The Gospel in Brief: The Life of Jesus (Harper Perennial Modern Thought)

by Leo Tolstoy

“You are equal with me if you do what I have taught you. I do not consider you to be slaves, to whom orders are given, but to be equals because I have made plain to you everything that I have come to understand from the father. You are not choosing my teaching of your own will, but because I have directed you toward the one truth, the truth that allows you all to live and have everything you desire. The entire teaching is nothing more than loving one another.

He saved us and the whole world from falsehood. Only he who recognizes Jesus’s teaching and fulfills his commandments is a true Christian. Whoever says that he recognizes Jesus Christ’s teaching but does not fulfill his commandments is a blatant deceiver; there is no truth in him. And whoever fulfills his commandments will have love for his neighbor. Only through this love can we unite with God. Whoever says that he has united with Jesus Christ should live just as Jesus lived. Whoever says to himself that he exists in life and goodness but hates his living brother does not exist in life and goodness, but in death and evil, and doesn’t know himself what he is doing. And whoever hates the life that is within him is a blind man.

We love because God loves us. And we do not love God, whom it is impossible to love, because no one can see him, but we love our brother, whom it is possible to love. Whoever says that he loves God, but hates his brother, is fooling himself because if he does not love his brother whom he can see, how can he love God, whom he cannot see?