Nourishment for the Soul in Word and Song: Recognizing Real Love Is Encouraging

Drawing closer to God is drawing closer to God’s encouragement. God is the epitome of encouragement. Many people can be encouraged to do many things, but few people use love as the foundation for encouragement.

When we recognize what real unconditional love is, we become encouraged. We become love. We become more like Christ. We recognize and differentiate between life and life everlasting. Real love never stops loving, just as life everlasting never stops lasting. It is forever giving.

When real love is activated inside us, we are encouraged on a conscious level. Real love comes not only from a conscious state but also from our subconscious and superconscious states. Unconditional love can and is absorbed into us, whether we are willing to accept it or not, whether we like it or not.

To restore the love in our hearts in its purest form is like starting the car in the morning. We know that if we do certain things, we obtain certain results. It is through our active obedience with unconditional love, with God, that we find the experiences that change our lives, where we find that our hearts are open. It is through our active obedience with unconditional love that we actually see and observe what the face of forgiveness looks like. If you were to put a face on forgiveness, it would look exactly like unconditional, encouraging, love.

The first step of encouragement and recognizing real love is accepting the peace that surpasses all understanding.