The charity

Many people talk about love, but do not know what true Love is. I am going to speak briefly about charity, which is Love according to God, in other words: true Love. 

Although this concerns everyone, I am going to speak in particular about believers, who think they know what Love is, but do not know it. These people think that we have to make efforts to love, to manifest the Love of God; but this is not what the Lord teaches us through the scriptures and through his Spirit.

The scriptures teach us charity as the Perfect Love of God in His children (John 15:9-10) (John 17:26). Being perfect in Christ means that charity (Divine Love) is perfected in us, which is our primary goal as followers of Christ. Paul teaches us that we must be filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19), that is, that God's love (charity) takes over all of us, even to the point of totally replacing our sinful nature (our flesh/old man).

Jesus tells us that the flesh is useless and that it is the Spirit who gives life (John 6:63), thus making us understand that it is the fruit of the Spirit, which is love, that will make us perfect (Galatians 5:22), and not the fact of trying to be good by carnal efforts. This is what Paul also confirms when he tells Timothy that bodily exercise is useful in a few things, but godliness is useful in all things (the words "exercise" and "bodily" indicate the fact of making an effort with the flesh to do good; and the word "godliness" indicates the fact of loving God, of being attached to Him and of being faithful to Him):

"Exercise yourself in piety. For bodily exercise is profitable for little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having the promises of the present life and of that which is to come." (1 Timothy 4:8)

If we could manifest the Love of God by our effort, then we could boast about it, but that is impossible. In reality, if we manifest any kind of love by carnal effort, it is because that love is not the Love that God speaks to us about in the scriptures, and which must be fulfilled in us. 

The scriptures teach us that charity consists in offering our bodies as a living sacrifice to God. It is therefore to give our beings fully to the Lord, out of love for God and for those for whom we offer our lives as a sacrifice.

They tell us that just as Christ proved his love for us by laying down his life for us, so we too must lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters; for there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends. 

Therefore, no one can claim to love God or his neighbour, if he does not renounce his whole life and give his whole being to the Lord. This is our part, and we have the means to do it by the grace of God; by the power of his Spirit (the earnest of the Spirit) which we have received by faith. 

But as for the state of being of charity; the fulfilment of charity in us; this is not of us, but of God. Therefore, we do not have to do violence to ourselves to manifest the Love of God, for this is impossible through our flesh; but we must do violence to ourselves to surrender our whole selves to the Lord, and to strip ourselves in his presence, so that HE may fill us with his Love. 

Let us not forget that charity is a fruit, the fruit of the Spirit; it is therefore enough to remain in the Spirit to bear fruit. If we remain attached to the Vine, then we will bear fruit, but outside of it we can produce nothing. It is therefore impossible to bear the fruit of true charity without being at the feet of the Lord constantly so that he himself fills us with his Love. 

This means that all those who want to make efforts on themselves to manifest the Love of God are in great error, they are only appearing, just like the Pharisees, but they are not in true Love. This is a deception of the devil, a trap into which many believers blindly fall. 

True charity therefore consists first of all in renouncing our life in this world and offering (offering of charity) our whole being to God, for Love of God, for our families, and for the Church. And it is at the feet of the Lord, in his presence, that he will perfect us in charity, and that it will finally be accomplished in us. 

So we have to do violence to ourselves, not to manifest the Love of God as most believers think and teach, for this is the spirit of the Pharisees who want to appear when they are not; who clean the outside first, instead of cleaning the inside first, so that the outside may also be. But we must do violence to ourselves to strip ourselves of ourselves, in the presence of God, so that God may accomplish this Love in us. 

I note with sadness that believers are in great error on this subject (as on many others), and I pray to the Lord that He will deliver His people from the lie. 

Let us therefore not seek to appear, but to be; being aware that we can do nothing of ourselves, that is, by our own strength; but that only God can make us perfect and complete in His Love. Therefore, let us renounce everything, and let us do violence to strip ourselves in the presence of God, so that he may fill us with his Love, for charity is the fulfilment of the law of Christ. 

If people want to appear, then they will also judge on appearance, but God does not judge our lack of perfection in charity; at least not until we have attained perfection; but he does judge our unbelief, our lukewarmness, our pride, our jealousy, our evil heart... 

He judges all those who refuse to abandon everything in order to set themselves apart, in his presence, to be justly sanctified, perfected in his Love; and who allow themselves to judge those who truly do so. Let us not be whitewashed walls, as many are; for they appear clean on the outside, but inside they are as hard as stone.

Fulfillment of the Law

Charity does no harm to one's neighbour, so charity is the fulfilment of the Law.

Paul tells us about charity by saying that it is the greatest of all things:

"Now these three things remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these three is love." (1 Corinthians 13:13)

We know that all three are indispensable for salvation, but he gives us a very precise order of things here. He starts with faith and goes through hope to love, which is our path, which starts with faith, which gives rise to hope and leads us to love. In the following passage Peter also traces the believer's journey from faith to charity, showing us that charity is the fulfilment of the Perfect Law and that it contains all the virtues of God:

"Since his divine power has given us all things pertaining to life and godliness, through the accurate and correct knowledge of him who called us by his glory and virtue, by which the great and precious promises are given to us, so that by them you may be made partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that reigns in the world through lust ; for this very reason make every effort to supply your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with patience, patience with piety, piety with brotherly love, and brotherly love with charity. " (2 Peter 1:3-7)

So we understand that we start from faith to arrive at charity which contains all the virtues because it is the perfection of Christ in us. We also notice in this passage that we are obliged to pass through brotherly love to arrive at perfect charity, and therefore, that we need brotherly communion with those who are exactly on the same Path (renunciation/sanctification/unselfishness/perfection).

The state of being of charity

When charity is perfected in us then we can say that it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us (Galatians 2:20). And this is what we must seek with all our heart by giving up our lives and surrendering our whole selves to the Lord, in order to save ourselves and as many as possible:

"Charity is patient, charity is gentle, charity is not envious, charity does not use insolence, it is not puffed up with pride, it does nothing unseemly, it does not seek its own interest, it is not irritated, it does not take account of evil, it does not rejoice in injustice, but rejoices in the truth. It covers all things, it believes all things, it hopes all things, it endures all things." (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)
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