Discover the Secret of True Love

Discover The Secret Of

True Love

Consolatus C. Okorondu

iUniverse, Inc.

New York Bloomington

Discover The Secret Of True Love

Copyright © 2008 by Consolatus C. Okorondu

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ISBN: 978-0-595-50327-8 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-0-595-49943-4 (cloth)

ISBN: 978-0-595-61465-3 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 11/05/08

Contents

Acknowledgment

Dedication

Forward

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Prayer

Bibliography

Acknowledgment

I give glory to God the Holy Trinity, who gave me the ability and courage to write this book. I will not fail to acknowledge Mary, the mother of Christ, for all her support through her intercession.

I offer a sincere thanks to Dr. Titus Okparaocha, Dr. Chinyere Onu, and Dr. F. Anne Freitas for their efforts in editing this book.

Special thanks to my family, the family of Mr. Michael Ibeto and the late Mrs. Celestina Nnenna Okorondu, Mrs. Lilian Sogade, Mrs. Mercy Okparaocha, Maria Lucero, Sister Ann Iduma, Mrs. Prisca Okwara, Mr. Fortunatus Okorom, Mrs. Carol Facella, and Dr. Nwaka Chris Egbulem, founder and president of Action Africa, Inc., Washington, D.C. for their encouragement and support.

May the blessing of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all and your loved ones in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit for the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Man of Love, through His ignominious death on the cross, God’s love for our salvation was manifested.

To God be the glory

Forward

The scripture says, when you know the truth, it shall set you free. In this book, Discover the Secret of True Love, Consolatus Okorondu will take you through the scriptures and share powerful points and personal stories that will expose you to the true meaning of love, which is powerful and liberating. Consolatus describes the way true love should manifest and how the God-kind of love will always lead us to peace and harmony in our relationships with God, others, and self. Specifically, you will learn the fruits of love such as patience, understanding, acceptance, consideration, honesty, forgiveness, and communication, as well as how these factors are key to successful relationships, be they family, marriage, friendships, relationships at work, or those between strangers.

In her invigorating book, The Secret of Happiness, she described love of God, self, and others as key ingredients to living a happy life and bringing souls to God. In this book, Consolatus defines the true meaning of love that a lay person can understand and practice. The key is that true love is sacrificial, and since nature abhors a vacuum and one good thing deserves another, nature is bound to replenish your good deed. After reading this book, you will have no doubt that there is only one true love. You do not have to be a preacher to proclaim God’s truth. God is looking for conduits people he can use to proclaim His thoughts, feelings, and purposes to the world. Consolatus Okorondu is indeed God’s conduit. Everyone should endeavor to read this book. It is for all ages, for families, preachers, counselors, and therapists, and will convert many souls and bring peace to many relationships.

Chinyere Onu, PhD

Introduction

I have written, Discover the Secret of True Love to help us understand the true meaning of love. It is based mostly on biblical teaching and personal experience. In my previous book, The Secret of Happiness, I detailed my search for a definition of love, which prompted me to study the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation. That book also contains additional information on love. The word love, is a very ambiguous word that seems simple. But it is not easy to write a book about it, since the meaning of love varies from individual to individual. Writing this book has been the greatest and best challenge I have faced in life. Some of my friends and relatives wonder how a single person, can write a book on love. They wonder what I know about it. They may have a point, but as a friend of Jesus, the man of love, I pray for Him to be the main author of this book and to bring to the world what I have learned about love through His holy word, the Bible. The reader is encouraged to read this book from beginning to end when started so as to get the greatest benefit from it and to avoid wrong interpretation, wrong judgment, and wrong criticism of it. I do not claim to be holy. I do not claim to be better than anybody. This book is not meant to judge any group of people. It is written for the benefit of our world, which is swimming in lack of true love and in enjoyment of false love that is threatening to exterminate the inhabitants of the world with incurable fatal diseases. I encourage you to read with an open mind and avoid self-condemnation. Because individual understandings of love vary, I collected personal definitions of love from people of all ages, classes, ethnicities and education; this was done to get a general understanding how people view love. When I reviewed the definitions, it became clear that age, nationality, culture, and religion influence one’s understanding and interpretation of love. Defining love is not easy because love is not simply a word: It is an action. Just as we know that faith without work is dead (James 2:17), love without action is dead. To me, Love is a complete, total, and voluntary denial and sacrifice of oneself for the sake of another. Love without sacrifice and self-denial is not a true love and will not last. True and honest love is seen in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. He proved to us that love involves sacrifice and self-denial but is completely voluntary. Though the Lord Jesus gave up His life for us in obedience to His Father’s will, He did so voluntarily. He was not forced to do so. Even in the Bible, Jesus expressed His total self-submission to His death. He declared that no one forced Him to lay down His life, thereby modeling for us the voluntary nature of love: The Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me; I lay it down of my own free will, and as it is in my power to lay it down, so it is in my power to take it up again; and this is the command I have been given by my Father (John 10:17-18) I believe in two kinds of love: Christian love and earthly or worldly love. Christian love knows no boundaries and is unconditional, while worldly love is not only conditional, it is selective. The following are the definitions of the two types of love. Nelson’s (Bible Dictionary) defines love as, "the high esteem that God has for his human children and the high regard which they, in turn, should have for him and other people. Webster’s (Collegiate Dictionary) describes it as, a strong affection for another arising out of kingship or personal ties, attraction based on sexual desire, affection or tenderness felt by lovers, affection based on admiration, benevolence or common interest." Nelson’s is a more Christian understanding; Webster’s a worldly understanding. None of these definitions can be said to be completely right or wrong because true love can be both heard and seen. We don’t only need to tell people that we love them; our actions will prove to them whether we love them or not. The emphasis of this book is Christian love, the love that lives to eternity. This is the love that strives for salvation of the beloved and not damnation. It is the love that sees beyond the physical. It is the love rooted in God Himself. It is unconditional.

In chapter one, I discuss God’s love for us. Using quotations from the Bible, I explain how ours is a loving God and how His mercy endures for our sake. The chapter touches on how patient and forgiving God is with human beings as a result of His fatherly love. Chapter two concerns our love for God: how we will be able to know whether we love God or not and what to do to express our love for God. Chapter three, The Golden Rule, explores our love for each other. It explains the true meaning of love as sacrifice and self-denial. It emphasizes the need to do to others what we would want them do to us. Chapter four focuses on love in the family. Lack of true love is one of the causes of family dysfunction and abuse in our world today. It is the cause of the emotional breakdown and depression that are still an unfortunate part of human life. This chapter addresses how true love can help eradicate some of these problems. Chapter five unfolds the truth of love and relationships. It touches specifically on marriage and friendships. It contains many Bible quotations that explain the truth about healthy and lasting relationships. It also addresses how to avoid that which the enemy is using to destroy marriages in our world today. It examines different types of human attractions that veil themselves with the mask of love. It removes the mask and reveals the truth before it is too late. Chapter six talks about single people and love. It deals with how single men and women who strive for holiness in this world of immorality can achieve it, despite the difficulty. It also opens avenues to establishing a better and more intimate relationship with Jesus and describes how Jesus gently reveals Himself to those who love Him. It is supported with quotes from single people who have found the love of Jesus and tells how Jesus made Himself known to them. In chapter seven, we see how different people interpret love. I have included their definitions of love without altering their meanings. The book concludes with a prayer of love.

Chapter One

God’s Love for Us

Love is one of the most difficult virtues to understand. It is more difficult because its truthfulness is practically expressed in actions more than words. Anybody can use the phrase I love you without understanding it. But the only one who knows the true meaning of love is God, who is love Himself and the author of love.God is Love and anyone who lives in love lives in God, and God lives in him (1 John 4:16) In many places in the Bible, from the creation to the descent of the Holy Spirit, God proved to us that He is love. It is God’s love for us that led to the creation of the world. God did not need human beings in order to be complete. He did not need human beings to be happy. He did not need human beings to be God. Even after the creation of the universe, God was not mandated to have human beings to care for His creation. He created human beings out of love. He could have created only animals had He chosen to do so. He could have created human beings in a different form instead of in His own image and likeness. God created us in His own image and likeness as an act of love. God placed humans in a paradise filled with all of life necessities. God didn’t need security guards to guard the paradise. He gave it to humans out of love and fatherly care without any limitations to our life-span in it. Humanity was, in the beginning, created to live forever like God. The Garden of Eden was filled with all kinds of food, vegetables, fruits, meat, and everything one needs to survive and enjoy life. If God ever required anything of human beings, it was what every loving father would ask of his beloved children; that is, to obey and honor Him. God only gave one admonition to humanity, You may eat indeed of all the trees in the garden. Nevertheless of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you are not to eat, for on the day you eat of it you shall most surely die" (Genesis 2:16-17)

God immediately made clear to human beings the merits and demerits of love. God was very open about what that tree was: it was a tree of life and death. It was a tree of knowledge of good and evil. This tree may glitter like gold but it may not be gold. It was fire, wonderful to admire but dangerous to touch. God also made it clear that the day a human ate any fruit of that tree, death would inevitably be his fate. He did not hide any truth about this tree from human beings. Only a loving and caring father would be as clear, open, and plain as God was in this regard. As a result of pride, ignorance, curiosity, and lack of love, man fell into the temptation of disobedience to God. Eve did not eat that fruit because the Serpent tempted her, she ate the fruit because she had no true love for God. If she had loved God truly, she would have considered His feelings during the temptation. She should have known that eating the fruit would not please God. She should have known that the first law of love is to do to others what you would want them to do to you. Adam did not eat the fruit because Eve gave it to him. Adam ate the fruit because he loved his wife more than he loved God. He was more considerate of his wife’s feelings if he refused than he was of God’s. Some of us occasionally fall into temptation just to please the concupiscence of our partner while disregarding the blood that was shed on the cross for us. Adam was just like any of us who tend to love significant others more than God. Love excuses and forgives a multitude of sins. Where there is love, anger has no ground. When God realized what happened, as a father of love, He did nothing but to carry out the sanction He had forewarned Adam of: with God’s unconditional love, He made garments for Adam and Eve to cover their nakedness. Love sometimes is very painful to exercise. To punish the beloved as a result of disobedience is also a sign of love. Some people may be wondering why God did not forgive Adam and Eve and simply give them another warning, since that was their first offense: they had no past history of disobedience. First, God made it plain to Adam that the tree imposed death as a punishment. That was the only tree in the entire garden that was fatal. The rest were trees of life. Since Adam and Eve’s immortality had been destroyed by their ingestion of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they became unworthy of the Garden of Eden. They could not eat the trees of life from the garden or they would live forever. Since their bodies’ immortality had been defiled by the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they could not live forever. See, the man has become like one of us, with his knowledge of good and evil. He must not be allowed to stretch his hand out next and pick from the tree of life also, and eat some and live for ever (Genesis 3:22) Since no word that comes out of the mouth of God will go back to Him void, He had no choice but to expel Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. This was not a sign of lack of love from God’s side. Though God took back the privilege of immortality from humanity, He did not instantly eradicate humans from the face of the earth. Instead, He gave humans a long span of life: about nine hundred years. When Jared was a hundred and sixty-two years old he became the father of Enoch. After the birth of Enoch, Jared lived for eight hundred years - In all, Jared lived for nine hundred and sixty-two years (Genesis 5:18-20) God still left humans with the honor of procreation. God’s love for us is beyond comparison. It is not easy to predict human behavior. The more God showed human beings His fatherly love, the more humans became disobedient and depraved. People of the earth at this time had no regard for God. They lived as if they were gods of their own. They married as many wives as they wanted and promiscuity was seen as normal way of life. Since God knew that His plan to create man on earth was prompted by love, He could not eradicate the human race at this time. He still exercised fatherly love upon the earth by decreasing people’s span of life. My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred and twenty years (Genesis 6:3) Love always finds ways to embrace forgiveness and peace. Humankind still did not realize God’s love, mercy, and kindness upon mankind. They engaged in more wicked acts against God. The evil of humankind reached such a climax that God regretted creating humans on the earth. He decided to wipe out everything He had created, both man and beast. So the Lord said, ‘I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them (Genesis 6:7) As a loving father, God’s heart was mellowed and He remembered the goodness of Noah. God determined to save the world with Noah and his family through His direction to Noah to build the ark that saved them from the flood.

After the flood, Noah and his family populated the earth. As a sign of love, God even made a covenant with Noah that He would never again demolish all His creation with a flood. Because Noah found favor with God, through him God saved the world. The world at this time was filled with Noah’s descendants and the greater the number of people on earth, the more their evil increased. All people of the earth at this time spoke one language and lived basically in one country. They did a lot of things in common. Sometimes, too much freedom without regulation, causes abuse of freedom. Since everyone on earth spoke the same language, they could do anything without hindrance. As humankind had not learned consideration regarding God’s feelings toward their actions, they decided to build a tower that would reach to heaven. When a handshake passes the elbow, it becomes a fight. Remove the hand of a monkey from the soup before it becomes a human hand. Spare the rod and spoil the child. When God saw what was going on with the building of the tower of Babel, He knew that He had to act instantly. God, as a loving father, knew that if He did not respond promptly, mankind’s activity would be unpredictable. With love and kindness, He terminated the building by confusing humankind with different languages, thereby incapacitating their communication. God knew that humankind with one language was capable of anything. It would be a lack of love if God visited them with plagues, so the easiest way to stop them from building the tower of Babel without rebellion was to allow them to make the decision themselves. Since good and comprehensible communication is the key to every successful achievement in life, God saw that language disruption was His best and noninvasive action. So, they are all a single people with a single language, said Yahweh. This is but the start of their undertakings! There will be nothing too hard for them to do. Come, let us go down and confuse their language on the spot so that they can no longer understand one another. Yahweh scattered them thence over the whole face of the earth, and they stopped building the town. (Genesis 11:6-8)

When the building of the Tower of Babel was terminated, the inhabitants of the earth scattered upon it. The confusion caused by different languages of the earth did not bring an end to the evil in the world. The evil of the inhabitants of the earth increased as the census of the people increased. But since God is unlimited, His love is unstoppable. God continued to love His creation no matter what happened. God’s love for us can be compared with the love of a good farmer. No good farmer would abandon his farm because of weeds. The farmer will do everything to save his crops by weeding the farm. This is a sign of true love. God appointed prophets in every generation to help the world earn His fatherly love and forgiveness. A true father’s love for the family is unconditional. God is a true father for us and will not abandon us to our sins and offenses without giving us an opportunity for change and a chance to obtain His forgiveness. We see many places in the Bible where God sent His prophet to warn a country for it’s sins, and He repented from destruction of the country when they turned away from their sins. Prophet Jonah was a typical example; where God expressed His pity and withheld His wrath against Nineveh. He gave them an ultimatum for conversion or their country and everything in it would be destroyed. "Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. ‘By the