There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear
has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
Both fear and punishment has here nothing to do
with love, as the Bible tells us God’s love is perfect and people who actually die and meet God in Near Death Experiences reveal that this
love is unconditional and that there is no reason to fear God. This is an important insight from the NDE that will
become clearer throughout the book.
In
relation to learning to love and be loved, I also found something important in
my study. To the statement, “The true nature of reality is love; we are here to
learn who we are,” I found that 69 percent said that they agreed.
This
brings us to an important point that also Kenneth Ring has arrived at in Lessons from the Light. He explains
that, “The absolute and unconditional love of the Light reveals the essence of
the individual’s true self.”
This is an
important insight from the Light that we will look at throughout the book, but
for now I wish to conclude that because;
“Love is everything and everything is love,” as David testifies, this also
means that we are love. Everything has an essence love, and as such our essence
and true nature is also love.
A personal
favorite quote of mine expressing the ultimate lessons of the Light is: “All we
have is what we give” – meaning that all we have in truth is the love that we
give to others. As an NDEr and researcher, I believe this one line is the
closets we can get to express the profound love of the Light in human language.
It is at the same time also a powerful testimony to how saints and religious
figures like Jesus lived their lives, and I firmly believe this shows us that
we are indeed talking about the same source.
The reason
we love and remember these people is based on their powerful ability to love
and give, and us knowing that they did not waste a moment to do so. The Bible
also states this in 1 John 3:18-20: “Let us love, not in words or speech, but
in truth and action…for God is greater than our hearts.”
It is
especially the last part that “God is greater than our hearts,” which the NDE
gives testimony to as the profound infinite love of the Light is beyond human
comprehension. As NDErs will say; beyond their ability to describe their
experience, they will also say that this profound love of the Light, God, is
beyond human comprehension and greater than our human hearts.
In my
study, I had this notion confirmed through the statement: “Human understanding
of God is far from the true nature of love,” where 71 percent said that they agreed.
This is not meant to talk down to religious people, as I also found that the
rest, 29 percent, said that they were “not sure,” but the aim here was to show
that the true nature of God’s love is beyond our human comprehension.
Besides a
powerful message that calls on us to love, we also find a strong sense of
purpose in the NDE – a reason why we are here on earth. Jacqui tells us that
there is a “higher meaning; we are on earth as humans to learn lessons.”
This was
also something that Raymond Moody concluded from his research. The life-review
stresses the importance of “learning to love,” and from the late long time
hospice worker, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross we get the same conclusion: “The sole
purpose of life is to grow. The ultimate lesson is learning to love and be
loved unconditionally.”
While love
here on earth many times is conditional, the kind of love experienced in the
Light and as the true nature of God, is unconditional beyond comprehension. In
the light there is an experience of total freedom and this freedom comes from
the unconditional love of the Light.
My wife, Valerie, was actually the person
who made me aware of this link when she told me: “Unconditional love sets you
free because you are totally accepted.”