Love?

[Maria.V.H]

If we believe in Jesus, the biggest message he had was love, If we don´t believe in Jesus the biggest thing should still be love. how come we don´t know what love is?? Jesus did not put fences between anyone, how come we do? How come love has turned into selfishness, a power battle??? do we really love when we claim to??? how can we love when we want to control people?? Should we not strive to love better??? Does love even exist anymore?? Why am i always better than you, you better than me, if we truly loved would we then not give room to each other by acceptance??? Is it easier to hate than to love???

Any thoughts???

 

[Winken]

Thanks for the reminder. Far better to love. Hate has NO place in our lives.

 

[Rescued One]

Define love. I think love is shown in many ways. The surgeon who painstakingly saves a person's life is showing love. The first responders who go into burning buildings are showing love. The policeman who risks his own life to capture a murderer. The husband who takes a bullet intended for his wife is showing love. The wife who cooks her husband's favorite meal shows her love for him. The mother who tenderly cares for her child is showing love. The child who cleans his room when asked is showing love. The child who goes to school and doesn't bully the misfits. The neighbor who carries a meal to one in need.The son who is patient with his elderly mother who doesn't remember if she took her medication or if she sent a birthday card. There is evil in the world, but many people are sharing their love with others.

 

[Heber Book List]

'Love the Lord your G_d with all your heart, with all your being and with all your resources' [Deuteronomy 6]; if we do this we will, quite naturally, love each other and we will obey his teachings. If we do not love our Father in heaven, we cannot truly love any other, as G_d intended us to; neither will we obey his teachings in all their fullness insofar as we are able in this day and age.

A good book to read is: C.S. Lewis' Four Loves.

 

[Maria.V.H]

Define love. I think love is shown in many ways. The surgeon who painstakingly saves a person's life is showing love. The first responders who go into burning buildings are showing love. The policeman who risks his own life to capture a murderer. The husband who takes a bullet intended for his wife is showing love. The wife who cooks her husband's favorite meal shows her love for him. The mother who tenderly cares for her child is showing love. The child who cleans his room when asked is showing love. The child who goes to school and doesn't bully the misfits. The neighbor who carries a meal to one in need.The son who is patient with his elderly mother who doesn't remember if she took her medication or if she sent a birthday card. There is evil in the world, but many people are sharing their love with others.

Thank you for reminding me!!!!!

 

[Greg J.]

God is love (1 John 4:8,16). The Bible is God's Word. The Bible in its entirety, properly interpreted, is the best definition of love there is other than God himself.

If our ideas about love do not line up with what the Holy Spirit spoke through Scripture, then it is our ideas that have been tainted with sin.

God is not only interested in individuals loving individuals. He wants the way each of us loves to affect the coming thousands of generations (Exodus 20:6, 1 Chronicles 16:15, and others). Since I cannot know the consequences of my actions on people in the future (so I can decide what to do that is good and loving), I am glad God has explained what the best things to do are.

 

[Maria.V.H]

'Love the Lord your G_d with all your heart, with all your being and with all your resources' [Deuteronomy 6]; if we do this we will, quite naturally, love each other and we will obey his teachings. If we do not love our Father in heaven, we cannot truly love any other, as G_d intended us to; neither will we obey his teachings in all their fullness insofar as we are able in this day and age.

A good book to read is: C.S. Lewis' Four Loves.

That sounds easy... so if we love God we become holy and does everything right??? you don´t think we have an obligation ourselves to practise what we preach, to take responsibility for our actions?? I´m sorry, but i don´t think just because we love God that we know what love is and we do everything right, because many of us claims to love God but not a lot of us do based on how we act...

 

[Rescued One]

Thank you for reminding me!!!!!

You're welcome. This is a good thread.

1 John 4
7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.

10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

 

[Anguspure]

My thoughts:

If we believe in Jesus, the biggest message he had was love, If we don´t believe in Jesus the biggest thing should still be love. how come we don´t know what love is??

Christ Jesus showed us that Agape is the direction of Life. That God Loves us and then we in turn lay down our lives for one another, to bring life to our neighbour.
So we don't know what this Love is if we are living from the flesh which is always on a slightly hedonistic path (even if there is often still some Love in the equation) and this way leads to death.

Jesus did not put fences between anyone, how come we do?

Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. He is the well spring of Life and Love. There are no fences because He is the focal point. We should be imitating Him.
But we put up fences as boundaries so as to demark those that are "in" and those that are "out". Why? IMO Because we have so little faith in the reach of the Love of Christ Jesus and we are often more concerned about preserving our own good lives than we are about Loving those who need it most. Nevertheless the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

How come love has turned into selfishness, a power battle???

At this point I would consider that Love has been buried in a big pile of. ..sin, and is no longer anything resembling Agape as Christ has showed us.

do we really love when we claim to???

Only if we do in fact in fact Love in action. Show me your faith without works and I will show you my faith by the way that I Love.

how can we love when we want to control people??

We can't because Love always lowers and submits for the good of the other.

Should we not strive to love better???

We should seek the Spirit and learn to follow His lead and in His power. To strive on our own strength is probably a big part of the problem.

Does love even exist anymore??

Yes He does, and He stands at the door of the Church knocking. If anybody will let Him in He will come in and eat with them.

Why am i always better than you, you better than me, if we truly loved would we then not give room to each other by acceptance???

The Spirit always leads us to lay down our lives for one another in imitation of Christ who although being in the very substance of God, lowered Himself and became a servant even to death.

Is it easier to hate than to love???

I'm not sure about hate. Hate seems to be the opposite of the feeling of love i.e. We either love or hate icecream. But I don't think hate is the opposite of Agape Love. Rather the opposite of what Christ has demonstrated for us is selfishness or hedonism, and yes it is much, much easier to live selfishly than in Love because it is the nature of sin and our flesh only wants to live like this.
It is only when we truly live according to the Spirit that we can put the deeds of the flesh to death and truly Live in Love.

 

[Heber Book List]

That sounds easy... so if we love God we become holy and does everything right??? you don´t think we have an obligation ourselves to practise what we preach, to take responsibility for our actions?? I´m sorry, but i don´t think just because we love God that we know what love is and we do everything right, because many of us claims to love God but not a lot of us do based on how we act...

Did you not read what I wrote? Loving G_d (truly loving him) means obedience to his teachings - that covers the objections here re. how we 'practise what we preach'. I wrote only what Scripture says. If there is a problem with that then I would suggest a lack of understanding of Scripture might be the problem. This could be remedied by correctly understanding the role of Messiah (Jesus), and G_d's purpose in sending him into the world, knowing what people would do to him.

There is a part of the Christian Testament that says: we love, because G_d first loved us. It is up to us, in this fallen and broken world, to figure that out and live our lives accordingly, is it not? We cannot, if we are people of belief in G_d, say we know not what love is - G_d is the epitome of love. Go, therefore, and do to others the same as your Father in heaven does for you, as alluded to in the Family Prayer: forgive us, as [to the extent that] we forgive others.

Read the C.S. Lewis book. He explains the very clear differences between the four types of love. I do wonder if there might be a confusing of the four types into one sort of mega-love? I may be wrong, of course.

 

[ken777]

Many people equate love with being kind & forgiving ... and that is certainly an important part of it (Ephesians 4:32).

What is harder to understand is whether Jesus was expressing love when He rebuked sin? (Matthew 23:27) Is anger compatible with love? (Mark 3:5)

 

[Maria.V.H]

Did you not read what I wrote? Loving G_d (truly loving him) means obedience to his teachings - that covers the objections here re. how we 'practise what we preach'. I wrote only what Scripture says. If there is a problem with that then I would suggest a lack of understanding of Scripture might be the problem. This could be remedied by correctly understanding the role of Messiah (Jesus), and G_d's purpose in sending him into the world, knowing what people would do to him.

There is a part of the Christian Testament that says: we love, because G_d first loved us. It is up to us, in this fallen and broken world, to figure that out and live our lives accordingly, is it not? We cannot, if we are people of belief in G_d, say we know not what love is - G_d is the epitome of love. Go, therefore, and do to others the same as your Father in heaven does for you, as alluded to in the Family Prayer: forgive us, as [to the extent that] we forgive others.

Read the C.S. Lewis book. He explains the very clear differences between the four types of love. I do wonder if there might be a confusing of the four types into one sort of mega-love? I may be wrong, of course.

Apparently not, i know i have a problem making my own truth, but frankly i´m proud of it

 

[Maria.V.H]

Hiiii precious people.

Thank you very much for telling me your point of view, i appreciate it!

May i tell you mine???

It seems to me there is many people who tells me that Gud and Jesus is love, and i totally agree, what i find amusing is there is not much personal experience behind the words you say. God is love yes, but what about your personal experience with the subject???? To me it seems like most of you talk about a manual, the manual is God=love, but not a lot of you talk about the finished product after building the product after the manual. I totally understand that we are different, but it seems to me that it is more important to read verses not live what the verses speak or understand what they say by proving it.

I don´t care to read in a book, it´s not the most important to me, i want to draw lines between the two, the teaching and the personal experience. To me the book is not what is most important it´s how we prove that we have understood the book. Frankly to me i can´t experience just by reading can i?? i think not, i need to feel it in my heart, i need to explore by experience.

Yes, if you believe in God you might become a better human being, but i doubt it, because it´s still about experience, it´s within the experience you get faith i think. Love is something we are born with, it´s a natural skill. So does people who don´t believe in God not love??? I think they do, and i think there is atheists out there who can love more than me or you. Yes, God made us, therefore he put the love inside us, but that has nothing to do with us owning up to it now does it???? We preach and preach but we don´t take responsibility, to understand what it truly is we believe in.

What love is to me is to set myself second, i´m not saying i´m perfect at that, but i know it is how it´s supposed to be, that´s all that matters, that is my experience, because if you give you will gain. I believe it´s about humanity, either you understand it or you don´t.

I´m sorry for my weirdness, please don´t kill mehope you will forgive me, hope i don´t offend anyone!!!

I wish you a beautiful day, love you

 

[Heber Book List]

Hiiii precious people.

Thank you very much for telling me your point of view, i appreciate it!

May i tell you mine???

It seems to me there is many people who tells me that Gud and Jesus is love, and i totally agree, what i find amusing is there is not much personal experience behind the words you say. God is love yes, but what about your personal experience with the subject???? To me it seems like most of you talk about a manual, the manual is God=love, but not a lot of you talk about the finished product after building the product after the manual. I totally understand that we are different, but it seems to me that it is more important to read verses not live what the verses speak or understand what they say by proving it.

I don´t care to read in a book, it´s not the most important to me, i want to draw lines between the two, the teaching and the personal experience. To me the book is not what is most important it´s how we prove that we have understood the book. Frankly to me i can´t experience just by reading can i?? i think not, i need to feel it in my heart, i need to explore by experience.

Yes, if you believe in God you might become a better human being, but i doubt it, because it´s still about experience, it´s within the experience you get faith i think. Love is something we are born with, it´s a natural skill. So does people who don´t believe in God not love??? I think they do, and i think there is atheists out there who can love more than me or you. Yes, God made us, therefore he put the love inside us, but that has nothing to do with us owning up to it now does it???? We preach and preach but we don´t take responsibility, to understand what it truly is we believe in.

What love is to me is to set myself second, i´m not saying i´m perfect at that, but i know it is how it´s supposed to be, that´s all that matters, that is my experience, because if you give you will gain. I believe it´s about humanity, either you understand it or you don´t.

I´m sorry for my weirdness, please don´t kill mehope you will forgive me, hope i don´t offend anyone!!!

I wish you a beautiful day, love you

Had you mentioned a half of that in your first post, I think you would have received very different answers from the posters who have responded so far

 

[Maria.V.H]

Had you mentioned a half of that in your first post, I think you would have received very different answers from the posters who have responded so far

I´m sorry, i bow in the dust, but i don´t agree

 

[Anguspure]

Many people equate love with being kind & forgiving ... and that is certainly an important part of it (Ephesians 4:32).

What is harder to understand is whether Jesus was expressing love when He rebuked sin? (Matthew 23:27) Is anger compatible with love? (Mark 3:5)

Jesus equated anger against a person to murder, and this is because it harms the relationship between 2 people which murder is the conclusion.
Now there are times when the breaking with a relationship is necessary particularly when the breaking of that relationship serves to protect against harm (Love always protects). These relationships may be with something like sin and death but very occasionally (but IMO less than many would think), they might be with a person or people who are clearly acting as a personification of sin in a persons life.
In these cases perhaps anger directed at the problem would be appropriate in so far as it cuts a relationship with sin, and this would be a righteous anger.
Nevertheless with Jesus as our Lord and Master we should always consider the leading of the Spirit in these cases and in any case: “In your anger do not sin”: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.

 

[Godlovesmetwo]

The first responders who go into burning buildings are showing love.

The poster who presses "Like" is showing love.

 

[Godlovesmetwo]

We preach and preach but we don´t take responsibility, to understand what it truly is we believe in.

I like what you are trying to do here Maria. You are trying to make our forums real. There is no good us debating on the value of "love" unless we are truly alive with love ourselves.
Your "love" is working on here Maria. Keep up the God (good) work!

 

[Godlovesmetwo]

Jesus equated anger against a person to murder

I have a problem with this assertion. Anger is a natural emotion in humans that needs channeling in healthy ways. it is when we allow anger to grow through rumination into full blown rage that gets us into trouble. Jesus got angry at the moneylenders in the Temple didn't He?

 

[Anguspure]

I have a problem with this assertion. Anger is a natural emotion in humans that needs channeling in healthy ways. it is when we allow anger to grow through rumination into full blown rage that gets us into trouble. Jesus got angry at the moneylenders in the Temple didn't He?

If you follow the rest of what I wrote you will find that righteous anger has its place, even full blown rage is useful if it is necessary.

My point, the point of the Orthodox Rabbi (I received this from) and Jesus' point, I believe, is that anger breaks relationship.
The point of murder is to break relationship, the point of rage is to break a relationship and the point of anger is to break relationship, the former eventually comes from the later.

Yes, Jesus got angry at the money lenders in the temple. They were bringing accounting and capitalism into the Holy Temple of His Father and the relationship needed to be broken. If the Levite's weren't going to do it in honor of their God then it fell to the Son of God to get the job done, and His anger was extremely gentle, pathetic one might say (He only overturned a few tables and talked about dens of thieves) compared to the wrath that He will eventually bring upon His enemies.