Agnostic looking for answers

[bling]

Love, or unconditional love?

If you Love your child without your child having to do anything now or later it is unconditional, but if you love your child as the result of something he did or will do that is conditional, so which is it and what would be the more loving?

And yet, part of the resolution between the father and son required repentance. Sure, the father still loved the son but the relationship could not be fixed without repentance. In order to make things right (i.e. for either of them to experience genuine love) the son had to repent.

Tell me is this true each time every time all the time “… he that is forgiven much Loves much…”?
Of could you have to receive that forgiveness as “pure charity” and not as “payment for something you have or will do” to truly feel the Love? If it is pure charity is that not also unconditional and totally undeserving and not to be paid back?

The Godly type Love is not what drove the son to return, but he had personal selfish reasons (which is fine in his condition), but after accepting the charity of the father his Love would have skyrocketed especially Love for the Father, so what “fixed” the relationship?

Yes, I am presuming that an "apology" from a Christian is the same as a genuine desire to change. They say the sincerest apology is change, but sometimes it helps to express it verbally, too.

As an enemy of God, I did not “apologize” to begin with but I did quit fighting (surrendered). If you suggest a person “apologize to begin with” that sounds like he is doing something of value, as compared with just quitting and allowing God to do the rest.

But, it would still be God's right to make demands of that person. The person surrendering could not argue with God about how his love is supposed to be unconditional and so there should be no demands.

Genuine surrender does not argue or haggle with God about what his love is supposed to be or not supposed to be. If God tells a genuinely surrendered person to do something, that person should do it, right?

You are very right those in Acts 2:37 could have been told to at least take a beating and hag on a cross for a day. I do not have the Love that the Prodigal son’s father had, I might have beat that kid within an inch of his life.

Tell me was Christ doing what he was ordered or commanded to do while He was here on earth, or did Christ do what He wanted to do partnering with God, that was pleasing to the Father.

I think you have a real problem telling Christians “do what you really want to do” that your indwelling Holy Spirit can participate doing with you.

If they do anything without being motivated by Godly type Love would it have any value for anyone? (1 Cor 13: 1-4) If they have Godly type Love motivating them (compelling them like it did Paul) would they need any other motivation (like you have to do this because God commands it)?

We have way too many people that call themselves “Christians” doing stuff soly because they think they have to and it comes through that way. Does that show God’s fatherly Love or that these Christians really Love God with all their heart, soul mind and energy? Does this not work against God’s message to the nonbeliever?

We have our lives to give to him. Free will, remember? We can throw that all away if we want to, or we can willingly give it back to him.

Am I missing something here? God provides every heart beat and is in no way obligated to provide the next beat. We can only allow ourselves to be a slave/servant of satan or of God, if we do anything of “value” it was not us but us allowing God to work through us. We need to quit thinking about what we can do or bring to the table and just allow Him to do what he wants in our lives (God is really working with nothing when He is working with me, but can do wonders with nothing.)

We are only citizens of that kingdom insomuch as we practice the values of that kingdom.

Giving us “commands” does not mean Christ’s Love for us is conditional on our obeying those commands. Look again at the prodigal son parable (Luke 15) there were two sons, the older stayed home and seemed obedient and the younger was rebellious, so did the Father “Love” the Older son any more than the younger son?

This all goes back to the objective of man while here on earth and God’s help of man to fulfill that objective. Very similar to the Father’s objective with his two sons in the parable of the prodigal son, the making of his sons to be like He (the Father) is, not as a hard worker, but as a Lover.
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A bit of common sense is all that is needed to understand this point. Even a worldly example could be used. An employer expects results from his employees. If an employee is not doing his job, the employer has every right to fire that employee. The employee could argue "unconditional love" or some other such technicality, but blind freddy could see that an employee who is unwilling to follow the standards set by the boss has no place on the job.

Wow! Our relationship with God is so foreign to an employee/boss relationship it is hard to relate the two. It is much closer to a child/parent relationship, so when your child does not do what you say do you fire him? There are also lots of banquet parables, so what “works” are you to be doing at the party? There are parables about workers/servants and the master/ruler, but they are not “fired”. Even if you want to discuss the parables of the talents, first the master did not “tell” (order) them to do anything so there is no disobeying of an order, the servant with one talent did not have to “work” to be acceptable to the master, since all he needed to do is place the money in the hands of money changers and let them work it. (Matt. 25: 14-30)

Yes, a genuine desire to want to apply the values of the kingdom of heaven, without any rules, is the ideal. In that sense, the kingdom of Heaven is pure anarchy, where the individual is accountable to God alone and there is no need for others to judge that person, because that person judges him/herself.

And yet, obedience IS commanded in the gospels. It is VERY much expected by Jesus. In fact, he calls those who refuse to obey fools, and he says that it is BECAUSE of obedience that he is able to see who loves him and who does not.

I could site scripture for this, but do I really need to quote chapter and verse for this basic concept to be true? Is it wise to disobey Jesus? Is it an expression of real love to argue that we should not have to obey Jesus' commands?

Of course we should want to, but the law is for the lawless. Because Jesus asks us to confront some of the most uncomfortable truths in existence, he knows we will just naturally avoid such confrontations. He asks us to smash our pride, forsake our respectability. challenge our dependency on materialism, and just generally challenge every thing we cling to.

We humans just don't have the natural tendency to understand the reasoning behind such challenges, so we need rules (at least, at first). We obey the rules because the boss tells us to, but after experiencing the fruits of the rules, we come to understand the reasoning behind it, and we no longer need the rule, because we know WHY we do it.

So, when we talk about "conditions" on love, it's not really conditons, so much as learning to appreciate that love is far more complex that simple black and white statements. It involves discipline, sacrifice, and a genuine concern for others. Without these "conditions" being met, love is just not love.

I am not suggesting we do not have tons of “rules” and disobeying those “rules” is definitely sinning. But we are talking about God’s Love for His children and if His Love for us is conditional on our obedience to those “rules”?

Yes, our Love for God can be seen in our actions and non-actions to God’s “rules”, but that is not the same as God’s Love for us.

People do not go to hell because God lacks Love for them (it is in no way God’s fault). People go to hell because they continue to refuse God’s Love (in the form of forgiveness) for them. They just will not accept “Charity” and that is what God’s Love is given as (since it is completely undeserved and unconditional). People in hell do not want unconditional Love (they do like conditional type love), so they would not be happy in heaven where there is one huge “Love Feast” of unconditional type Love.

If you teach people that Godly type Love is conditional, how will they ever learn to have unconditional type Love for others? You are to Love those that hate you and want to harm you and your family (your enemies)? Could you have Loved Saul before he became Paul in the first century after he had tortured and murdered your friends and family? God did and that is the Love we can have.

Instead of trying to get people to do good stuff by suggesting God does not “love” them as much if they do not do good stuff, have even the new Christian take what little “Love” and “faith” he has and use it doing something simple, but for the right reason and the right motivation. It is amazing how fast their Love and Faith can grow. My experience has not shown difficulty getting the “new” Christian do stuff solely out of appreciation, but I have had problems getting “mature” Christians to do stuff without asking what results will we get?

 

[GwG]

I recently became engaged to a non-denominational christian women. She wants me to try to convert for her but I have too many questions about her beliefs for me to make any kind of commitment to a religion. I was hoping to find some answers from elsewhere. I really am not trying to start a debate or bash religion, to each their own.

Why does god need love and worship? It just seems to me that an all powerful entity would be above the need for these things.

How can so many people across the world, with very different beliefs, be so certain that god loves them? Furthermore, if an individual is never exposed to christianity due to the time of their birth or geography are they doomed to hell?

Why does he punish if he loves us all? Why is being a good person apart from religion not enough?

I have more but I don't want to overwhelm the post. I appreciate your time.

I am in a similar situation, not really a christian. However, I do know the bible pretty well. From my understanding your leaning towards the fear of god, thats not good. I believed once through fear and have never felt his presence. I would suggest reading the bible regularly. Even if you dont end up converting I promise you will gain a better grasp on morality. It really is beyond its time. For me what is the most shocking is that, similarly to what you said, we have free will. The simularity lies in that because we have free will we have the weight of sin on our backs unless we find a way to deflect them. I cannot tell you what your sin is, for me I would have to say it would be drugs. For you it could be cat smuggling, I have no idea but the object is to push your own limits. As for the damned to hell thing, if that is how god truley is I will go to hell with a smile on my face. I believe the "untouchable throne" is a perfect method of ruling, a divine ruler so to speak. However, I think he should make himself known to all, I have not found one person to convince me of his existence. Apparantly not even the word of god could re-route me from my doubt (bible). Have faith man, I am sure your wife will appreciate you legitimately studying her beliefs at the least.

 

[candle glow]

If you Love your child without your child having to do anything now or later it is unconditional, but if you love your child as the result of something he did or will do that is conditional, so which is it and what would be the more loving?

lets say word gets around that you love your children unconditionally. Suddenly people start dropping their kids off with you for babysitting or whatever at all hours of the day, whenever they may happen to have need.

What will you say? If you try to protest or politely decline, they may say, "hey, you love kids unconditionally, don't you? What's wrong"?

Of course, your response would be, "I love MY kid unconditionally". The first condition to your love is that the kid must be your kid. So, the analogy doesn't work as well as you think it does.

Of could you have to receive that forgiveness as “pure charity” and not as “payment for something you have or will do” to truly feel the Love? If it is pure charity is that not also unconditional and totally undeserving and not to be paid back?

I never said anything about payment; you did. What I said is true all the time. If you refuse to say "sorry" for your wrongs, then you are missing out on what it means to love others, as well as others missing out on the love they want to experience as a result of their relationship with you.

Saying sorry isn't "payment" in order to experience love; it's just a part of what makes up love.

If you suggest a person “apologize to begin with” that sounds like he is doing something of value, as compared with just quitting and allowing God to do the rest.

Apologizing IS of value. When you say "just quitting" what do you mean? Like, quit fighting against God? Quit sinning? Are you saying that apologizing "sounds like something of value" whereas quitting these other wrong things is "not of value"? You say "as compared with" which is indicating a distinction between the two, so what is the distinction? It really makes no sense to me.

If they have Godly type Love motivating them (compelling them like it did Paul) would they need any other motivation (like you have to do this because God commands it)

And yet, the reality is that God DID command people to do stuff, and it was HIS followers he was commanding. I think it's you who owes ME the explanation, if you are saying obedience to God's commands represents a lack of Godly type love.

Giving us “commands” does not mean Christ’s Love for us is conditional on our obeying those commands.

I think it becomes spiritually unhealthy when a discussion becomes exclusively about God's love for us and totally ignores our obligation to show love towards God. Jesus himself said if we love him we will obey him and if we obey him it shows that we love him.

How about that condition?

Wow! Our relationship with God is so foreign to an employee/boss relationship it is hard to relate the two.

Actually, no it's not. In matthew 6:24 Jesus talked about two masters. He said God is one master and the other master is mammon (money and the things money can buy). He said we cannot serve both masters without cheating on one or the other. He went on to explain that our new job is to work for God's kingdom of love and that we should not allow worry about what our worldly masters can provide for us materially, because God knows what we need and as our boss he will provide those things for us IF we work for him.

They just will not accept “Charity” and that is what God’s Love

Can you explain what one does to "accept" this charity?

Instead of trying to get people to do good stuff by suggesting God does not “love” them as much if they do not do good stuff,

Actually, I never said this; you did. What I said is that it is irresponsible to reach people that they don't need to do anything to experience or give love.

 

[bling]

lets say word gets around that you love your children unconditionally. Suddenly people start dropping their kids off with you for babysitting or whatever at all hours of the day, whenever they may happen to have need.

What will you say? If you try to protest or politely decline, they may say, "hey, you love kids unconditionally, don't you? What's wrong"?

Of course, your response would be, "I love MY kid unconditionally". The first condition to your love is that the kid must be your kid. So, the analogy doesn't work as well as you think it does.

No, that is not my responce.

You can Love all children “unconditionally” which does not mean “foolishly”. You want the best care to be given to all children which does not mean; “you’re personal caring of all children”. If a parent comes to you to care for their child, you need to cease that opportunity to look to help that parent, since they would be in the best position to care for their own child. It is thought that the rapid growth of the first and second century church was the result of the Christians caring for the unwanted (street children at the time). They also where the only ones; to care for those sick during the plagues.

I never said anything about payment; you did. What I said is true all the time. If you refuse to say "sorry" for your wrongs, then you are missing out on what it means to love others, as well as others missing out on the love they want to experience as a result of their relationship with you.

Saying sorry isn't "payment" in order to experience love; it's just a part of what makes up love.

I am suggesting that the expression of sorrow can come after the acceptance of forgiveness and is not a requirement God puts on His forgiveness.

Apologizing IS of value. When you say "just quitting" what do you mean? Like, quit fighting against God? Quit sinning? Are you saying that apologizing "sounds like something of value" whereas quitting these other wrong things is "not of value"? You say "as compared with" which is indicating a distinction between the two, so what is the distinction? It really makes no sense to me.

This is the way I see us coming to God willing to accept His charity. If we “do” something for God, then in some way we deserve something from God.

And yet, the reality is that God DID command people to do stuff, and it was HIS followers he was commanding. I think it's you who owes ME the explanation, if you are saying obedience to God's commands represents a lack of Godly type love.

I am saying “obedience to God’s commands” without being motivated by Godly type Love (1 Cor. 13: 1-4) is of no value, sets a bad example for others, and can hurt you in the future.
What happens if a Christian does not obey these commands? Does God not Love him? Does God take away his inheritance?

I think it becomes spiritually unhealthy when a discussion becomes exclusively about God's love for us and totally ignores our obligation to show love towards God. Jesus himself said if we love him we will obey him and if we obey him it shows that we love him.

How about that condition?

How can a true Christian not Love God: “…he that is forgiven much Loves much…”?

If you are not obeying you are not Loving God (very true!), but can you obey without Love and will obedience produce Love?

Actually, no it's not. In matthew 6:24 Jesus talked about two masters. He said God is one master and the other master is mammon (money and the things money can buy). He said we cannot serve both masters without cheating on one or the other. He went on to explain that our new job is to work for God's kingdom of love and that we should not allow worry about what our worldly masters can provide for us materially, because God knows what we need and as our boss he will provide those things for us IF we work for him.

We are going to be a slave/servant of God or a slave/servant of satan and those are the only two choices we have. A person can express the idea they do not want to be a servant/slave of God, by doing nothing (that is really expressing a lack of gratitude that has been shown toward them, so was anything done for them).

Can you explain what one does to "accept" this charity?

The charity I talk about is found in the form of unconditional forgiveness that one just has to humbly accept as a free undeserving gift. That is mercy/grace/Love/charity/forgiveness. Then the Love comes automatically because: “…he that is forgiven much Loves much…”

The reason I have seen people do not “Love much” is because they think they can and do pay some back since they feel God’s Love is conditional. Or they think in some way they deserve to be Loved by God since they are part of the chosen (elect) people that God will Love so they do not have to swallow their pride to humbly accept anything since it has already been given to them.

Actually, I never said this; you did. What I said is that it is irresponsible to reach people that they don't need to do anything to experience or give love.

They have to humbly accept God’s charity, but that is not “doing something” of worth.

 

[candle glow]

If a parent comes to you to care for their child, you need to cease that opportunity to look to help that parent, since they would be in the best position to care for their own child.

Deny an opportunity to help a fellow parent who is trying to cash in on your claims of unconditional love, in order to help that parent be more responsible for their own kids?

That sounds an awful lot like a condition being put on what it means to show responsible love. If you really loved unconditionally, you wouldn't put conditions on your willingness to help.

I am suggesting that the expression of sorrow can come after the acceptance of forgiveness and is not a requirement God puts on His forgiveness.

Whether the sorrow (or remorese or responsibility or owning up etc...) comes before or after is irrelevant in this context. It MUST be there in order for the love to be genuine. It IS a condition that must be satisfied or the love is not really love at all, but just a convenient excuse for people to not say sorry.

What happens if a Christian does not obey these commands? Does God not Love him? Does God take away his inheritance?

Why would a Christian not at least try to obey Jesus? See, you appear to be looking for all the loopholes which would justify someone ignoring the disciplines of Jesus. That's what "unconditional love" amounts to. The teachings of Jesus are commands, expectations, standards, and disciplines. Those teachings ARE the values of the kingdom of Heaven. The REASON Jesus expects us to obey his teachings is because they are expressions of God's love. Without applying those teachings, you don't have real love.

They are only listed as commands in the first place because we humans are so stubborn and difficult when it comes to disciplining ourselves. At least at the start, we need to be told what to do, much like children need to be told. But that should only be the case until we've practicied and experienced the teachings enough to understand the reason behind the teachings, at which point they cease to be commands, and become a genuine way of life.

So, it's not about paying God back at all, but about a willingness to allow God to tell us what to do.

Unconditional love is a convenient way to side step that kind of broken and contrite spirit. Instead of doing what Jesus told us to do just because he told us to do it, people invent these nice sounding doctrines like "unconditional love". It sounds so appealing. Love, with no conditions; awwww I feel warm and fuzzy.

But real love doesn't haggle with God or twist simple child-like obedience to his teachngs into some kind of weird payment scheme by unscrupulous Christians who think they can buy their way into Heaven.

Unconditional love turns obedience into a dirty word by suggesting that such obedience is noting more than a selfish attempt to "buy" heaven.

Unconditional love is a haggle with God. If he ever asks us to do something uncomfortable, we can always tell ourselves that his love is unconditional so we don't really need to obey him.

We are going to be a slave/servant of God or a slave/servant of satan and those are the only two choices we have.

Interesting. I think this is a fruit of the "unconditional love" showing itself right here and now.

I suggested that "unconditional love" arose as a convenient doctrine to make it a bit easier to ignore the disciplines of Jesus; those teachings which ask us to confront our fears, smash our pride, challenge our relationships to friends/family, and just generally get out of our comfort zones.

Now consider the example I gave about an employee/employer relationship (which I mentioned because you said such a relationship does not exist).

I gave a Bible verse to illustrate how such a relationship DOES exist. The verse was from Matthew 6:24.

I paraphrased the verse, but was very specific about who the two masters were, listed in the actual verse. I said God was one, and the other something else quite specific.

But in your response, you made a very significant change to what the verse actually says. Can you spot it? You said we will be a slave/servant to God or to Satan. Is that what the verse says?

No, it definitely does not. Can you rephrase your version to be consistent with what the verse does actually say? There is a very good reason why Jesus said it the way he said it, and the change you made is very significant. The question is, why did you change it?

I believe it is because, as the verse is actually written, represents a very in-your-face challenge to one of our deepest fears. It cuts right to the heart of the root of all evil.

It represents an extreme "uncomfortable place" for us and as a result it gets changed into something that sounds good (i.e. one master is God and the other is Satan) but still avoids the real issue.

What better time to bring in a doctrine of "unconditional love" than in a situation where we are forced to deal with a very "uncomfortable place"? Can you see the connection?

Rather than deal with the challenge, we stare off into space, our eyes glaze over, and we mumble to ourselves about how wonderful it is that God loves us unconditionally.

The charity I talk about is found in the form of unconditional forgiveness that one just has to humbly accept as a free undeserving gift.

I believe there is a blind spot here stopping you from seeing a contradiction in what you are saying.

You talk about unconditional forgiveness in the same breath that you say it must be "accepted". Is it unconditional or not? If one must "accept" it then acceptance is the condition. You even attach a sub-condition that one must accept "humbly".

The blind spot is this contradiction. It is a significant fracture in your theory that will not go away no matter how beautiful a picture you paint of how unconditional God's love is supposed to be.

All the evidence so far points to unconditional love more realistically being unconditional convenience.

Or they think in some way they deserve to be Loved by God since they are part of the chosen (elect) people that God will Love so they do not have to swallow their pride to humbly accept anything since it has already been given to them.

it is convenient to talk about all the bad attitudes SOME people may have towards obedience.

it's like pointing out all the car crashes which happen every year and trying to make a case for why people should not drive anymore, ever.

Rather than telling these people with bad attitudes about obedience that they don't even need to obey in the first place, why not teach them to have good attitudes about obedience?

Well, because if you did that then you'd no longer have negative examples to support your unconditional love argument.

 

[bling]

Deny an opportunity to help a fellow parent who is trying to cash in on your claims of unconditional love, in order to help that parent be more responsible for their own kids?

That sounds an awful lot like a condition being put on what it means to show responsible love. If you really loved unconditionally, you wouldn't put conditions on your willingness to help.

I did not put a “condition” on my willingness to help, but did suggest that the “best” way to help might not be your personal babysitting of the child. It sound to me that the parent had a problem and would be the harder one to “Love” unconditionally in this situation, so you need to Love them and help them.

Let me ask you a related question: What “conditions” do you or could you place on your enemy before Loving your enemy?

Whether the sorrow (or remorese or responsibility or owning up etc...) comes before or after is irrelevant in this context. It MUST be there in order for the love to be genuine. It IS a condition that must be satisfied or the love is not really love at all, but just a convenient excuse for people to not say sorry.

[FONT='Calibri','sans-serif']We are talking about two individuals here: One is God that is always unconditionally Loving humans and the other is an individual that may or may not have Godly type Love. If the individual does not have Godly type love they will not Love even God back unconditionally, also the one that does not have Godly type Love has not accepted God’s forgiveness “…he that is forgiven much will Love much…” and they really have no reason to love God, since they are hell bound. [/FONT]

Why would a Christian not at least try to obey Jesus? See, you appear to be looking for all the loopholes which would justify someone ignoring the disciplines of Jesus. That's what "unconditional love" amounts to. The teachings of Jesus are commands, expectations, standards, and disciplines. Those teachings ARE the values of the kingdom of Heaven. The REASON Jesus expects us to obey his teachings is because they are expressions of God's love. Without applying those teachings, you don't have real love.

They are only listed as commands in the first place because we humans are so stubborn and difficult when it comes to disciplining ourselves. At least at the start, we need to be told what to do, much like children need to be told. But that should only be the case until we've practicied and experienced the teachings enough to understand the reason behind the teachings, at which point they cease to be commands, and become a genuine way of life.

So, it's not about paying God back at all, but about a willingness to allow God to tell us what to do.

Unconditional love is a convenient way to side step that kind of broken and contrite spirit. Instead of doing what Jesus told us to do just because he told us to do it, people invent these nice sounding doctrines like "unconditional love". It sounds so appealing. Love, with no conditions; awwww I feel warm and fuzzy.

But real love doesn't haggle with God or twist simple child-like obedience to his teachngs into some kind of weird payment scheme by unscrupulous Christians who think they can buy their way into Heaven.

Unconditional love turns obedience into a dirty word by suggesting that such obedience is noting more than a selfish attempt to "buy" heaven.

Unconditional love is a haggle with God. If he ever asks us to do something uncomfortable, we can always tell ourselves that his love is unconditional so we don't really need to obey him.

The question is does God not Love us if we do not obey these commands?

With the Unconditional Love God has for us, why do we need to obey His commands?

You said: “Why would a Christian not at least try to obey Jesus?” If that Christian has Love will he not obey?

Is the “least a Christian can do” is try to obey?

Why are we ever looking to see what the “least we can do” instead of wanting to know what all we can do with the Spirit’s help?

Do you find new Christians coming up out of the waters of baptism asking: “what’s the least I can get by with doing?” Or do you here that from older members? Are the “older members” squelching the new members from becoming all they could become?

Interesting. I think this is a fruit of the "unconditional love" showing itself right here and now.

I suggested that "unconditional love" arose as a convenient doctrine to make it a bit easier to ignore the disciplines of Jesus; those teachings which ask us to confront our fears, smash our pride, challenge our relationships to friends/family, and just generally get out of our comfort zones.

Now consider the example I gave about an employee/employer relationship (which I mentioned because you said such a relationship does not exist).

I gave a Bible verse to illustrate how such a relationship DOES exist. The verse was from Matthew 6:24.

I paraphrased the verse, but was very specific about who the two masters were, listed in the actual verse. I said God was one, and the other something else quite specific.

But in your response, you made a very significant change to what the verse actually says. Can you spot it? You said we will be a slave/servant to God or to Satan. Is that what the verse says?

No, it definitely does not. Can you rephrase your version to be consistent with what the verse does actually say? There is a very good reason why Jesus said it the way he said it, and the change you made is very significant. The question is, why did you change it?

I believe it is because, as the verse is actually written, represents a very in-your-face challenge to one of our deepest fears. It cuts right to the heart of the root of all evil.

It represents an extreme "uncomfortable place" for us and as a result it gets changed into something that sounds good (i.e. one master is God and the other is Satan) but still avoids the real issue.

What better time to bring in a doctrine of "unconditional love" than in a situation where we are forced to deal with a very "uncomfortable place"? Can you see the connection?

Rather than deal with the challenge, we stare off into space, our eyes glaze over, and we mumble to ourselves about how wonderful it is that God loves us unconditionally.



I believe there is a blind spot here stopping you from seeing a contradiction in what you are saying.

You talk about unconditional forgiveness in the same breath that you say it must be "accepted". Is it unconditional or not? If one must "accept" it then acceptance is the condition. You even attach a sub-condition that one must accept "humbly".

The blind spot is this contradiction. It is a significant fracture in your theory that will not go away no matter how beautiful a picture you paint of how unconditional God's love is supposed to be.

All the evidence so far points to unconditional love more realistically being unconditional convenience.



it is convenient to talk about all the bad attitudes SOME people may have towards obedience.

it's like pointing out all the car crashes which happen every year and trying to make a case for why people should not drive anymore, ever.

Rather than telling these people with bad attitudes about obedience that they don't even need to obey in the first place, why not teach them to have good attitudes about obedience?

Well, because if you did that then you'd no longer have negative examples to support your unconditional love argument.

I cannot follow you through some of this:

Just because we have to accept God’s Unconditional Love in order to have God’s Love does not mean God is not Loving us. The father in the story of the prodigal son was Loving the son all the time the son was gone, but that does not mean the son had the Father’s unconditional Love.

The “condition” of the prodigal son’s willingness to accept the Father’s Love is not a condition that the Father set before He would “Love the son” (the father Loves the son because that is who the Father is), it is a condition by which Godly type Love can be received. Godly type Love is not instinctively programmed into people and God cannot force His Love on you to accept it (that would be like a shotgun wedding with God holding the shotgun). So the only easy way to get this Love (and God is making it as easy as possible) is to humbly accept it as pure charity (because that is what it is) in the form of accepting God’s forgiveness so you will automatically Love much.


Does Paul or Christ ever say or suggest to a believer: “Obey this or God will not Love you?”

 

[candle glow]

I did not put a “condition” on my willingness to help, but did suggest that the “best” way to help

I believe this is your blind spot operating again. The "best" way is a condition on what it means to give help. Unconditionally, you give the help you are asked for. Telling the person who is asking, that you will only help in the best way is putting a condition on your help.

Let me ask you a related question: What “conditions” do you or could you place on your enemy before Loving your enemy?

According to your theory, we don't need to love our enemies at all. If you (or anyone reading this) feel I've misrepresented you here, I'll explain that I've really not done so now.

With the Unconditional Love God has for us, why do we need to obey His commands?

This is the heart of what I've been getting at, and I'm surprised you've stated it here so honestly and clearly.

Obey Jesus? Yes, why indeed. Why should we do anything he tells us to, when all that really matter is the love God owes us.

In other words, you've pitted God's love against obedience to Jesus. On one side, you've got a God who loves you, and on the other side, you've got nasty old Jesus telling you that you must work to earn the love that God already owes you anyway (because it's unconditional).

But, of course, that's not what Jesus said about love or his commands at all. Jesus' commands are an expression of God's love. You can't say that you are interested in God's love at the same time you question our need to express his love to others.

Without obedience to Jesus, all talk of love is a counterfeit convenient doctrine. Jesus himself said "why do you call me lord, but do not obey me"? He said if his words abide in us, then we will know the truth and the truth will set us free. He said anyone who is ashamed of him and his teachings, he will be ashamed of them. He said people will show their love for him by their obedience to his teachings, and those who obey him show their love. He said the world will know we are his followers BECAUSE of our love for one another. If we never show our love, they won't know we are Christians.

He said God will not forgive us if we refuse to forgive others. He said if a brother offends us, we should talk to him privately. If that does not work, bring in two or more witnesses. If that does not work, tell the whole church and if that does not work, then kick the offending brother out of the church.

The beatitudes all contain conditions for what it takes to be right with God. Jesus said that only the overcomers will endure to the end.

All of these are conditions indicating what it takes to show and experience Genuine love.

I find it quite amazing that you can honestly question whether or not we need to obey God, and whether or not obedience is an indicator of love.

It's just common sense that if you love God/others, you will show it, and if you don't show it, then you don't really love them. Showing love is a condition of what it means to have love.

The question is does God not Love us if we do not obey these commands?

It is "a" question, though it is convenient for you to call it "the" question, because it implies that there is no responsibility on our part to either show, or even receive, God's love. This is the convenience of unconditional love. It ignores everything except what we feel God owes us.

Is the “least a Christian can do” is try to obey

You've definitely misrepresented me in a fairly shocking way.

I said "at least try", not "the least we can do". They have VERY different meanings.

One can try extremely hard, to the point of exhaustion, and still fall short. That's where God's love, mercy, and grace come in.

This is very different from one who schemes to do as little as possible.

Perhaps this can be a nice test case. I'm offended at the implication generated by your misrepresentation. Will your unconditional love convince you that you don't need to do anything about that, or will you see the common sense in dealing with the issue as an expression of love?

I cannot follow you through some of this:

I think it is significant that you've ignored an important point challinging your argument with a glib one liner about how you can't understand, and then proceed to repeat your same general argument over again.

You misquoted a sample verse I quoted from Jesus. The misquote was VERY significant.

I asked you to look at what you said, and to look at the verse in question to see if you could spot the discrepency between your version, and what Jesus actually said.

I suggested this discrepency was no accident or misunderstanding, and that it is a part of your blind spot in general, as well as one of the reasons for why you feel so strongly that acting on Jesus' teachings about love are not only optional, but even a bit counterproductive to experience the "real unconditional love" of God.

Can you try again? I think I've explained it quite clearly here. What was the discrepancy?

 

[bling]

I believe this is your blind spot operating again. The "best" way is a condition on what it means to give help. Unconditionally, you give the help you are asked for. Telling the person who is asking, that you will only help in the best way is putting a condition on your help.

“The “best” way is a condition”? That is always what you are striving to do? What “condition” has to be met and by whom?

According to your theory, we don't need to love our enemies at all. If you (or anyone reading this) feel I've misrepresented you here, I'll explain that I've really not done so now.

I did not ask “What more do you get from God by Loving your enemies?” And the question was to you, for I was not asking about myself.

Like any command we can “disobey them” without God Loving us any less, but It does not help us to grow Love and give value to Godly type Love. We can grow rapidly, but if we are not growing we are withering. We can wither to the point we no longer place value on Godly type Love or even like it, so since heaven is one huge Love feast of Godly type Love we cease to desire that. If we go that far we can give our inheritance (heaven) away for little or nothing (give up). That would not make God happy, because He loves us so much.

So, yes we do “need” to Love our enemies, but not to get something more from God. We need to Love our enemies, so we will grow the faith (trust in God) & Love and not start withering.

This is the heart of what I've been getting at, and I'm surprised you've stated it here so honestly and clearly.

Obey Jesus? Yes, why indeed. Why should we do anything he tells us to, when all that really matter is the love God owes us.

In other words, you've pitted God's love against obedience to Jesus. On one side, you've got a God who loves you, and on the other side, you've got nasty old Jesus telling you that you must work to earn the love that God already owes you anyway (because it's unconditional).

But, of course, that's not what Jesus said about love or his commands at all. Jesus' commands are an expression of God's love. You can't say that you are interested in God's love at the same time you question our need to express his love to others.

Without obedience to Jesus, all talk of love is a counterfeit convenient doctrine. Jesus himself said "why do you call me lord, but do not obey me"? He said if his words abide in us, then we will know the truth and the truth will set us free. He said anyone who is ashamed of him and his teachings, he will be ashamed of them. He said people will show their love for him by their obedience to his teachings, and those who obey him show their love. He said the world will know we are his followers BECAUSE of our love for one another. If we never show our love, they won't know we are Christians.

He said God will not forgive us if we refuse to forgive others. He said if a brother offends us, we should talk to him privately. If that does not work, bring in two or more witnesses. If that does not work, tell the whole church and if that does not work, then kick the offending brother out of the church.

The beatitudes all contain conditions for what it takes to be right with God. Jesus said that only the overcomers will endure to the end.

All of these are conditions indicating what it takes to show and experience Genuine love.

I find it quite amazing that you can honestly question whether or not we need to obey God, and whether or not obedience is an indicator of love.

It's just common sense that if you love God/others, you will show it, and if you don't show it, then you don't really love them. Showing love is a condition of what it means to have love.

It is "a" question, though it is convenient for you to call it "the" question, because it implies that there is no responsibility on our part to either show, or even receive, God's love. This is the convenience of unconditional love. It ignores everything except what we feel God owes us.

Where do you get the idea God owes us anything? God’s Love for us is pure charity and not paying some debt back. Where did I ever suggest God owes us anything?

Again, you are confusing God’s unconditional Love for us with our unconditional Love for Him and others?

Please lets start with some agreement:

Is God’s Love for us conditional or unconditional?

If God’s Love is conditional what is the condition?

If we follow God’s example of conditional love, what conditions can we place on our enemies before loving them?

You've definitely misrepresented me in a fairly shocking way.

I said "at least try", not "the least we can do". They have VERY different meanings.

One can try extremely hard, to the point of exhaustion, and still fall short. That's where God's love, mercy, and grace come in.

This is very different from one who schemes to do as little as possible.

Perhaps this can be a nice test case. I'm offended at the implication generated by your misrepresentation. Will your unconditional love convince you that you don't need to do anything about that, or will you see the common sense in dealing with the issue as an expression of love?

“At least try” seems to be the least and all we can do at the same time, is that what you are saying?

Can you find scripture to back up “at least try”?

All I see is what we can do with the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. The “least we can do” is the most we can do in that we just allow the Holy Spirit to do it through us (we are not doing “anything” of merit). We do not go as far as we can and then ask for God’s help (Charity/grace/mercy/Love/forgiveness), but engage the Holy Spirit immediately and always, because He does not fail.

I think it is significant that you've ignored an important point challinging your argument with a glib one liner about how you can't understand, and then proceed to repeat your same general argument over again.

You misquoted a sample verse I quoted from Jesus. The misquote was VERY significant.

I asked you to look at what you said, and to look at the verse in question to see if you could spot the discrepency between your version, and what Jesus actually said.

I suggested this discrepency was no accident or misunderstanding, and that it is a part of your blind spot in general, as well as one of the reasons for why you feel so strongly that acting on Jesus' teachings about love are not only optional, but even a bit counterproductive to experience the "real unconditional love" of God.

Can you try again? I think I've explained it quite clearly here. What was the discrepancy?

I was not quoting you or Jesus when I said we either follow Christ or satan, that is a general concept:

1 Tim 5:15 Some have in fact already turned away to follow Satan.

Rev. 12: 9 The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray.

1 John 3: 8 The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.
</SPAN>
I really did not see that concept as unique or something controversial or you would not agree with.

I see us following “beings” and not inanimate objects like money. I see money as being somewhat of a modifier for satan.

Are you saying those that allow money to be their master are not also allowing satan to be their master?

I kept your quote intake and responded to it.

I am just not seeing your argument for: God’s Love being conditional.

If we are asked to Love our enemies unconditionally, than we would expect God’s Love to be even greater?

Just because we say God’s Love is unconditional does not mean we cannot refuse His Love for us, God is not going to force His Love on us.

We initially Love like God, as the result of accepting God’s Love in the form of forgiveness so “…he that is forgiven much Loves much…”?

 

[candle glow]

“The “best” way is a condition”? That is always what you are striving to do? What “condition” has to be met and by whom?

It is if you attach an "if" to it. See, that's what the word "if" means; it indicates a condition which must be met before the statement can be true (or false according to the context).

A parent comes to you asking for help. You can decide to help the parent in the way you were asked to help, or you can decide to help in a different way. The decision will be based on conditions regarding the context and circumstances of the situation. IF the parent is asking for something unreasonable, you will decide such and such. IF the parent is reasonable, you will decide such and such.

However, unconditional love will not consider reason, because reason imposes conditions whereas UNconditional love just pours out in all directions continuously without any condition to guide this way or that.

If you truly believed in unconditional love, there would be no reason for you not to help any parent who comes to you with any request.

I did not ask “What more do you get from God by Loving your enemies?”

Is this a statement or a question? Since I neither stated nor asked about this either, I'm confused as to why you are saying it.

But the irony is that "what you can get from God" is exactly what the doctrine of unconditional love is all about. God OWES you love, because it's unconditional. If there is ever a time when God makes some kind of demand from you, you will ignore it or dismiss it with lots of flowery speech about how obedience to God is actually BAD, because it amounts to nothing more than us trying to "pay God back" with our good works. It's quite a disgusting doctrine in that sense, really. You've called evil good (i.e. we don't need to obey) and good evil ( obedience is payment).

Like any command we can “disobey them” without God Loving us any less, but It does not help us to grow Love and give value to Godly type Love.

But what you are saying isn't that we, as humans, will sometimes get it wrong no matter how hard we try. Your doctrine suggests that it doesn't matter if we don't even try to obey, because there are no conditions on love. We could spend our whole lives ignoring the commands of Jesus and still be right with God, because his love doesn't have any nasty little conditions like "obedience". (ewww yucky obedience)

So, yes we do “need” to Love our enemies,

Why do you put "need" in quotes? I can't see any reason for it. Do we need to love our enemies or not?

Perhaps it's an example of your mouth trying to say the right thing, but your heart still being far away?

Where do you get the idea God owes us anything? God’s Love for us is pure charity and not paying some debt back. Where did I ever suggest God owes us anything?

It is implied in the unconditional love theory. God gave us commands and standards to follow and he has expectations for us. But unconditional love says those are all conditions on God's love an therefore irrelevant.

But Jesus compared our relationship with God to that of master and servant. The master commands the servant and the servant obeys. If the servant disobeys, the master has the right to fire the servant, BECAUSE the servant is not doing as he is told.

But, if the servant refused to leave the servant's quarters and instead lazed around all day, even after being fired, wouldn't he be presuming that he is owed his room and board?

Otherwise he would leave. It's like that with unconditional love. Christians ignore Jesus' teachings on the basis that such obedience amounts to "payment", so they never do what Jesus told us to do. However, they still talk about salvation, entry into God's kingdom, etc... as though there is no way God would ever refuse them such things for their disobedience, because his love is unconditional.

They know they should not say "God owes us", but that is the spirit behind the teaching.

“At least try” seems to be the least and all we can do at the same time, is that what you are saying?

Can you find scripture to back up “at least try”?

I didn't expect you to be so dishonest about this, bling. I think you know the difference between "at least try" (which is what I said) and "do the least you can" (which is how you misrepresented me).

Again, I believe this is because of your blind spot. You are squirming with all this nonsense about "try" and "least".

Ironically, it is YOU who is arguing that we can and should "do the least", on the basis that effort to obey Jesus is "payback" and therefore wrong.

I was not quoting you or Jesus when I said we either follow Christ or satan, that is a general concept:

Once again, I am shocked at your dishonesty. Here is how the events unfolded:

You said there is no employer/employee relationship between us and God. I said there very much is and Jesus himself used those same terms re employment.

Here is a comment from me, which you quote as part of your response to this comment.

[candle]Actually, no it's not. In matthew 6:24 Jesus talked about two masters. He said God is one master and the other master is mammon (money and the things money can buy). He said we cannot serve both masters without cheating on one or the other. He went on to explain that our new job is to work for God's kingdom of love and that we should not allow worry about what our worldly masters can provide for us materially, because God knows what we need and as our boss he will provide those things for us IF we work for him.
​

[bling's response]We are going to be a slave/servant of God or a slave/servant of satan and those are the only two choices we have.

Notice that you are QUOTING me here. You are very clearly responding to my comments from Matthew 6:24 about who we serve when you say we will be slaves/servants to God or satan.

So, why did you change the verse to say something different to what Jesus said? Can anyone else (who may be reading) spot the difference?

Then, you quote some Bible verses about Satan to try to convince me that you really are sincere in what you said about God/Satan, but the most surprising thing is that you then say this:

Are you saying those that allow money to be their master are not also allowing satan to be their master?

OF COURSE you knew what I was talking about all along, so why did you pretend not to? You changed one of the masters from mammon (money and the things money can buy) to Satan. When I questioned you on it the first time, you pretended not to understand.

When I questioned you about it the second time, you flat out said you didn't change anything because you weren't even replying to what I said, and now you mention it further down the post as if it's something you are bringing up of your own accord, totally unrelated to what I was talking about.

So dishonest. And why, because it's about our relationship between God and money? Bling, don't just react. Think. Why is this happening?

If we are asked to Love our enemies unconditionally,

Once again, you've changed what Jesus said, apparently to suit your doctrine. Can you spot the difference between what Jesus said regarding enemy loving and what you've said here?

Just because we say God’s Love is unconditional does not mean we cannot refuse His Love for us,

But, it doesn't matter if you refuse or accept, does it? It all becomes so pointless because his love is "unconditional". Character, integrity, loyalty, faith, discipline, all become useless dung because in the end God's doesn't expect us to act on any of that (lest we be guilty of trying to "earn" his love).

It's all so convenient.

 

[bling]

I do find this interesting, since I have not had this much push back on the subject of unconditional type Love.

It is if you attach an "if" to it. See, that's what the word "if" means; it indicates a condition which must be met before the statement can be true (or false according to the context).

A parent comes to you asking for help. You can decide to help the parent in the way you were asked to help, or you can decide to help in a different way. The decision will be based on conditions regarding the context and circumstances of the situation. IF the parent is asking for something unreasonable, you will decide such and such. IF the parent is reasonable, you will decide such and such.

However, unconditional love will not consider reason, because reason imposes conditions whereas UNconditional love just pours out in all directions continuously without any condition to guide this way or that.

If you truly believed in unconditional love, there would be no reason for you not to help any parent who comes to you with any request.

Why do you say: “unconditional love will not consider reason”, unconditional Love takes everything into consideration to try and implement the very best solution. These are not “conditions” for Loving, but are information for the very best action (the most loving thing).

What “reason” would you ever have for not “helping”? As a Christian you have taken on a Christ like live and Christ helped everyone he came in contact with. Christ did not “do” what everyone wanted Him to “do or say”, but Christ did what was best for everyone.

Is this a statement or a question? Since I neither stated nor asked about this either, I'm confused as to why you are saying it.

But the irony is that "what you can get from God" is exactly what the doctrine of unconditional love is all about. God OWES you love, because it's unconditional. If there is ever a time when God makes some kind of demand from you, you will ignore it or dismiss it with lots of flowery speech about how obedience to God is actually BAD, because it amounts to nothing more than us trying to "pay God back" with our good works. It's quite a disgusting doctrine in that sense, really. You've called evil good (i.e. we don't need to obey) and good evil ( obedience is payment).

I keep saying “God does not own us anything”. God does not owe us His Love, God is Love and God Loves us, because that is who God is.

When did I ever suggest “obedience to God is actually BAD”?

Why if God loves me unconditionally; do I “ignore” or “dismiss” God’s commands?

I never worry about my earthly father’s love for me being affected by my obedience to his commands, but did always want to obey him (sometimes I rebelled and did something different), so why would I think God’s commands would be different.

“paying God back” is totally not possible, so this all has to do with your thinking and not reality. It all has to do with your “motive” for doing something. If you are doing something (being obedient) because of your unconditional Love than you are not trying to “pay God back”. The opposite is also true if you are “obedient” to God’s commands without the motive of Godly type Love it has no value (1 Cor. 13: 1-4). The “wrong” can be either way: not obeying or obeying without the right motive.

But what you are saying isn't that we, as humans, will sometimes get it wrong no matter how hard we try. Your doctrine suggests that it doesn't matter if we don't even try to obey, because there are no conditions on love. We could spend our whole lives ignoring the commands of Jesus and still be right with God, because his love doesn't have any nasty little conditions like "obedience". (ewww yucky obedience)

You are right: “his love doesn't have any nasty little conditions like "obedience”. God’s Love is unconditional. The problem is with us, our obedience helps us to continue to accept God’s Love, value God’s Love and grow Godly type Love.

Why do you put "need" in quotes? I can't see any reason for it. Do we need to love our enemies or not?


Perhaps it's an example of your mouth trying to say the right thing, but your heart still being far away?

It is not so much a “need” as it is the natural result of Godly type Love, it has to do with who we have become (like Christ). We desire what is best for others including our enemy.

It is implied in the unconditional love theory. God gave us commands and standards to follow and he has expectations for us. But unconditional love says those are all conditions on God's love an therefore irrelevant.

But Jesus compared our relationship with God to that of master and servant. The master commands the servant and the servant obeys. If the servant disobeys, the master has the right to fire the servant, BECAUSE the servant is not doing as he is told.

But, if the servant refused to leave the servant's quarters and instead lazed around all day, even after being fired, wouldn't he be presuming that he is owed his room and board?

Otherwise he would leave. It's like that with unconditional love. Christians ignore Jesus' teachings on the basis that such obedience amounts to "payment", so they never do what Jesus told us to do. However, they still talk about salvation, entry into God's kingdom, etc... as though there is no way God would ever refuse them such things for their disobedience, because his love is unconditional.

“It is implied in the unconditional love theory” in what way? If a parent Loves their child unconditionally does that mean the parents “owe the child something”?

Look, God is much more addressed as “Father” and is described as Shepherd. Do we address God in our prays as “Master”?

God is referring to as “Master”, but servant and slave were the same Greek word, so they are closely related. In the first century servants and slaves of wonderful “Masters” where treated very much like family and that is the way those Christ addressed in the first century would have understood what he was saying.

God as a “Master” is very unique. The problem is not “being fired”, but like the prodigal son you can leave. If you stay around, the Father will be trying to involve you all the time, since He is right there with you and partners in everything you do, so you have to tell God to leave (quench the Spirit).

They know they should not say "God owes us", but that is the spirit behind the teaching.

No, the “spirit behind the teaching” is I owe God everything, since He has sacrificially given me everything I could possibly truly want.

I didn't expect you to be so dishonest about this, bling. I think you know the difference between "at least try" (which is what I said) and "do the least you can" (which is how you misrepresented me).

Again, I believe this is because of your blind spot. You are squirming with all this nonsense about "try" and "least".

Ironically, it is YOU who is arguing that we can and should "do the least", on the basis that effort to obey Jesus is "payback" and therefore wrong.



Once again, I am shocked at your dishonesty. Here is how the events unfolded:

You said there is no employer/employee relationship between us and God. I said there very much is and Jesus himself used those same terms re employment.

Here is a comment from me, which you quote as part of your response to this comment.


Notice that you are QUOTING me here. You are very clearly responding to my comments from Matthew 6:24 about who we serve when you say we will be slaves/servants to God or satan.

So, why did you change the verse to say something different to what Jesus said? Can anyone else (who may be reading) spot the difference?

Then, you quote some Bible verses about Satan to try to convince me that you really are sincere in what you said about God/Satan, but the most surprising thing is that you then say this:



OF COURSE you knew what I was talking about all along, so why did you pretend not to? You changed one of the masters from mammon (money and the things money can buy) to Satan. When I questioned you on it the first time, you pretended not to understand.

When I questioned you about it the second time, you flat out said you didn't change anything because you weren't even replying to what I said, and now you mention it further down the post as if it's something you are bringing up of your own accord, totally unrelated to what I was talking about.

So dishonest. And why, because it's about our relationship between God and money? Bling, don't just react. Think. Why is this happening?

I have thought about it, so if your master is “money”, is your master also satan?

Once again, you've changed what Jesus said, apparently to suit your doctrine. Can you spot the difference between what Jesus said regarding enemy loving and what you've said here?

When Jesus says Love your enemies is Jesus talking about some kind of conditional Love or would it not have to be unconditional since they are your enemies?

But, it doesn't matter if you refuse or accept, does it? It all becomes so pointless because his love is "unconditional". Character, integrity, loyalty, faith, discipline, all become useless dung because in the end God's doesn't expect us to act on any of that (lest we be guilty of trying to "earn" his love).

It's all so convenient.

It matters greatly to the individual if he accepts or refuses God’s unconditional Love, but it does not affect God’s Love. If you refuse Godly type Love (desire only a conditional type Love) means you will not be happy in heaven, where there is only unconditional type Love being exchanged, so since God does not want you to be eternally unhappy, God will not force you to go to heaven.

 

[candle glow]

Why do you say: &#8220;unconditional love will not consider reason&#8221;, unconditional Love takes everything into consideration to try and implement the very best solution.

This is exactly the same as saying "unconditional love takes conditions into consideration".

The problems seems to be that you do not want to see conditions for what they really are. The word "best" is a superlative (like "most", "biggest", etc) and is, ironically, the ultimate condition you can put on something. Looking for the best apple will eliminate every apple in the world except one. The survival of the fittest will leave only one living creature left on the planet. The most expensive jewelry will eliminate any jewelry beneath that which has the highest price.

These are conditions. Unconditional love will not look for the best, because that would eliminate all solutions besides one. The condition with "best" is that only one may remain. Unconditional love says that ALL solutions are welcome WITHOUT condition.

It seems you yourself do not understand what "unconditional" really means and that's why I'm suggesting that this whole "unconditional love" argument is simply a nice sounding convenient doctrine for excusing obedience to the teachings of Jesus.

What &#8220;reason&#8221; would you ever have for not &#8220;helping&#8221;?

Good question. There are countries all over the world with millions who need help. Can you tell me which criteria (or conditions) you use to decide who to help? How do you decide? Or, are you saying that you are able to help billions at a time? Can you describe this help?

I keep saying &#8220;God does not own us anything&#8221;. God does not owe us His Love, God is Love and God Loves us, because that is who God is.

Yes, I know that is what you keep saying. The problem is that you are implying something very different. Obviously, you know you cannot come right out and say "God owes us", but unconditional love implies that he will give us eternal live regardless of any choices we make in this life and even more subtly implies that he would be UNloving not to do so, because of his UNconditional love.

When did I ever suggest &#8220;obedience to God is actually BAD&#8221;?

Once again, the adjective "bad" was not used by you, but I used it to describe the underlying message that your doctrine promotes. I'll give some examples of comments from you:

Exhibit A

With the Unconditional Love God has for us, why do we need to obey His commands?

Yeah, why should we have to obey Jesus? In other words, if God's love is unconditional then he has no right to put expectations on us. It is presuming on God's love. Once again, I realize you are not using these exact words, but then again I am talking about the spirit behind your words, and not the words themselves.

I could very easily say that the mods of this forum have no right to put up a page of rules. Why should we have to obey them if they are imitators of God's unconditional love?

Exhibit B

What happens if a Christian does not obey these commands? Does God not Love him? Does God take away his inheritance?

Remember what I said about "God owes us"? That's exactly what this comment implies. Despite many, many, many exhortations by Jesus and his followers for the need to obey, "unconditional love" says that even if we don't God will still give us eternal live. We can totally ignore all the values of the kingdom of Heaven, and because unconditional love has NO conditions (like obedience), God will be forced to save us. Otherwise, we could not say his love is unconditional.

Sure, he could choose NOT to save us, but why? For what reason? On what condition? Because someone did not "accept" him? What does "accept" mean? what does it involve? It's a verb. It necessitates some kind of action on the part of the person doing the accepting.

Exhibit C

Of could you have to receive that forgiveness as &#8220;pure charity&#8221; and not as &#8220;payment for something you have or will do&#8221; to truly feel the Love? If it is pure charity is that not also unconditional and totally undeserving and not to be paid back?

Obedience to Jesus is very clearly equated with "payment" and payment is very clearly seen as a bad thing. This why I keep telling you that you have a blind spot. It causes you to say these irrational things in an attempt to make your convenient doctrine true.

Exhibit D

If you suggest a person &#8220;apologize to begin with&#8221; that sounds like he is doing something of value, as compared with just quitting and allowing God to do the rest.

Again, obedience to Jesus (or expressions of love in general) are seen as "something of value" (i.e. payment) and you suggest that this is NOT the correct way to show love. The correct way to show love is to "just quit" and "allow God to do the rest".

What does "just quit" mean? Just quit what? Again, "quit" is a verb, it necessitates some kind of action, but presumably not the kind of action that God would view as valuable. Can't you see how irrational this all is?

The "allow God to do the rest" is another reference to the concept that God owes us eternal life. We shouldn't need to do anything of value because it's God's responsibility to "do the rest".

Exhibit E

If they have Godly type Love motivating them (compelling them like it did Paul) would they need any other motivation (like you have to do this because God commands it)

Again, "Godly type love" is pitted against Jesus' commands. You talk about motivations, but you suggestion that a motivation to obey Jesus is different from a motivation to have "godly type love". It's irrational.

These are just a few selections out of many available (I think I only skimmed through TWO of your posts to glean these) to indicate that you definitely do see obedience as a bad thing.

The problem is with us, our obedience helps us to continue to accept God&#8217;s Love, value God&#8217;s Love and grow Godly type Love.

Can you elaborate on this a bit more? It seems awfully vague...

It is not so much a &#8220;need&#8221; as it is the natural result of Godly type Love, it has to do with who we have become (like Christ). We desire what is best for others including our enemy.

This sounds like a lot of verbal squirming. Jesus said "why do you call me Lord, but do not obey me?"

He also said, at the end of the sermon on the mount, that the wise people are those who heard his teachings and did them. The foolish are those who hear his teachings and did not do them. Both groups heard his teachings, but on one obeyed.

Do you think Jesus was telling us that we need to obey?

Look, God is much more addressed as &#8220;Father&#8221; and is described as Shepherd. Do we address God in our prays as &#8220;Master&#8221;?

Are you saying it would be a problem for you to do so? I believe this is a very significant statement. I've said several times now that this "unconditional love" doctrine was invented as a result of people who just cannot be told what to do. They cannot be commanded, even by Jesus.

They don't like some of his more uncomfortable teachings about challenging greed, fear, respectability, family/friendly relationships etc, so they created a doctrine to say that it doesn't matter if we obey or not, because God's love has no conditions.

The fact that you find it some what outrageous or rediculous to refer to Jesus/God as master supports this. The fact that you so stubbornly baulked at me referring to Jesus as our boss and us as his employees also supports this.

God appears to be nothing more than your warm and fuzzy, unconditionally loving ticket to heaven and definitely not someone who can expect you to be commanded.

Perhaps, as a good exercise, you SHOULD start referring to him as master whenever you refer to him at all, just to smash your pride a bit.

No, the &#8220;spirit behind the teaching&#8221; is I owe God everything, since He has sacrificially given me everything I could possibly truly want.

This is another case of you contradicting yourself because your argument is irrational to begin with. You say you owe God everything. That's nice. It sound very sincere and pleasant.

And yet, at the same time you say "why should we have to obey Jesus if God's love is unconditional? (refer back to exhibit A)

Can you see the contradiction? "I owe God everything" and "why should we have to obey"?

As Christians, even if we don't want to obey a particular command, we should still do it if for no other reason than that we were TOLD to obey.

I have thought about it, so if your master is &#8220;money&#8221;, is your master also satan?

When someone deliberately misquotes Jesus, for the sake of changing the meaning of the lesson, is Satan that person's master, or God?

See, you've still not dealt with the dishonesty I mentioned, Bling. You changed that verse deliberately and then pretended not to, THREE times now, when challenged on it.

Will you keep pretending and justifying yourself? We're on a public forum so it would be very difficult for you to smash your pride now, but I'd be fine for us to deal with it privately if you prefer.

When Jesus says Love your enemies is Jesus talking about some kind of conditional Love or would it not have to be unconditional since they are your enemies?

More dishonesty. You changed what Jesus said. I challenged you on it and now you are pretending it didn't happen. It's becoming difficult to see any sincerity in this discussion.

Also, you've ignored my challenge to you about deliberately misrepresenting my comment about our efforts to at least try to obey Jesus.

You rephrased that as me promoting that we should try to do the least we can get away with. You then pretended that you didn't understand the difference between "at least try" and "do the least you can".

I asked people here where I live if they could understand the difference and they did straight away. Even if it was a genuine misunderstanding on your part, all you have to do is say sorry.

 

[bling]

This is exactly the same as saying "unconditional love takes conditions into consideration".

Not for determining to Love/not Love or the amount of the Love. You take the conditions into consideration to determine the actions you will take.

The problems seems to be that you do not want to see conditions for what they really are. The word "best" is a superlative (like "most", "biggest", etc) and is, ironically, the ultimate condition you can put on something. Looking for the best apple will eliminate every apple in the world except one. The survival of the fittest will leave only one living creature left on the planet. The most expensive jewelry will eliminate any jewelry beneath that which has the highest price.

First off: the “best” is what you are trying to achieve, but does not mean you will reach it every time. One of the “conditions” is the time you will spend; if something readily available can get the job done at a reasonable cost, can be the best solution. It all goes back to what Christ would do in your situation and the Holy Spirit can help you find what Christ would do.

“excusing obedience to the teachings of Jesus” How does that happen? Are you assuming that it is not true: “…he that is forgiven much will Love much…”? Are you also saying if you obtain this Godly type Love you will not be motivated to obey (since Christ said “if you Love you will obey…”)?

Is the problem: we do not feel we have been forgiven much? Is this a knowledge of sin problem, is this a trust in God’s Love to forgive problem, or is this an understanding of how to receive forgiveness?

Good question. There are countries all over the world with millions who need help. Can you tell me which criteria (or conditions) you use to decide who to help? How do you decide? Or, are you saying that you are able to help billions at a time? Can you describe this help?

“What would Jesus do in my situation?” Jesus did not physically cure everyone on earth, but ceased the opportunities around Him.

These billions of opportunities (“and the poor will be with us always”) are unfortunately needed to facilitate our obtaining and growing Godly type Love.

Jesus has shown us how this works. Jesus spent the three years here on earth mainly teaching the 12, so we need to continue that process: Jesus needs to continue to be mentoring small groups and that is the system He set up. The system is allowing Christ to live and work through a Christ like person that is mentoring a small group (4-12) of believers. If out of that group one individual per year becomes like the mentor to have his own group, than in 34 years we run out of people on earth to be in small groups (all 6 billion+) are in groups. That is the system Jesus set up, but that system requires very little money, has no big high paying positions, and all the glory goes to God, since small group leader is not that “glorious”.

So yes, I am interested in helping all 6 Billion+ people on earth, but that does not mean they will all become “healthy and wealthy”, since material things and even physical abilities do not help spiritual growth.

...but unconditional love implies that he will give us eternal live regardless of any choices we make in this life and even more subtly implies that he would be UNloving not to do so, because of his UNconditional love.

I did not suggest that at all! The individual does have to accept or reject God’s Love, but that has nothing to do with God’s Love changing. Yes, God is providing eternal life, “charity” for everyone, but few accept “charity” (forgiveness).

Once again, the adjective "bad" was not used by you, but I used it to describe the underlying message that your doctrine promotes. I'll give some examples of comments from you:

Exhibit A
Yeah, why should we have to obey Jesus? In other words, if God's love is unconditional then he has no right to put expectations on us. It is presuming on God's love. Once again, I realize you are not using these exact words, but then again I am talking about the spirit behind your words, and not the words themselves.

I could very easily say that the mods of this forum have no right to put up a page of rules. Why should we have to obey them if they are imitators of God's unconditional love?

This is a question that is not implying an answer. I have in the past explained why Christians need to obey: “ this is mainly so the Christian does not lose his value for Godly type Love (starts to wither) and continues to seek after conditional type of “loves”. Again we are not affecting God’s Love, but our desire for His Love.

Exhibit B
Remember what I said about "God owes us"? That's exactly what this comment implies. Despite many, many, many exhortations by Jesus and his followers for the need to obey, "unconditional love" says that even if we don't God will still give us eternal live. We can totally ignore all the values of the kingdom of Heaven, and because unconditional love has NO conditions (like obedience), God will be forced to save us. Otherwise, we could not say his love is unconditional.

Sure, he could choose NOT to save us, but why? For what reason? On what condition? Because someone did not "accept" him? What does "accept" mean? what does it involve? It's a verb. It necessitates some kind of action on the part of the person doing the accepting.

Again these are questions. God “wants” to save everyone, but that does not mean everyone will be saved. We have to humbly “accept” (I will be very specific here) God’s forgiveness of our sins as pure charity (undeserved and unconditional).

Exhibit C
Obedience to Jesus is very clearly equated with "payment" and payment is very clearly seen as a bad thing. This why I keep telling you that you have a blind spot. It causes you to say these irrational things in an attempt to make your convenient doctrine true.

I am sorry, but where do you see in scripture suggesting: “obedience… equated with payment”?

[FONT='Calibri','sans-serif']We can certain do stuff because of what has been done for us or given to us, but to suggest that is pay back is to not see them as gifts and to suggest you could pay at least in part for some of these gifts.

Exhibit D
Again, obedience to Jesus (or expressions of love in general) are seen as "something of value" (i.e. payment) and you suggest that this is NOT the correct way to show love. The correct way to show love is to "just quit" and "allow God to do the rest".

What does "just quit" mean? Just quit what? Again, "quit" is a verb, it necessitates some kind of action, but presumably not the kind of action that God would view as valuable. Can't you see how irrational this all is?

The "allow God to do the rest" is another reference to the concept that God owes us eternal life. We shouldn't need to do anything of value because it's God's responsibility to "do the rest".

OK, I should have specifically said: “something of value for God”, but when it comes to “salvation” I really did not “do” anything, but did allow God to do something for me.


As far as, “God owes us eternal life” that is a free undeserving and unconditional gift God is wanting all of us to have, but He does not owe us this “gift” or it would not be a gift (that would mean it was pay back God is providing). To the contrary, if we did or could “do” something, then God would owe us something for at least what we did so is conditional “love” more God paying us for what He owes us (since we have “done” something)?

Exhibit E
Again, "Godly type love" is pitted against Jesus' commands. You talk about motivations, but you suggestion that a motivation to obey Jesus is different from a motivation to have "godly type love". It's irrational.

Yes, there is a huge difference between the motivation of those that do not have Godly type Love, that are finally willing to accept Godly type Love and the motivation of those that have accepted God’s Love (in the form of forgiveness) to be obedient.

Can you elaborate on this a bit more? It seems awfully vague...

Godly type Love automatically grows with use, you use Godly type Love to correctly obey (1 Cor. 13: 1-4) and to obey. If you are not growing you are withering (but you cannot blame God’s Love for your withering). We are not “growing” to try and get something “more” from God since He has given all we can get, but to grow and not wither. If we wither to the point of giving no value to God’s Love we can give His Love up (like Esau did with his birthright).

This sounds like a lot of verbal squirming. Jesus said "why do you call me Lord, but do not obey me?"

He also said, at the end of the sermon on the mount, that the wise people are those who heard his teachings and did them. The foolish are those who hear his teachings and did not do them. Both groups heard his teachings, but on one obeyed.

Do you think Jesus was telling us that we need to obey?

Yes, but not because we will not be Loved by God if we do not obey. We need to obey for the reasons I just gave you, above.

Are you saying it would be a problem for you to do so? I believe this is a very significant statement. I've said several times now that this "unconditional love" doctrine was invented as a result of people who just cannot be told what to do. They cannot be commanded, even by Jesus.

They don't like some of his more uncomfortable teachings about challenging greed, fear, respectability, family/friendly relationships etc, so they created a doctrine to say that it doesn't matter if we obey or not, because God's love has no conditions.

The fact that you find it some what outrageous or rediculous to refer to Jesus/God as master supports this. The fact that you so stubbornly baulked at me referring to Jesus as our boss and us as his employees also supports this.

God appears to be nothing more than your warm and fuzzy, unconditionally loving ticket to heaven and definitely not someone who can expect you to be commanded.

Perhaps, as a good exercise, you SHOULD start referring to him as master whenever you refer to him at all, just to smash your pride a bit.

I guess I could have called my earthly father “master”, but I do not think he would have liked that, so I see God our Father in a similar fashion. He is “Lord” which I like because it is much broader of a title, just being “my” master is not giving much esteem to God since I am weak servant.

This is another case of you contradicting yourself because your argument is irrational to begin with. You say you owe God everything. That's nice. It sound very sincere and pleasant.

And yet, at the same time you say "why should we have to obey Jesus if God's love is unconditional? (refer back to exhibit A)

Can you see the contradiction? "I owe God everything" and "why should we have to obey"?

As Christians, even if we don't want to obey a particular command, we should still do it if for no other reason than that we were TOLD to obey.

Can you really correctly obey a command without Godly type Love (1 Cor. 13:1-4) And since we have to have Godly type Love to obey right, will we not obey since we Love?

If you have Godly type Love how can we not want to obey?

Also, you've ignored my challenge to you about deliberately misrepresenting my comment about our efforts to at least try to obey Jesus.

You rephrased that as me promoting that we should try to do the least we can get away with. You then pretended that you didn't understand the difference between "at least try" and "do the least you can".

I asked people here where I live if they could understand the difference and they did straight away. Even if it was a genuine misunderstanding on your part, all you have to do is say sorry.

Sorry.

 

[candle glow]

Hi bling, thanks for the apology re: misrepresenting me on the difference between "at least try" and "do the least we can".

However, I'm concerned that there are a number of areas where you've been dishonest and misrepresented me which I've challenged you on and you've still not dealt with it. even in this latest post from you, you've misrepresented me again.

Exhibit C
Obedience to Jesus is very clearly equated with "payment" and payment is very clearly seen as a bad thing. This why I keep telling you that you have a blind spot. It causes you to say these irrational things in an attempt to make your convenient doctrine true.
​

I am sorry, but where do you see in scripture suggesting: “obedience… equated with payment”?

You've lumped the statement "exhibit c" and my response to exhibit c together in a way which makes it look like *I* am the one who is saying obedience to Jesus equals payment and then you challenge me to produce scripture to support it!

Can't you see how dishonest that is, bling? The statement you quoted from me is VERY clearly an explanation in response to what YOU were saying about how obedience to Jesus equals payment to God.


Also, you've still not dealt with the issue of you purposely changing a word in a verse from Jesus to change the meaning of the verse and then pretending THREE times that you didn't know what I was talking about when I challenged you on it.

Also, you've still not dealt with the issue of you purposely changing the wording of a verse from Jesus to suit your bias. You said "Jesus said we should love our enemies unconditionally". When I challenged you on that, you changed the subject.

These are issues which I feel there is plenty of evidence to show that these things really did happen. Because you've given an apology for one issue (after some heavy pushing from me) I don't know how much more I can expect from you, but I think you really should consider dealing honestly with these other issues, too.

“excusing obedience to the teachings of Jesus” How does that happen?

You ask this question, at the same time you say:

With the Unconditional Love God has for us, why do we need to obey His commands?

I think it is an indication of further dishonesty on your part if you are trying to tell me that you really cannot see how someone could use this doctrine of unconditional love to excuse obedience to the teachings of Jesus.

In fact, it's become much clearer to me, through this discussion, just how dishonest one must be in order to force this doctrine to be true, regardless of all the evidence that it cannot be.

Look at your own words, bling. Why should we have to obey Jesus if God loves us unconditionally? You said that, bling. Do you understand WHY you said it? It is a fruit of the unconditional love doctrine. It teaches people that obedience to Jesus is not mandatory, expected, and even demanded and that "godly type love" can come without obedience to Jesus.

I did not suggest that at all! The individual does have to accept or reject God’s Love, but that has nothing to do with God’s Love changing. Yes, God is providing eternal life, “charity” for everyone, but few accept “charity” (forgiveness).

Although you did not use the word "if" it is obviously implied here. IF someone does not accept God's forgiveness (i.e. ask for it and show a change of behavior to prove their sincerity in asking) then the person does not get eternal life (charity, forgiveness).

it is obviously a condition, but you stubbornly refuse to accept that. It's like a child who gets caught sneaking cookies from the kitchen, and when challenged the child says it's not stealing, but appreciating the delicious taste of the cookies.

That's all you are doing by saying "god's love is unconditional, but people must accept it". It if was really unconditional, they wouldn't need to do anything. That's what unconditional means. No condition, no demand, no expectation, no standard.

As far as, “God owes us eternal life” that is a free undeserving and unconditional gift God is wanting all of us to have, but He does not owe us this “gift” or it would not be a gift

More game playing with words and semantics. Eternal life is an unconditional gift, but not everyone will get it. Why? Isn't it unconditional?

Yes, there is a huge difference between the motivation of those that do not have Godly type Love, that are finally willing to accept Godly type Love and the motivation of those that have accepted God’s Love (in the form of forgiveness) to be obedient.

This is not what you said in the quote from your earlier posts that I was responding to. You said "Godly type love" is different from a desire to obey Jesus. But, Jesus' teachings are an expression of Godly love, and our obedience to them shows our willingness to be a part of his kingdom.

If we do not obey those teachings, then we are not acting on the values of the kingdom of Heaven. That is the point of obedience. You can't have Godly type love without obedience to Jesus' teachings because his teachings ARE "godly type love".

It's irrational to make them into separate issues, distinct from one another.

I guess I could have called my earthly father “master”, but I do not think he would have liked that, so I see God our Father in a similar fashion. He is “Lord” which I like because it is much broader of a title, just being “my” master is not giving much esteem to God since I am weak servant.

But Jesus said NOT to call each other master and the issue was never about your earthly father in the first place. It was about your willingness (or lack of it) to be commanded. It was about your willingess to see Jesus as your master, and not some free ticket to Heaven floating up on flowery beds of ease.

It sounds like you need to just smash your pride and allow Jesus to be your master for a while until you can appreciate that he really does have the right to be called master and to tell you what to do, without a lot of haggling about how his love is supposed to be unconditional.

Again, this is a result of your unconditional love doctrine. It teaches people that thinking of Jesus as their master is weird or somehow inappropriate. Seriously, can't you see what you are saying?

I know it is the nature of having blind spots that, even when they are clearly pointed out to someone who has them, they are overlooked, but what's happening right now is really shocking.

I am really reminded of that verse from proverbs about a gold ring in a pig's snout. The gold ring looks very beautiful (much like your wonderful descriptions of God's love) but it's completely spoiled by the fact that it's in a snotty pig snout (much like your questions about why we should have to obey Jesus if God's love is unconditional).

 

[bling]

Hi bling, thanks for the apology re: misrepresenting me on the difference between "at least try" and "do the least we can".

However, I'm concerned that there are a number of areas where you've been dishonest and misrepresented me which I've challenged you on and you've still not dealt with it. even in this latest post from you, you've misrepresented me again.



You've lumped the statement "exhibit c" and my response to exhibit c together in a way which makes it look like *I* am the one who is saying obedience to Jesus equals payment and then you challenge me to produce scripture to support it!

Can't you see how dishonest that is, bling? The statement you quoted from me is VERY clearly an explanation in response to what YOU were saying about how obedience to Jesus equals payment to God.

How do you get “bling equates obedience to Jesus’ commands to payments…?” I have repeatedly said obedience is the product of having Godly type Love or maybe we obey because of what has already been given us. I thought that was what you were trying to say, by making God’s love conditional on some kind of behavior on our part.

Also, you've still not dealt with the issue of you purposely changing a word in a verse from Jesus to change the meaning of the verse and then pretending THREE times that you didn't know what I was talking about when I challenged you on it.

Also, you've still not dealt with the issue of you purposely changing the wording of a verse from Jesus to suit your bias. You said "Jesus said we should love our enemies unconditionally". When I challenged you on that, you changed the subject.

These are issues which I feel there is plenty of evidence to show that these things really did happen. Because you've given an apology for one issue (after some heavy pushing from me) I don't know how much more I can expect from you, but I think you really should consider dealing honestly with these other issues, too.

For the most part these are all parts of questions I have been asking you and you do not answer. Yes, I do try to respond with thought provoking questions, mostly to find out what you are believing and why/how you came to that believe.

You ask this question, at the same time you say:


I think it is an indication of further dishonesty on your part if you are trying to tell me that you really cannot see how someone could use this doctrine of unconditional love to excuse obedience to the teachings of Jesus.

In fact, it's become much clearer to me, through this discussion, just how dishonest one must be in order to force this doctrine to be true, regardless of all the evidence that it cannot be.

Look at your own words, bling. Why should we have to obey Jesus if God loves us unconditionally? You said that, bling. Do you understand WHY you said it? It is a fruit of the unconditional love doctrine. It teaches people that obedience to Jesus is not mandatory, expected, and even demanded and that "godly type love" can come without obedience to Jesus.

“Why should we have to obey Jesus if God loves us unconditionally?” is not a rhetorical question.
We obey because “…if you Love me you will obey me…” and we Love because “…he that is forgiven much Loves much…” and we have been forgiven by God of much, because Unconditional Love forgives and we have been forgiven since we have humbly accepted God limitless forgiveness which is the product of God’s (Love/charity/mercy/grace) and it is much we have been forgiven of since we enemies of God. So we obey because of what has already been done for us and not to get something or meet some requirement.

Why would you obey an earthly father that Loved you unconditionally? I was raised by such parents, so it is easy for me to relate to an unconditional Loving God.

Although you did not use the word "if" it is obviously implied here. IF someone does not accept God's forgiveness (i.e. ask for it and show a change of behavior to prove their sincerity in asking) then the person does not get eternal life (charity, forgiveness).

Right, but that does not mean God does not Love them, do you see the difference?

it is obviously a condition, but you stubbornly refuse to accept that. It's like a child who gets caught sneaking cookies from the kitchen, and when challenged the child says it's not stealing, but appreciating the delicious taste of the cookies.

That's all you are doing by saying "god's love is unconditional, but people must accept it". It if was really unconditional, they wouldn't need to do anything. That's what unconditional means. No condition, no demand, no expectation, no standard.

That is very true and I agree with it, so God’s Love for humans is unconditional: “No condition, no demand, no expectation, no standard”. It is just some people do not want that type of Love, so they refuse to accept it and since God cannot Lovingly “force” His Love on humans, they do not get the Love that is available to them. The fact that people do not accept God’s Love does not mean God does not Love them.

More game playing with words and semantics. Eternal life is an unconditional gift, but not everyone will get it. Why? Isn't it unconditional?

They do not “get” eternal life because it comes with the Godly type Love, which they do not want.

We have several parables about the invitation going out to join of the Kingdom in which street people (poor, needy, hurting) where invited without any “conditions” put on the invitation. The person invited did not have to clean up after the party was over or bring a gift. The actual being at the party was still up to those invited (the Host did not kidnap them), but the host did all He could to short of forcing them to go to the party, I call that an unconditional invitation.
If I set a million dollars in from to you and said it was unconditionally yours (you understood what was being said) and you just leave it and walk away, did I make my gift of a million dollars “conditional”?

What you have to remember is if a person gives you anything as a “gift” it is truly “yours” and you have the right to sell, give away, or even refuse to pick up anything that is truly yours. If someone hands you something with a bunch of “conditions” is that truly a gift?

This is not what you said in the quote from your earlier posts that I was responding to. You said "Godly type love" is different from a desire to obey Jesus. But, Jesus' teachings are an expression of Godly love, and our obedience to them shows our willingness to be a part of his kingdom.

If we do not obey those teachings, then we are not acting on the values of the kingdom of Heaven. That is the point of obedience. You can't have Godly type love without obedience to Jesus' teachings because his teachings ARE "godly type love".

I said this: “If they have Godly type Love motivating them (compelling them like it did Paul) would they need any other motivation (like you have to do this because God commands it)

That statement is true and there is nothing wrong with it, but it does not address those without Godly type Love in any way. So when you say:

“You talk about motivations, but you suggestion that a motivation to obey Jesus is different from a motivation to have "godly type love". It's irrational.”


You talk about people that do not have Godly type Love and the motivation they have to get Godly type Love, which is in no way addressed in my quote. That is the reason I went on to explain the different motivations. You can’t use what you do not have “Godly type Love” to get “Godly type Love” and if you have it you don’t need to get it.

It's irrational to make them into separate issues, distinct from one another.

If you have Godly type Love it is the motivation to do everything else, if you do not have Godly type Love how can you use it to motivate you to get Godly type Love?

But Jesus said NOT to call each other master and the issue was never about your earthly father in the first place. It was about your willingness (or lack of it) to be commanded. It was about your willingess to see Jesus as your master, and not some free ticket to Heaven floating up on flowery beds of ease.

It sounds like you need to just smash your pride and allow Jesus to be your master for a while until you can appreciate that he really does have the right to be called master and to tell you what to do, without a lot of haggling about how his love is supposed to be unconditional.

Look we were talking about “praying” and why I do not pray to God as my master (like he is my “boss”). I just do not see examples of that in scripture and Jesus taught us how to pray and He said “father”. The added issue I have referring to God as my boss like I am an employee is the fact at this time bosses owe their employees that do a good job compensation and I do not want to ever consider God owes me anything.

Again, this is a result of your unconditional love doctrine. It teaches people that thinking of Jesus as their master is weird or somehow inappropriate. Seriously, can't you see what you are saying?

I know it is the nature of having blind spots that, even when they are clearly pointed out to someone who has them, they are overlooked, but what's happening right now is really shocking.

Would you work harder and do more for a truly wonderful benevolent Father or a merciful, gracious, forgiving master? I think God fits both descriptions and maybe you would work equally as hard for both. When Jesus used the parable describing two masters it would have been confusing to say two fathers.

If the “Master” is also your Father, why would you ever address Him as “Master”?

I am really reminded of that verse from proverbs about a gold ring in a pig's snout. The gold ring looks very beautiful (much like your wonderful descriptions of God's love) but it's completely spoiled by the fact that it's in a snotty pig snout (much like your questions about why we should have to obey Jesus if God's love is unconditional).

Do you see a benefit of Christians obey out of Love (like Jesus did) verses obeying motivated for some other reason?



Do you see a problem with Christians “trying to be obedient” using a motivation other than Love?



Can a Christian be obedient to a command without Godly type Love? (1 Cor 13:1-4)?


If a Christian has Godly type Love will he not correctly obey?


Can a free unconditional true gift be give away by the receiver of the gift or sold, since it is his gift?


Can a free unconditional true gift be of his own free will refused by the person with free will offered the gift?

 

[candle glow]

Hi Bling. I feel there is just too much dishonesty in your responses to carry on with this discussion. Thanks anyway for the chance to get it clearer in my own head as to the arguments on both sides. Nice time.