God's love

[alexiscurious]

Does God even have the option to love us or hate us? The Bible says his nature is eternal and unchanging. If so, all he can ever do is love. Isn't his love the most forced and robotic love out there?

So why then was humanity given a choice to love him if he can't control whether or not he loves us? Why do we even need a choice to love the one thing we owe our entire existence to?

 

[Mediaeval]

So why then was humanity given a choice...

God is under no external necessity to do anything. Whatever He does is by the exercise of His own will. Similarly, we humans, who are made in God's image, exercise our will when we choose to love.

 

[orangeness365]

God definitely loves,

Romans 5:8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

1 John 4:7-8 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1 John 3:1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

Proverbs 8:17 I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me.

but there are actually some things God hates, basically sin.

Proverbs 6:16-19
16There are six things that the Lord hates,
seven that are an abomination to him:
17haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood,
18a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that make haste to run to evil,
19a false witness who breathes out lies,
and one who sows discord among brothers.

Psalm 5:4-6
4For you are not a God who delights in wickedness;
evil may not dwell with you.
5The boastful shall not stand before your eyes;
you hate all evildoers.
6You destroy those who speak lies;
the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

However, God forgives.

Psalm 130:3-4
3If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
4But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.


I think that God is the definition of love. How can love not love? Is love robotic, or heartwarming to you? Is it really a forced love, or simply a powerful love?
I think humanity was given the choice to love or not to love because God loves us enough not to control us, but instead to guide us to him, if we want to be guided. If you believe God is your Creator, that is a good reason to love him, but not everyone who reads about the God of Abraham loves him.

 

[anewman1993]

I think its really easy to fall into the trap of viewing god as some giant emotionless robot in the sky, I heard a really good message a while back that kind of just put it in perspective. It was about hosa. If your not really familiar the story of hosa takes place in a time where the people of israel had (once again) basically said "screw you god, we are going to do what we want and worship who we want". The prophet at the time was hosa. God told hosa to go marry a specific prostitute, and commanded him to love her. Throughout their marriage she frequently returned to prostitution and at one point she just straight up goes and lives with another man. Well hosa finds the house, and because he loves her he gives the man money to provide for her, even though she has betrayed him continually in one of the worst ways one human can betray another. Even though she doesn't know it, he is still providing for her. Finally at the end of their story she is on an action block, keep in mind she is a prostitute, so this would have probably been one of the most demeaning things a woman can go through. Her husband, hosa, is in the crowd at this auction, and buys her. Then he tells her basically that they are going to rebuild their marriage from the ground up and story ends. The entire thing is one big illustration on how it hurts god when we sin, how much it hurts him when we betray him. There are also several segmants later in the chapter that really show gods fatherly love for us. Lots of imagry of a father teaching his children with love and stuff, and how he doesn't want to punish them when they do wrong but that they have done wrong, but he forgives them. its Some really good stuff in that book.

I Think its important to realize, god is not a robot, he loves us in a very real way, and when we betray him, it hurts.

 

[sunshineforJesus]

God definitely loves,

Romans 5:8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

1 John 4:7-8 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1 John 3:1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

Proverbs 8:17 I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me.

but there are actually some things God hates, basically sin.

Proverbs 6:16-19
16There are six things that the Lord hates,
seven that are an abomination to him:
17haughty eyes, a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood,
18a heart that devises wicked plans,
feet that make haste to run to evil,
19a false witness who breathes out lies,
and one who sows discord among brothers.

Psalm 5:4-6
4For you are not a God who delights in wickedness;
evil may not dwell with you.
5The boastful shall not stand before your eyes;
you hate all evildoers.
6You destroy those who speak lies;
the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

However, God forgives.

Psalm 130:3-4
3If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
4But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.


I think that God is the definition of love. How can love not love? Is love robotic, or heartwarming to you? Is it really a forced love, or simply a powerful love?
I think humanity was given the choice to love or not to love because God loves us enough not to control us, but instead to guide us to him, if we want to be guided. If you believe God is your Creator, that is a good reason to love him, but not everyone who reads about the God of Abraham loves him.

That about says it!

 

[ForJesusChrist]

If you wish to understand God's steadfast love, you can't think in earthly terms, but rather in God's terms. Not everything we do can relate to how God does it. The way we love is different from how God loves.

God Bless
Praise Jesus

 

[Sketcher]

"Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."- Romans 9:13b

I would therefore say he has a choice. (Note that the context of the quote in Malachi 1 has to do with the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Edom, but the point as relevant to your question stands.)

 

[Steeno7]

Does God even have the option to love us or hate us? The Bible says his nature is eternal and unchanging. If so, all he can ever do is love. Isn't his love the most forced and robotic love out there?

No, that would make His love, true love, and the only natural and free love out there. He created you out of His love, but that love is not conditioned by the condition of you, the object of His love; it is not predicated on the loveableness of the object of His love. And you should thank God for that, we all should.

So why then was humanity given a choice to love him if he can't control whether or not he loves us? Why do we even need a choice to love the one thing we owe our entire existence to?

Because He desires to have a true love relationship with the objects of His love, us. And love can only be freely given and freely received. We love because He first loved us. For those who don't want that love relationship with the God who loves them, they are free to reject Him and His love for them. And God honors that choice.

 

[bling]

Does God even have the option to love us or hate us? The Bible says his nature is eternal and unchanging. If so, all he can ever do is love. Isn't his love the most forced and robotic love out there?

Godly type Love is not easy to define and can only be defined as everything Christ said and did. You can look at 1 Cor. 13 and 1 John 4.

Godly type love is the greatest force in all universes since it compels god to do all he does, but scripture says God is Love so God is also the huge force. Hate is not the opposite of Love and you can hate and love at the same time. When God uses the word “hate” is it referring to in comparison to God’s great Love.

God does consistently love, but that does not mean it is robotic since godly type love is not logical, but a choice to be unselfish (which is hard).

So why then was humanity given a choice to love him if he can't control whether or not he loves us? Why do we even need a choice to love the one thing we owe our entire existence to?

God Loves us because God has chosen to love us. God Loves not because of us , but in spite of us, since it is the way God is.

Humans do not have an instinctive “Godly type Love”, nor can they develop such a Love, nor can they deserve or earn such a love.

The nonbeliever (all mature adults start out as nonbelievers) does not have Godly type love, so they cannot Love God with a Love they do not have. Our objective while here on earth is to obtain the Love which will really make us like God Himself.

Our Choice is not to “Love or not Love God”, but to humbly accept God’s help or refuse God’s help, in the easiest form possible: the charity is accepted as forgiveness (grace/mercy/Love/charity).

If we do not want to accept pure charity (mainly due to pride or not liking the idea of charity) we cannot have what we do not want.

 

[oi_antz]

Have you considered that love and hate are not opposites, but competitive forces that can coexist? That is how I think of it. I don't see them as a point on a scale between extreme love and extreme hate, but as an absolute amount of love from zero, and an absolute amount of hate from zero. It is possible therefore to love and hate someone, and likewise to neither love nor hate someone, and that is consistent with my observations.

 

[aiki]

Does God even have the option to love us or hate us? The Bible says his nature is eternal and unchanging. If so, all he can ever do is love. Isn't his love the most forced and robotic love out there?

Loving well entails hating certain things. What loving father does not hate the drug pusher enticing his child into addiction and self-destruction? What loving mother does not hate the lurking pedophile waiting to snatch her child from her when her guard is down? What loving parents do not hate to see their children grow lazy, and apathetic, and unjust? So, too, our Heavenly Father in loving us well must hate certain things.

Does God have a choice but to be as He is? Does a cow have the choice to be other than a cow? Can a rock be an opera singer? Do house-cats hunt giant squid in the ocean depths? God can only be who He is. Why should we expect or demand otherwise? Why does God acting in accord with His own nature make Him robotic? I don't look at a cow and think, "What a robotic creature! It just stands there in the field being the cow that it is. How forced and unnatural!" Why, then, would I think this way about God?

God has existed from eternity past. We have not. By divine fiat the universe began to exist a finite time ago. This means, in part, that God chose to create the universe; His creation was not forced by some mechanical principle of causation external to Himself. If God chose to create then He also chose to love, too.

So why then was humanity given a choice to love him if he can't control whether or not he loves us? Why do we even need a choice to love the one thing we owe our entire existence to?

Love is, by definition, freely given. It cannot be obtained by constraint. We cannot force God to love us and He does not force us to love Him. The problem, then, isn't that God can't help loving us; it is that we refuse to be loved by Him.

Selah.

 

[Emmy]

Dear alexiscurious. God is Love, and God Loves us, and God will not be mocked. In Matthew 22: 35-40: Jesus tells us: "The first and great Commandment is: Love God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. The second is like it: Love thy neighbour as thyself." Then Jesus tells us: On these two Commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."
God wants our Love freely given and NO condition tagged on.
In Matthew 7: 7-10: we are told: " ask and you shall receive," we ask for Love and Joy, then we thank God and share all Love and Joy with our neighbour: all we know and all we meet, friends and not friends. We keep on asking for Love and Joy, then we thank God and share all Love and Joy with our neighbour. God sees our loving efforts, and God approves and blesses us.
We might stumble and forget at times, but then we ask God to forgive us, and carry on loving and caring.
The Bible tells us to "Repent and to be Born Again," we have to stop being selfish and unloving, and become loving and caring. We might not like it, but
God our Heavenly Father wants it from us. Jesus our Saviour will help and guide us, JESUS IS THE WAY. God is Love, and there is also God`s
Eternal Law of Justice. We know it under: What we sow we will also reap.
All good and loving deeds will earn good and loving rewards, and all selfish and unloving deeds will earn fitting consequences. God is Love, and God`s
Law of Justice and Righteousness, will often teach us what we need to learn to be as God wants us to be. I say this with love, alexiscurious. Greetings from Emmy, sister in Christ.

 

[Viren]

God made the choice to love. Now it's up to us to believe, receive and give it away....or not.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Does God even have the option to love us or hate us? The Bible says his nature is eternal and unchanging. If so, all he can ever do is love. Isn't his love the most forced and robotic love out there?

So why then was humanity given a choice to love him if he can't control whether or not he loves us? Why do we even need a choice to love the one thing we owe our entire existence to?

If there were an external force compelling God to love that was contrary to His will, that would be a "forced" or "robotic" love.

But the Christian proposition isn't that there is an external force making God love contrary to His will; but rather that it is the will of God, as conforming to His very essence or being, to love.

Trinitarian language and theology has helped shape the historic Christian understanding of God's love by speaking of the Father's love for the Son, and the Son's reciprocated love for the Father, and the Spirit as the bonds of love, the spiration between Father and Son.

Therefore "in" God there is both "One and Other", there is both One-that-Loves and One-that-is-Loved. And it is not a selfish love, but a selfless love; the Father pours Himself out in love to His Son, in eternal generation of the Son; and the Son pours Himself out in love back to the Father in loving obedience; and the Spirit always proceeding, spirating, between One and Other, Lover and Beloved.

It is precisely this love that therefore comes to us, chiefly in the Incarnation, the Son of God become a human being; by whom He grants to us His life, grants to us adoption as sons and daughters. To share in Him and with Him the relationship He has with His Father, so that His Father is now our Father. That is the love which God has, the love which God is (St. John says "God is love").

It isn't a forced, robotic, or artificial love. It is the willful, fruitful, generous expression of God's Self outward, in Christ first and foremost, and by grace also to us creatures.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[NannaNae]

Does God even have the option to love us or hate us? The Bible says his nature is eternal and unchanging. If so, all he can ever do is love. Isn't his love the most forced and robotic love out there?

So why then was humanity given a choice to love him if he can't control whether or not he loves us? Why do we even need a choice to love the one thing we owe our entire existence to?

NO God is love. and he loves us all so much he would have died for each one..


but just like a parent he hates what his children may do to themselves or what they will do to others.

I mean some of your own kids you just like them more because they engage with the parents more.. .. the like the ones most who are not sulking in the corner wait for the minute they can leave the house .. the kids liked most are the ones who engage with the parents most and trust the parents most usually.


there is a lots of words that mean different kinds of love..
brotherly - parental - family and lots of kinds of respect and lots of kinds of nurture and care.. all translated as LOVE .

God is love and would die for each of us..and proved that.
but he hates what a rapist does to himself and others..and at some point sure he may hate that mongering child because there is no way that child will ever repent and stop hurting others or themselves. and they have lost their right to live in a world with anyone else.


so sure if you are planning to shock God with some level of filthy and nasty and militant and bloody. chances are he won't like you at all.. brotherly or any other way .
now He is love so if you do repent he will forgive and turn and like/love you. just like the man on the cross next to jesus repented..and the other one didn't and his eyes got pecked out, he refused to repent. but you will reap everything you have sown jus t like that man on the cross who was forgiven .... that will not be fun.
so if you insist on being death and thus being your own God.... yes he will turn his back on people until they repent or die. and if they sow to death they will reap death.
but if they sow to the spirit they will reap eternal life.. that is his offer.

 

[Emmy]

Dear alexiscurious. God is Love and God Loves us. There is also: What you sow, you shall also reap, it is God`s Eternal Law, and we all get what we deserve, SOONER OR LATER. Blessings and rewards for Love and Goodness,
and fitting consequences for all SINS. God`s Law is not always immediate, but God`s Law is eternal. Also, God is Loving and Forgiving, and God always does give us enough time to see the Light, before His Law strikes.
Jesus our Saviour is ever-ready to help and guide us: JESUS IS THE WAY.
I say this with love. Greetings from Emmy, sister in Christ.