Love

[James_Lai]

If you read the Bible, it is a guide to God The Father. There is only one way to Him. You must go through Christ Jesus His only begotten Son. Since it seems that you have not yet been visited by Christ, look for Him. In so looking you will try to be obedient to The Word. You will understand more as you legitimately seek. If that be your case, I pray for you.

Okay, thank you

 

[eleos1954]

I don’t know if Love in our reality is an absolute… Like a cat who catches a mouse for her kittens, so loving and caring, but for the mouse it’s evil. Or when somebody prays to God for a job and gets it, somebody else gets rejected for the same job and commits a suicide losing all hope… People compete for limited resources, and some win and many lose. We cut the forests down to build houses, but then there’s no trees to convert CO2 into oxygen and the future generations risk global warming… What’s love for one, is evil and death for another.

There seems no way we can show love without hurting something or somebody. Those criminals who commit the worst of crimes, spend time in prison and come out because they are treated humanely, to only commit even more crimes… So capital punishment is loving?

I would say not loving ... all lives are precious to God .... ultimate judgement is up to Him and only Him (thank you Jesus) .... true a lot of pain and suffering in this world caused by the acts of others .... but one day (I pray soon) that will change. I don't support capital punishment .... the worst of the worst can be removed from being a threat to society with life imprisonment, mental institutions etc. there are alternatives.

Yes there is a risk when some are released .... love is not without risk .... don't think love can exist without it .... God knew the risk ... but in order to have total freedom .... risk is involved. Love can not be forced else it's not love. Yes, love is very risky indeed ;o)

Whenever I don't understand .... I look at the life of Jesus and how He lived it ... He is our example in everything .... and with His help I am able to rest in that He will finish His work.

Philippians 1:6

English Standard Version
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

and I whole heartily believe this .... if I didn't I'd go in sane ;o)

I would invite all to embrace the surety of His promises .... He is faithful. May we all rest in Him. Amen. Thank you Jesus for all that you do.

 

[TedT]

Hello.
It seems to me all religions are basically a human outlook at Love.
Why is Love required by God? Why so many actions of God in the Bible are clearly unloving and how you can reconcile that with the idea that God is Love?

The so called unloving actions of GOD are all punishments or judgements against evil.

To punish evil as a rehabilitative effect for those whose evil nature is temporary and not eternal is benign and loving: Heb 12:5-11. To judge evil with no rehabilitative intent but as a natural or legal cost of choosing evil is also loving to those who by such things learn of the eternal nature of the evil of some sinners so that when the time comes for the actual final judgment, they are ready to join with YHWH and accept the judgement as absolute necessity knowing that no matter what experience the eternally sinful have, they will never get free from their evil.

 

[James_Lai]

I would say not loving ... all lives are precious to God .... ultimate judgement is up to Him and only Him (thank you Jesus) .... true a lot of pain and suffering in this world caused by the acts of others .... but one day (I pray soon) that will change. I don't support capital punishment .... the worst of the worst can be removed from being a threat to society with life imprisonment, mental institutions etc. there are alternatives.

Yes there is a risk when some are released .... love is not without risk .... don't think love can exist without it .... God knew the risk ... but in order to have total freedom .... risk is involved. Love can not be forced else it's not love. Yes, love is very risky indeed ;o)

Whenever I don't understand .... I look at the life of Jesus and how He lived it ... He is our example in everything .... and with His help I am able to rest in that He will finish His work.

Philippians 1:6

English Standard Version
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

and I whole heartily believe this .... if I didn't I'd go in sane ;o)

I would invite all to embrace the surety of His promises .... He is faithful. May we all rest in Him. Amen. Thank you Jesus for all that you do.

I understand… But sometimes lesser evil is justified to avoid much greater one?

 

[aiki]

What I liked very much is that you mentioned that we are made in the image of God. I think a lot a lot about it. I’m not sure I accept it. Though it’s a very interesting idea. I’m not sure we’re different from or superior to animals or even plants or bacteria.

Really? Do you imagine bacteria contemplate the future, or appreciate a sunset, or compose music? Do you think cows philosophize and lions strive for justice and equality on the Savannah?

I think, in what way can we be an image of God? Do we share His consciousness, is our spirit-soul-body a manifestation of what He is in a smaller scale?

In our self-awareness, our capacity to anticipate future events, our moral sense, our creativity and imagination, our capacity to love, and our appreciation of beauty and truth. We possess eternal souls, as well, and the capacity for spiritual life. We diverge very sharply from God, though, and are, really, far more unlike Him than we are similar.

Is there only a spiritual overlap, likeness, or it goes beyond? Like in the garden of Eden, God was walking in the coolness of the day and actually had to look for the hiding Adam and Eve. Anthropomorphic?

Bible scholars think it was possibly the pre-incarnate Christ in Eden with A&E.

Is our God in the same way, very limited and has control over a small section of existence?

No, this does not fit with the biblical revelation of God or the conception of Him as the Greatest Possible Being held by Christian philosophers. There is only One God in three Persons, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, without beginning or end, utterly independent, immutable in His nature and character, the Ground of all reality. Were God not one of these things (and others unmentioned), He would not be God.

 

[James_Lai]

Really? Do you imagine bacteria contemplate the future, or appreciate a sunset, or compose music? Do you think cows philosophize and lions strive for justice and equality on the Savannah?



In our self-awareness, our capacity to anticipate future events, our moral sense, our creativity and imagination, our capacity to love, and our appreciation of beauty and truth. We possess eternal souls, as well, and the capacity for spiritual life. We diverge very sharply from God, though, and are, really, far more unlike Him than we are similar.



Bible scholars think it was possibly the pre-incarnate Christ in Eden with A&E.



No, this does not fit with the biblical revelation of God or the conception of Him as the Greatest Possible Being held by Christian philosophers. There is only One God in three Persons, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, without beginning or end, utterly independent, immutable in His nature and character, the Ground of all reality. Were God not one of these things (and others unmentioned), He would not be God.

Well, of course there’s difference between humans and what we consider lower forms of life, though there’s creatures like apes or dolphins or whales who are up there in cognition as well and possibly more evolved than us in some aspect of the spiritual realm, who knows… They have quite different brains, those ocean animals… Though some of the similar functions.

Higher cognitive functions - well, we don’t know what God values, maybe the collective consciousness of a bee or ant colony super-organism is what God truly delights in? We are not the greatest and latest in the dance of life. If anything, all life is a single organism, the biosphere, where each part plays its very important role. We are all one. What trees exhale, we inhale and vice versa. Or our intestine biota is crucial to our existence. So trees and bacteria are part of us.

Maybe all trees go to heaven and there teach our souls some elevated truths we could never come to understand in our physical bodies. Yes, like in the Avatar movie

The OT does mention the council of Gods, those passages some scholars believe to be atavisms of Western-Semitic polytheism with El the Father being the supreme God of the pantheon. Or maybe what God revealed in the Bible was only what He wanted people to understand at the time? As we evolve biologically and in knowledge, we could be ready for deeper understanding?

 

[James_Lai]

The so called unloving actions of GOD are all punishments or judgements against evil.

To punish evil as a rehabilitative effect for those whose evil nature is temporary and not eternal is benign and loving: Heb 12:5-11. To judge evil with no rehabilitative intent but as a natural or legal cost of choosing evil is also loving to those who by such things learn of the eternal nature of the evil of some sinners so that when the time comes for the actual final judgment, they are ready to join with YHWH and accept the judgement as absolute necessity knowing that no matter what experience the eternally sinful have, they will never get free from their evil.

The final judgement sounds too harsh. If we talk about a completely independent agent, then it could be acceptable. But as we’re taking about a creation that had no control of what and how they are, and inherited the sin tendency, then any kind of final judgement does not seem just to me.

 

[Mayflower1]

Unlike other religions, Christianity involves a relationship with God. So while other religions teach love, they do not teach a God who loves us and wants a relationship with us.

 

[Tolworth John]

Building of the Ark of a certain size barely enough for 8 people and pairs of select animals was clear demonstration of intent from get go. There was no attempt to save anyone except Noah and his folks…

Get real, measure out the dimensions of the ark in your neighbour hood.

A building period of a hundred years, the preaching of Noah, the miraculous arrival of animals were all a visible, public witness that judgement was coming.
If people do not respond to a warning it is there responsibility if that leads to their death.

 

[James_Lai]

Unlike other religions, Christianity involves a relationship with God. So while other religions teach love, they do not teach a God who loves us and wants a relationship with us.

Having studied and practiced different religions, I disagree. There’s a relationship aspect with the divine in each

 

[Mayflower1]

Having studied and practiced different religions, I disagree. There’s a relationship aspect with the divine in each

Any examples you can think of? I just notice many religions are work based/fear based, while Christianity is one based on grace/Father and child relationship.

 

[James_Lai]

Any examples you can think of? I just notice many religions are work based/fear based, while Christianity is one based on grace/Father and child relationship.

I heard this many times, but it’s an oversimplified and incorrect view. There’s fear in Christianity as well - “the beginning of wisdom”. When Jesus says do good works or else your soul will suffer in hell, He uses fear to make people chose faith. All Abrahamic religions are similar in that regard.

There’ s mercy and love and forgiveness and a relationship with a deity in any faith.

In Muslim sufism, love for God and God’s love towards man and their relationship is the central theme. Islam's God of love (Al-Wahud, the Most Loving) and the ummah as a loving community have long been obscured from the Western mind by Christian exertions of Jesus' God of love and Christians as a loving community. Islam, however, has a version of the loving God and a community of love that bears a striking parallel to Christian biblical teaching, despite obvious contextual and sociohistorical differences.

People can establish their own religion as superior in their minds, but it doesn’t serve justice to other religions.

 

[James_Lai]

Get real, measure out the dimensions of the ark in your neighbour hood.

A building period of a hundred years, the preaching of Noah, the miraculous arrival of animals were all a visible, public witness that judgement was coming.
If people do not respond to a warning it is there responsibility if that leads to their death.

I understand and already responded to this point.

 

[aiki]

Well, of course there’s difference between humans and what we consider lower forms of life, though there’s creatures like apes or dolphins or whales who are up there in cognition as well and possibly more evolved than us in some aspect of the spiritual realm, who knows… They have quite different brains, those ocean animals… Though some of the similar functions.

Nothing that is known of the animal kingdom and the behaviours of animals suggests they are more evolved in the aspects that I mentioned. Certainly, dolphins are far superior to us as ocean-dwelling creatures. And apes are much better suited to swinging through trees than you or I. But no lion will ever compose a sonnet; no eagle will study the periodic table; no Golden Retriever will philosophize on the meaning of life. Certainly, there is absolutely no indication that animals have any "spiritual" dimension to their lives or even can conceive of such a thing.

Higher cognitive functions - well, we don’t know what God values,

I don't believe this. I think the Bible, God's word, tells us quite comprehensively what God values. It is not up to us to guess, to put ourselves in God's place, essentially, and decide for ourselves what is and isn't of value.

maybe the collective consciousness of a bee or ant colony super-organism is what God truly delights in?

No, His word tells us He delights in holy people, living in the manner in which He created them to live which is in daily, loving fellowship with Himself.

We are not the greatest and latest in the dance of life. If anything, all life is a single organism, the biosphere, where each part plays its very important role. We are all one. What trees exhale, we inhale and vice versa. Or our intestine biota is crucial to our existence. So trees and bacteria are part of us.

There may be tenuous connections one may delineate between creatures God has made in the physical realm but in the spiritual, supernatural realm humans depart completely from the biosphere - a "sphere," the Bible says, God will one day utterly destroy and replace with "a new heavens and earth wherein righteousness dwells." (2 Peter 3:10-12)

Maybe all trees go to heaven and there teach our souls some elevated truths we could never come to understand in our physical bodies. Yes, like in the Avatar movie

This is not what the Bible tells us is the fate of our sin-cursed world. All the trees, rocks, rivers and fields of this world, all the deserts, mountains and seas will be gone, replaced with a better, pure version of what presently is. Trees have nothing to teach us about the things that really matter, though they serve very well as houses, furniture, telephone poles and toilet paper.

 

[TedT]

The final judgement sounds too harsh. If we talk about a completely independent agent, then it could be acceptable. But as we’re taking about a creation that had no control of what and how they are, and inherited the sin tendency, then any kind of final judgement does not seem just to me.

Well me too, but I do not accept the position that we did not have control over our fate or that we inherited sin so I accept the final judgement as based upon sin and choice and therefore is not only just but as loving to HIS Bride justice.

IF we were created as eternally self and other aware spirits and
IF we were all created with a free will and
IF there is an unforgivable sin, a sin that puts the person outside of all grace and
IF some of HIS creation chose to sin the unforgivable sin and
IF it is true that a little leaven / sin leavens / corrupts the whole lump / person / community, then
IF the only way to protect HIS Church and heavenly Family from the predations of these eternally evil people was to banish them from HIS heavenly reality,
THEN hell is an absolute necessity to keep the eternally evil ones from corrupting HIS heaven.

 

[James_Lai]

Nothing that is known of the animal kingdom and the behaviours of animals suggests they are more evolved in the aspects that I mentioned. Certainly, dolphins are far superior to us as ocean-dwelling creatures. And apes are much better suited to swinging through trees than you or I. But no lion will ever compose a sonnet; no eagle will study the periodic table; no Golden Retriever will philosophize on the meaning of life. Certainly, there is absolutely no indication that animals have any "spiritual" dimension to their lives or even can conceive of such a thing.



I don't believe this. I think the Bible, God's word, tells us quite comprehensively what God values. It is not up to us to guess, to put ourselves in God's place, essentially, and decide for ourselves what is and isn't of value.



No, His word tells us He delights in holy people, living in the manner in which He created them to live which is in daily, loving fellowship with Himself.



There may be tenuous connections one may delineate between creatures God has made in the physical realm but in the spiritual, supernatural realm humans depart completely from the biosphere - a "sphere," the Bible says, God will one day utterly destroy and replace with "a new heavens and earth wherein righteousness dwells." (2 Peter 3:10-12)



This is not what the Bible tells us is the fate of our sin-cursed world. All the trees, rocks, rivers and fields of this world, all the deserts, mountains and seas will be gone, replaced with a better, pure version of what presently is. Trees have nothing to teach us about the things that really matter, though they serve very well as houses, furniture, telephone poles and toilet paper.

I understand. Even in my purely atheist upbringing and education, we were taught that Homo Sapiens is the peak of evolution, or the crown of creation as they say in religion. And it may seem so on the surface. It might be true, I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel right to me. I don’t feel superior to my dog or to the pig that was slaughtered to provide pork at T&T meat freezers… That’s why I’m a vegan… I even thank plants when I’m consuming them for giving up their lives for continuation of my life…

Yes, we have the biggest brains for our body mass, and the most complex and capable one. A beauty… I’m not so sure, though, what God’s purpose is for this world and for life on earth… I think about it all the time…

I don’t completely buy the idea that we are the sole object of interest for God, and the rest of creation is nothing but our playground…

Animals in classical biology are a step down from us, but the latest zoological research has found that the gap isn’t as profound as we had thought. Self-awarenece, creativity, feelings, abstract thinking, even language… Our lesser brothers…

 

[Tolworth John]

I understand and already responded to this point.

No you continued to say that God was unfair in sending a global flood, that he didn't do enough to warn people.
Which is why I repeated just how visible a warning the building of the ark was.

 

[IWalkAlone]

We will all die. But God promises eternal life out of love.

 

[James_Lai]

We will all die. But God promises eternal life out of love.

to whom?

 

[com7fy8]

Why so many actions of God in the Bible are clearly unloving and how you can reconcile that with the idea that God is Love?

My opinion >

There are times when God controls things so a wrong person gets in trouble. But if God did not interfere, the person would have gotten himself or herself hurt much more plus the person could hurt others much more.

For us Jesus people, we trust that if bad things happen to us, with God we can use problems for good. Our special example of this is how Jesus was hated and tortured and murdered, on the cross, yet God keeps using this for so much good, even today many years since that happened.

And you might consider how there is the all-loving result of how God has been using the crucifixion of His own Son Jesus. Things did not turn out for good only for Jesus! And, like this, when God works with problems in our lives, He brings good for others and not only for our own selves.

So, if . . . when . . . God in control has an evil person get in trouble, this is somehow for the good of others and not only for that one evil person.

But the real problem, then, is if and how much each person can benefit from things we go through. If we are not obeying the LORD, we are leaving out God who is our number-one Resource for dealing with things. And without God a person does not have love with His creativity for making good use of any situation. And then is when someone can be suffering deeply because of not being in the strength of God's love.

Our own character, then, has a lot to do with how we can take things, and how well we can make good use of any problem or nicer thing.