The Narrow Way of Love

Sooner or later, every person who believes in God begins to ask God for love. Some do so consciously, but most of those who pray for love expect loving people to surround them in answer to this prayer. Yet something entirely opposite happens. Strange trials and attacks that never existed before begin to occur in your life. And the people from whom you expect personal attention suddenly become unbearable. Everyone who asks for love experiences something similar.

I believe that the prayer for the gift of love is the most interesting prayer, and the Lord answers it in a most interesting way. It is as though He asks, “Do you truly want what you are asking for? Do you understand what it will cost you and how high the price will be?”

For a time, the Lord allows a person to experience the state of God’s agape, extending its influence to those around him. Strange as it may seem, the appearance and presence of love in secular society or among friends unaccustomed to such a neighbor is felt by everyone, and the carnal nature of these people begins to resist every such manifestation.

I have noticed an interesting feature: when I begin to speak plainly or preach about God’s love, which is given to me through faith in Jesus and in answer to my prayer, instead of joy over my success and spiritual growth, I see gloomy faces that regard me as some kind of charlatan who does not understand what he is talking about. And when I dare to say that I love, I hear every possible response except delight over such a beautiful decision.

As we know, Jesus was the living embodiment of God’s love in reality. He did everything with love and from love. His heart overflowed with love. Yet He did not openly announce it; He conducted Himself as a loving person. Nowhere do we find Jesus making a declaration of His love for His disciples or for anyone else. But His deeds directly testify that His love was sacrificial and unconditional.

He harmed no one, yet His presence drew some people to Him and turned others against Him. Christ never even entertained the thought of harming or humiliating anyone. He was ready to descend into any depth of human sin in order to reach and save a perishing soul. But He could not do this without the consent of the will of the person who was perishing.

Strange as it may seem, the scribes, priests, and Pharisees hated Christ for His purity and because He destroyed their false ideas about God and offered the people simplicity in understanding sacred truths.

The same spirit that opposed Christ is still at work in the children of disobedience. God’s love continues to arouse anger in people who possess a different spirit.

When you decide to enter the way of love and, receiving God’s love, begin to love everyone around you, do not expect easy victories or pleasant leisure. The human heart will long for fairness and for its love to be returned. But do not dream of such an outcome. The world does not need God’s love; it needs “pink hearts.” And the enemy of the soul will oppose in every possible way any manifestation of true agape through your life.

But the essence of this struggle and victory is to love to the end—when there is no strength and when you see no meaning, but faith and the example of Jesus remain.

The presence of love from God is not something frightening to a loving person. It is Heavenly gold that enriches and brings no sorrow with it. To love is beautiful. To love unconditionally is the highest art.

At the same time, love influences not only those around you, but also you yourself from within. It is not some precious metal for your heart, but a molten liquid with a very high spiritual temperature that burns all selfishness, sin, and lawlessness from the depths of the soul. It demolishes every kind of stereotype and does not dwell beside any impurity.

When you tell someone about your love and say that you possess it because you ask God for it, receive it, and continue onward, do not be afraid to hear sarcasm, irony, words of unbelief and doubt, as well as every kind of name-calling, abuse, and accusation in response. This is a common reaction that, unfortunately, makes the believer’s path quite difficult and narrow.

In loving other people, I may be able to rely solely on my faith and expect supernatural help from God. But in mutual love for one another, I encounter an imperfect human being who is attempting to love me while dealing with an equally imperfect being in the person of me.

We truly pass through very interesting experiences in this love for one another. My human selfishness is unaccustomed to anyone loving me unconditionally, and I involuntarily resist such a blessing from my friend. At the same time, however, I understand that relationships like these should be ideal and should bring joy not only to us, but also to our Lord, Who endows us with this love.

The narrow way of love is also narrow because it is impossible to walk along it in a broad rank together with one’s friends. Sometimes the human selfishness of those close to me blocks the way like cliffs so completely that I have to squeeze somehow among these stony hearts. It becomes impossible to pass through and endure such a trial together with any human being.

The only One Who is always present in all this is Jesus, living in my heart and dwelling in my mind. In every trial, He silently asks me what spirit I will choose in order to overcome and pass through this adventure that is so strange to me.

By nature, I do not always want to choose love, because I know other ways of resolving every kind of spiritual problem. But in spiritual battles, victory comes only through the weapon God has appointed for victory—the weapon with which Jesus overcame the enemy and this world.

When I choose love as the ultimate goal of my spiritual growth, I do not become a loving person in a single moment. But in His mercy, the Lord gives me the opportunity to experience the victories of love and endows me with it to resolve many tasks.

I cannot contain this fire within myself, nor is it intended for me alone. Love is given only so that I may share it with other people and place it as the true motive within every deed I perform for those around me.

As I grow spiritually in faith and reach the moment when my heart is ready to receive God’s love and live by it, the Lord opens a new page in my mind, writes upon it a new revelation of God’s love, and begins to endow me with it.

Then a very interesting realization arises: I understand that there is simply no way back from this stage of faith. After allowing the fullness of God’s presence into myself and permitting Him to work through me and live within me, returning to my lukewarm Laodicean condition would be equivalent to betraying a sacred trust.

This does not mean that I have become some special holy person who must now live in an unusual way and present himself to the world. No, that is not what this means. It means, however, that I am entrusted with the responsibility of being God’s representative and overcoming every evil by God’s method.

1. Please read Matthew 7:13–14; 10:16, 22; Luke 17:33; John 15:18–20, 25; Galatians 2:20; Philippians 3:3–5; James 1:2–4.

2. What other Bible verses came to your mind?

3. What did you understand?

4. Have I ever asked God to endow me with His love, and did I understand what I was asking for?

5. Why should I not expect kind treatment in answer to a prayer for love?

6. Am I able to continue loving when I see no love in return?

7. Am I seeking chiefly my own benefit and comfort in love?

8. Why was Christ crucified?

9. Have I noticed resistance from those around me when I try to live by the principles of God’s love?

10. Am I resisting the love that God sends me through other people?

11. Why do many people consider a loving person a charlatan?

12. Is there a friend in my life with whom I am united by the love of Christ?

13. How ready am I to walk the narrow way of love if I must travel it almost alone?

14. Have I become a more loving person than I was several years ago?