anyone. Love enough for each other will make each one beautiful. Love enough will make you good. Love enough will make everyone else very happy.—Edna Lister, October 16, 1944.


Enough love will enable you to fulfill your soul’s destiny.—Edna Lister, September 17, 1945.


Love God so that you cannot bear to be separated from Him one moment. Be lost in an ecstasy of love for Him.—Edna Lister, June 27, 1947.


The greatest of all laws is to love each other. Enough love for others will cover a multitude of sins, let alone your pet corns. We must love more. We do not yet love our Master enough. We do not yet love our Father enough.—Edna Lister, January 26, 1948.


You can’t climb a pole you greased with self, but do bounce back up if you love enough.—Edna Lister, June 18, 1956.


Love God so much that you wouldn’t let a cell of His great universe sag.—Edna Lister, September 30, 1957.


Love God enough to free the world of you.—Edna Lister, October 20, 1958.


Love God enough to stick like wallpaper and become.—Edna Lister, March 30, 1960.


You can love enough. Love has brought you this far, and it will take you the rest of the way.—Edna Lister, May 5, 1960.


Love enough pours a stream of unconquerable faith and rebuilds all form hourly.—Edna Lister, September 8, 1960.


You stand where you are supposed to be. If you don’t like it, love enough.
  Love enough will give you comprehension of law.—Edna Lister, January 12, 1961.


You must stand until you love enough, for love is a fire that melts away the sheath to ascend. Giving more love is the only way to increase Light from above. Compassionate love that is firm, glowing and energetic demonstrates this.—Edna Lister, June 9, 1961.


Yesterday is gone. Forget the past, now is your chance. If your love of God is deep enough, you have no past and begin anew today.—Edna Lister, April 22, 1962.


When you love God enough, you will not think about self, what you can or cannot do. When you love God enough, your mind is concerned with I love Thee more, I love Thee more! Then nothing can go wrong, for the soul is in charge.—Edna Lister, March 17, 1963.


When you love enough, rays of repulsion surround you so that nothing negative can touch you.—Edna Lister, The Legend of Isis and Osiris, April 14, 1964.


We cannot love the world enough without loving God enough.—Edna Lister, November 5, 1970.

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Love Declarations

Love is the fulfilling of the law.—Romans 13:10: I am now radiant with the Love of God. I am now filled with the flaming Love of God. I am now overflowing with the Love of God. I am now radiating the complete Love of God. I am now lavishly expressing the Love of God. I am now pouring out the selfless Love of God. I am now loving all men and all things. I am now ready to be filled with God’s abundant Love. I am now joyously loving the whole world. I am now loving all my family, perfectly and selflessly.—Edna Lister, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1931.


"Let love use me today. Let love create through me today."—Edna Lister, God as Consciousness Appears as Form, 1934.


Unquenchable love is that vision which can see no darkness at any time in any place or in any thing and especially can see no darkness ever in anyone!—Edna Lister, May 29, 1941.


Now love fills every cell of my body. Now love flows through me to fill full every creation of my desire. Love enough now possesses me to absorb all manners of darkness within and without, leaving me fulfilled as a Son/Daughter of God.—Edna Lister, Confidence in the Unquenchable Love of God, September 1950.


I am conquering. I am overcoming. I am resurrecting all the good from the little self. Use powerful suggestions day and night until your perfect Love of God lifts you and casts out fear.—Edna Lister, What Is a Miracle? May 6, 1960.

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Love is a flame and fire that burns ever. Love cannot be quenched. Love cannot be put out. Love is. True Love needs no assurances. True Love knows itself and its own. Love is the fire that enthuses. Love is a fire that ever burns higher, always upward. True Love is the end as well as the beginning. True Love feeds upon itself and not upon the loved one. True Love magnifies the one whom it loves. Love asks no favors and gives all. Love’s strength lies in its self-sustaining ability. Love’s keynote is a deep, abiding devotion to the one who is loved. True Love burns steadfastly under all conditions, joy or sorrow, separation or unity. True Love counts no effort too great nor too small, and no task too hard nor too long. True Love is lifting, opens all doors and is all compelling in its power to unite. True Love is never conscious of giving, but like sunshine, shares itself with all. True Love withstands all separation and lives forever.—Edna Lister, Christmas 1939.

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The Second Emanation: Love

As the Wisdom Emanation began its journey back to the Source, the in-breathing began for a second explosion. When Wisdom reached the Source, the second Light Emanation of Love as Substance moved forth, expelled as an explosion or exhalation of the Mother-God principle. Love flowed to the outer thought-rim to fill with substance the mold already built by Wisdom until it completed a vast outer magnetic wall around this universe. Wisdom, on its return journey, passed the out-flowing Emanation of Love. The friction generated by the inbound and outbound Emanations’ convergence caused the life sparks to condense and constrict to form denser substance. Where they met, they formed an abyss, an area of condensed substance that forms what we call the first Creative Wheel of Ezekiel. The first spheres of fire gestate within this abyss of life sparks, each sphere originating as a whirling thought-source of condensing substance.

As the first two Emanations expanded, they gathered all the life sparks within the empty space between the Source Sphere and the outer magnetic wall. They formed these life sparks into a sea of life, called the River of Life in which we live and move and have our being. God forever uses the Substance of this River of Life to create forms. When a form’s usefulness is complete, it disintegrates under the Mother’s ray, is absorbed into the vast River of Life for cleansing, and the substance is again available for creative purposes. At the close of a Day of Manifestation, God draws the River of Life in and dissolves the universal magnetic walls. This frees the life sparks to rotate individually as they did in the previous Night of Rest and Assimilation, building the potential Power needed for the next Day of Manifestation.—Edna Lister, A Design for Ascension, 1941.


The Love Principle Expressed as Desire

Degree

Ultimate Principle


Absolute Principle


Supreme Principle


Relative Principle



Relative Principle



Relative Principle
Kind of Principle

Light, the All That Is, the Universal Magna Carta
(Great Charter of Law)

Light, as Love, may be described as omnipresence, nourishing and sustaining all Creation

Substance is metaphysical Light made manifest as the life spark, the ultimate particle

Color is the first abstract expression of the absolute trinity of Light, which reveals the primary rays of yellow, blue and red, which become the full spectrum of Light

Form (name) is the principle governing the use of the spoken Word, let, without which no creation can occur;
every creation must be numbered, named and declared good

Desire, the first step in creation, is the central building faculty of consciousness


Expressions of the Love Principle Defined

Principle

Love




Substance



Color




Form (Name)






Desire
Definitions and Synonyms

Love is omnipresent, present everywhere simultaneously. All Love-Substance is present in all ways and places of all creation, present through all things unconscious, and as all things conscious; the principle of Substance.

All matter in the universe, from the smallest original particle of primordial, invisible Light-Substance, the life spark, to the grossest densest matter that forms Creation.

A particular hue or tint (subjectively, color is the sensation produced by the stimulation of the optic nerve by particular light-vibrations); outward appearance, aspect or semblance; generally, that which serves to conceal or cloak the truth.

Form is the visible aspect of a thing; shape, configuration,
as distinguished from color; a body (any integrated set of functions)
considered in respect to its outward shape and appearance. Name is the particular combination of sounds employed as the individual designation of a single person, animal, place, or thing;
the character or designation of (some person or thing).

Desire is that feeling or emotion that is directed to the attainment or possession of some object from which pleasure or satisfaction is expected; a craving, a wish; a longing for something lost or missed, regret; a physical or sensual appetite.


The Laws of the Consuming Fire of Love

Mother love is that consuming fire able to burn out all dross of self. The dross in the embodied appetitive soul lies hidden until the Oversoul seeks to ascend it. Then it boils up to the surface, thus allowing itself to be cleansed into Light, as it was in the dim beginning of time, before the appetitive soul evolved. When the rational soul lifts appetitive soul’s desire and will without succumbing to its clamoring for power, then the body ascends with the rational soul in the full stature of the Christed One. Yet when the rational soul listens to the appetitive soul’s plausible vaporings, it adds to its power until it boils underneath, corroding, dry-rotting, or crystallizing them.

The law of the consuming fire of Mother love is that it shall either burn out the dross or burn out and consume all darkness. Unless you surrender the self, the body itself becomes the battleground of the war between Light and dark when the ever-ingressing consuming fire of Mother love enters. Obedience to the laws of letting and lifting will consume the dross unto the complete purifying and full ascension of the body with the soul. So, let all hidden dross come to the surface of the conscious mind. It’s time to look your self in the eye and conquer all petty self.—Edna Lister, July 25, 1945.

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Love’s Seven Truths

Neophyte: Love, which is the beginning as well as the end, needs no assurances, since it knows itself and its own.

Disciple: Love begets enthusiasm that aspires, and magnifies the one whom it loves; therefore, love counts no effort too great or too small, and no task too hard or too long.

Adept: Love’s strength is its self-sustaining ability: Love feeds upon itself, not upon the loved one.

Mystic: Love burns steadfastly under joy or sorrow, separation or unity.

Master: Love is lifting, opens all doors, and is all-compelling in its power to unite.

Priest: Love is never conscious of giving, but shares itself with all.

Christos: Love, which is the end as well as the beginning, withstands all separation and lives forever.

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New Testament on Love

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.—John 3:16-17.


Love your enemies: Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?—Matthew 5:43-46.


Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also. Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again. And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.—Luke 6:27-32.


Love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.—Luke 6:35.


No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.—Matthew 6:24 [God must be first in your affection.]


No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon [money, materiality].—Luke 16:13.


He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.—Matthew 10:37.


Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.—Matthew 19:19.


Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.—Matthew 22:37-40.


Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he: And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.—Mark 12:29-33.


And one of the Pharisees desired him that he would eat with him. And he went into the Pharisee’s house, and sat down to meat. And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment.

Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner. And Jesus answering said unto him, Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And he saith, Master, say on.

There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most? Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged.

And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven.—Luke 7:36-48.


And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.—Luke 10:25-28.


But woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass over judgment and the love of God: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.—Luke 11:42.


Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.—John 13:1.


A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. 13:35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.—John 13:34-35.


If ye love me, keep my commandments.—John 14:15. [If you love the Christ, keep his commandments.]


He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.—John 14:21.


If anyone loves Christ, he will keep his word; and the Father will love him, and they will come to him and make their home with him.—John 14:23.


He who loves the Christ will be loved by his Father, and Christ will love him and manifest himself to him.—John 14:21.


Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.—John 14:23-24.


As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.—John 15:9-10.


This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.—John 15:12-13.


These things I command you, that ye love one another.—John 15:17

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Old Testament on Love

Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.—Leviticus 19:18.


My son, hear the instruction of thy father [Wisdom], and forsake not the law of thy mother [Love].—Proverbs 1:8-9.


My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the Lord loves he corrects; even as a father the son in whom he delights.—Proverbs 3:11-12.


Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all sins.—Proverbs 10:12.


He that spares his rod hates his son: but he that loves him chastens him betimes.—Proverbs 13:24.


He that covers a transgression seeks love; but he that repeats a matter separates very friends.—Proverbs 17:9.


A friend loves at all times.—Proverbs 17:17.


He that gets wisdom loves his own soul.—Proverbs 19:8.


Open rebuke is better than secret love.—Proverbs 27:5.

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Love in Other Sacred Writings

Love righteousness, think of the Lord with a good heart, and in simplicity of heart seek Him.—Wisdom of Solomon 1:1.


To think upon Wisdom is perfection of wisdom: and whoever watches for her shall quickly be without care. She goes about seeking such as are worthy of her, shows herself favorably to them, and meets them in every thought. For the very true beginning of her is the desire of discipline; and the care of discipline is love; and love is the keeping of her laws; and the giving heed unto her laws is the assurance of incorruption; and incorruption makes us near to God: Therefore the desire of wisdom brings us to a kingdom.—Wisdom of Solomon 6:15-20.


Honor your father and mother [Wisdom and Love] both in word and deed, that a blessing may come upon you from them, for the blessing of the father establishes the houses of children; but the curse of the mother roots out foundations.—Wisdom of Ben Sirach 3:8-9.


They who fear the Lord are a sure seed, and they who love Him an honorable plant: they who regard not the law are a dishonorable seed; they who transgress the commandments are a deceivable seed.—Wisdom of Ben Sirach 10:19.


Wisdom, knowledge, and understanding of the law are of the Lord: love, and the way of good works, are from Him.—Wisdom of Ben Sirach 11:15.


The love of the Lord passes all things for illumination.—Wisdom of Ben Sirach 25:11.


The fear of the Lord is the beginning of his love: and faith is the beginning of cleaving unto him.—Wisdom of Ben Sirach 25:12.


If you are oppressed and persecuted, and you do His (i.e., the Father’s) will, He will love you . . . and reckon you to have become beloved through His providence by your own choice.—The Apocryphon of James, Codex I, 2.


Cease loving the flesh and being afraid of sufferings; you have yet to be abused and accused unjustly, to be shut up in prison, condemned unlawfully, crucified without reason, and buried by the evil one.—The Apocryphon of James, Codex I, 2.


Become earnest about the Word! For as to the Word, its first part is faith; the second, love; the third, works; for from these comes life. For the Word is like a grain of wheat; when someone had sown it, he had faith in it; and when it had sprouted, he loved it, because he had seen many grains in place of one. And when he had worked, he was saved, because he had prepared it for food, (and) again he left (some) to sow. So also can you yourselves receive the kingdom of heaven; unless you receive this through knowledge, you will not be able to find it.—The Apocryphon of James, Codex I, 2.


Faith came to dissolve the division of wisdom into ignorance, and it brought the fullness of love, in order that there should be the unity of perfect thought.—The Gospel of Truth, Codex I, 3 and XII, 2.


Love your brother like your soul, guard him like the pupil of your eye.—Gospel of Thomas, Codex II, 2.


Faith receives, love gives. No one will be able to receive without faith. No one will be able to give without love. Because of this, in order that we may indeed receive, we believe, and in order that we may love, we give, since if one gives without love, he has no profit from what he has given.—Gospel of Philip, Codex II, 3.


Fear not the flesh nor love it. If you fear it, it will gain mastery over you. If you love it, it will swallow and paralyze you.—Gospel of Philip, Codex II, 3.


If you are born a human being, it is the human being who will love you. If you become a spirit, it is the spirit which will be joined to you. If you become thought, it is thought which will mingle with you. If you become Light, it is the Light which will share with you. If you become one of those who belong above, it is those who belong above who will rest upon you.—Gospel of Philip, Codex II, 3.


Farming in the world requires the cooperation of four essential elements. A harvest is gathered into the barn only as a result of the natural action of water, earth, wind and light. God’s farming likewise has four elements—faith, hope, love, and knowledge. Faith is our earth, that in which we take root. And hope is the water through which we are nourished. Love is the wind through which we grow. Knowledge, then, is the Light through which we ripen.—Gospel of Philip, Codex II, 3.


The beginning of the path is love and goodness.—The Dialogue of the Savior, Codex III, 5.

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Edna Miriam Lister
1884—1971
The original Pioneering Mystic,
Christian Platonist philosopher, American Idealist, Founder, Society of the Universal Living Christ, minister, teacher, author, wife, and mother.


Edna Lister


Etymology of love: Old English leof, "dear, beloved."


Love is an Emanation.

Love is an absolute principle.

Love is an abstract principle.

Love is the great law of being.

Love is a law of doing.

Love is a soul virtue.

Love is a soul faculty.

Love is a Via Christa Degree.


Love Constraining to Obedience
No strength of nature can suffice
To serve the Lord aright:
And what she has she misapplies,
For want of clearer light.

How long beneath the law I lay
In bondage and distress;
I toll’d the precept to obey,
But toil’d without success.

Then, to abstain from outward sin
Was more than I could do;
Now, if I feel its power within,
I feel I hate it too.

Then all my servile works were done
A righteousness to raise;
Now, freely chosen in the Son,
I freely choose His ways.

What shall I do, was then the word,
That I may worthier grow?
What shall I render to the Lord?
Is my inquiry now.

To see the law by Christ fulfilled
And hear His pardoning voice,
Changes a slave into a child,
And duty into choice.
—William Cowper

Love
Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guiltie of dust and sinne.
But quick-ey’d Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lack’d any thing.
A guest, I answer’d,
Love said, you shall be he.
I the unkinde, ungratefull? Ah my deare,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marr’d them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, sayes Love, who bore the blame?
My deare, then I will serve.
You must sit down, sayes Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.
—George Herbert

Outwitted
He drew a circle that shut me out
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!
—Edwin Markham

Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no, it is an ever-fixèd mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand’ring bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his heighth be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
—William Shakespeare


References

Cowper, William. The Olney Hymns, LV. The Poems of William Cowper, John Cann Bailey, ed. London: Methuen, 1905, 53, 56, 70.

Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, 2024.

Herbert, George. Love III, The Poems of George Herbert. Henry Frowde, editor. London: Oxford University Press, 1907.

The Holy Bible. King James Version (KJV).

Markham, Edwin. Outwitted, The Shoes of Happiness, and Other Poems. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1915.

The Nag Hammadi Library. James M. Robinson, ed. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988.

The Oxford English Dictionary: Compact Ed., 2 vols. E.S.C. Weiner, ed. Oxford University Press, 1971.

Shakespeare, William. Sonnet 116, Shakespeare’s Sonnets: Being a Reproduction in Facsimile of the First Edition, 1609. Sir Sidney Lee, ed. Oxford University Press, 1905.


Related Topics

Love: The Highway: Edna Lister Bible study outline; October 24, 1930.

Love: The Highway: Edna Lister Bible study outline; November 2, 1930.