When you feel love for another, you are feeling good about yourself.
Everyone knows that feeling love for another is not a deliberate act. Certainly, love in your heart for another can grow. Love does grow, love can grow even from where love was not, yet love cannot be assigned. Love takes root in your heart of its own accord. Love cannot be made to happen. Love in your heart is a beautiful sprout that grows in this direction or that as it wills.
It is the same with your love for Me. You can be told to love God with all your heart, yet the designation does not make your awareness of your love grow. You could, perhaps, do everything you know to spur your love on, and yet, try as you will, you cannot make that love reveal itself to you. Trying doesn't do it. You would love to feel the love, yet your heart won't speak it. It is as if your heart is numbed to the Reality of Our Love that already exists.
You cannot love by design, yet to love is a natural thing, and for love to grow and nourish itself is a natural thing. Take a mother and father's love for their baby, for instance. When the baby is born, they love the baby right off, and yet their love for the baby grows. Their love grows by service to the baby. Love grows through service.
Loving by itself is not enough. Love in a vacuum of itself is not enough. You give care to that which you love. As you take care of the object of your love, the love in your heart grows. You are not consciously thinking, for instance: "I will serve this baby. I will do everything for the baby so it will be happy and grow, and by my service to this baby, the love in my heart will grow."
The love will certainly grow of itself.
When you are the mother or father of a new baby, your role is clear. It is clear what the baby needs to be happy and to grow, and you fill the baby's needs. To serve the baby's needs enriches your own heart. By your familiar acts, you come to know the baby and what it likes, and so your love grows.
Love is not an obligation, you understand, yet even from obligation, love can grow. Love serves much higher than obligation. Love rouses itself even under unexpected circumstances and freely gives and freely grows. Your mind is not the decider of love, yet, of course, your mind can have the intention. More practical than the intention to love is the intention to serve.
As you serve Me, your love for Me grows. If it is your desire to love Me and yet your heart feels vacant, then serve Me and see what happens to the love in your heart. Watch your love grow. Your service waters the tree of love in your heart.
And how does your love for Me grow? It grows by your giving to Me. It is that simple. Your gift of service to Me boosts your heart. Your gift of service no matter to whom you give it activates the love in your heart. Your heart becomes awash with love.
It is not sacrifice that I speak of, you understand. In service to Me, you do not give up anything. If you feel you are giving up something, do not do it. You are not a martyr to love. Serve with love in your heart, and you will find you are doing what you want to do.
When you serve your baby, you are serving Me. When you serve your neighbor, you are serving Me. If you do not know how to serve Me, know that by sweeping your floor, you are serving Me. By feeding the birds, you are serving Me. By loving anyone, you are serving Me. By serving, you serve Me, and you serve yourself a healthy stack of love. The lover loves. The lover loves himself. Loving himself, he loves all.
If you didn't know where to begin, now you do. In service.