1 John 4:20 (KJV) If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
1 John 4:7-8 (KJV) 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.
John 15:13 (KJV)
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
John 15:23 (KJV) He that hateth me hateth my Father also.
1 John 2:9 (KJV)
He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now.
Matthew 10:37 (KJV)
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
Faith, Hope and Love (1 Cor 13:13)
Galatians 5:6 (KJV) For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.
I claim to have faith in God as Father, hope in Christ as Redeemer and love by the power of The Holy Spirit as Sanctifier and in eternal life as having a life that never ends. But do I?
By claiming faith in God, there is one undeniable trait that should be highly visible. Love. And the absence of that trait, is love’s opposite. Usually called hate, but maybe more clearly defined as alone, not together. Hence the question... Do I have the faith I claim?
Love is something that is either not inherent or not immediately evident in born humanity. The very first obvious characteristic that marks humanity (and really all of creation) is need. Need is an interdependency of all created things to one another and is the playing field for relationship. A domino principle if you will. Each domino strategically placed within distance, or relationship, being able to touch and influence the next. One thing before another and each one building on and drawing from the previous. All things need, and without a supply for need, need eventually dries up and ceases. In the same logic, the requirement for need must be present for a supplier of need to exist. If there is no need, the supply for need has no outlet and the supplier is no longer necessary or needed.
Need is foundational to both love and hate and can be satisfied in two ways. The combination of giving and receiving or just by taking. Humility, graciousness and gratitude mark the symbiotic relationship of giving and receiving. This is the two-way street of love. The first sacrificing and giving, not because of deserving, but only for the benefit of the next. The next undeservedly receiving from the first with thanks. The model of love. One giving to another and a grateful response of receiving from the giver. Giving because of deserving would be payment, not giving. Credit/debit. A business transaction. Romans 4:4 (KJV) Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. Many a relationship is built upon this shaky platform. When the “bills” can no longer be paid, or the “product” no longer has value, the relationship is reduced to a contract with conditions for escape for either or both parties. Love is not so. There is no exit strategy ever intended or instituted. A never-ending cycle of supply and demand is the economy of love. The sacrificial giving of life force is requisite for ongoing life.
When sacrificial giving ceases, so too does the receiving existence of the next. This is the ground of taking. Giving and receiving can be replaced by taking. Taking is the antithesis of love. The division of together into alone. It has no regard for the previous or any other. It takes so that it has. It is need focused and lacks any humility, graciousness or gratitude. In fact, it is cruel and uncaring. Full of pride. Putting itself first and ahead of all others. Not considering the well-being or need of the one or ones being taken from. Deserving to be more than the other and taking even what the other needs regardless of the cost to the other. In the most extreme of examples, the killing of one by the other so that the one can have what the other did not give. There are relationships built on this foundation also. Each one taking turns removing from the other the things they need at the time until one day the balance tips too far and the “relationship” dissolves.
So it seems that love is a learned and evolving state which requires relationship. If love is inherent, it is buried inside of and must be drawn or dug out of the human experience because it certainly is not immediately evident. Whereas need seems to be inherent and does not require relationship at all. And with the absence of relationship, a fertile ground for hatred exists.
Faith in God as Father is a relational thing. Many people claim that faith. It is a faith of a Creator, even a ProCreator. One Who is the beginning of all things and that all things are designed by Him and come from Him. The idea of God as Father implies He is a good, loving Father and therefore, all that comes from Him, including each one of humankind and all of creation, is good. But it’s not. In fact, with little effort is is easy to see that there are bad people and bad things going on all over the world! The problem with faith stopping at the point of a good and loving Father is that when we look around at all we can see and all the people around us, we see that all is not good and question whether a Good and loving Father could/would ever allow such a state to exist. Faith in Christ however, is quite another thing. Faith in Christ takes into account the idea of a humanity that has somehow strayed from the goodness designed by the Creator and into another way that is less than, or the opposite of good. This straying, making a wrong turn, going away from the “good” design of The Father, is set right again in Christ. The Father displays and proves the character of love, His love for humanity, by showing us His Son and then, through His Son, puts us in right relation to Him, giving and receiving, never taking and never conditionally attaching the giving to the receiving.
Knowing God precludes and is a prerequisite for the ability to love. And that not knowing God leaves humankind in a state of hatred. That hatred reveals itself by selfishness. That selfishness is fully defined when humankind turns into itself, which is away from God, and seeks only its own wellbeing. Without God, it is impossible to love. Because God is love, love cannot be known unless God is known. Furthermore, the ability to know God is impossible for created humankind to know without the help of God. The idea that any created thing can contain all parts and knowledge of the creator is hard to believe. If that were so, the created would be able to create itself and there would be a lot more “creation” going on! Everything the created knows says that something had to be before something else could come into being. It is also hard to grasp that the created came from nothing. The human mind does not have either the capability or capacity to be able to identify, define and contain all it takes to “know” an all-knowing God. It is as if humans are blind or in total darkness in regards to God. Sight must be restored or light must be given. Since God is invisible, “sight” is the ability to “see” the invisible. It is God Who reveals Himself, makes himself visible, to humanity in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the light of man. He was sent from heaven by The Father, into the earth to reveal God to humanity. Without Christ, there is no light and therefore no sight. God cannot be known without “seeing” Him. Jesus said that if you know Him, you both see and know The Father. Once Jesus is known, God is known, love is also known and so too the ability to love. The antithesis of love is hate, therefore, to not know God is to not know love and to not know love leaves only hate. Love is the giving of one’s self for another. Humanity attempts to prove or define love by the giving of things rather than giving of self. For a person to know that they are loved, they must know that the one loving them loves them more than they love themselves. There is no greater love than that one would lay down one’s life for another. This is the very thing that God accomplished for mankind thru what I call the process of Christ. Jesus reveals God to mankind thru a series of events and actions that exposes and defines the way to God and the way to know Him. This process includes being put to death on account of humanity’s blindness by sin and His testimony that He knows God and came from God to show God to humanity.
If I say that I am a Christ follower then I must love you. If I do not tell you of Christ, I do not love you. If I know and believe that eternal life and living is only available to humanity by the love of God through Christ, then to not tell you of it is to hide life from you and leave you to die without the knowledge of it. It is to hate you, in effect, knowing that you are mortally wounded and leaving you to die (Luke 10:30-37).
All that to say.....am I truly who I say that I am? Do I know what love really is?
I know that I am not perfect, that I have not fully attained that which I speak of, but am I intentionally going that way? Am I truly following Christ? Am I allowing myself to be led? Do I depend on a Holy Spirit that lives within me and with God to lead me through my days? Do I do my will or the will of God?
Do I love God? Is that obvious in my love for another?
In and of myself I cannot be/do those things. I must have a real and true relationship with God, with the people around me and even with myself. I must love truly. In the community of believers, the Body of Christ, those relationships are the conduit of lifeflow and sanctifying growth for the entire Body. In the community of non-believers, it is the lifeline of salvation. It is the very Blood of Christ. Until we pass from this tangible expanse of time and space, it is a constant work and intentional choice. Once the choice is made, the intentional work is guided and supernaturally enabled by the God of Love, the Power of His Holy Spirit and the Promise of the Redeeming Christ Jesus to manifest the results of that intention in this present time and when we transition into that space beyond time
.....If the writers of Buzz Lightyear only understood what Buzz is saying when he says.......”to infinity and beyond”......it wouldn’t be an animated cartoon tag-line, a down playing of a supernatural truth, a deception, it would be a world changing production and a glory to God.
Turn to God and be filled with His Presence, filled with His Love. Receive The Love of God by believing in it and in the Life and process of Jesus Christ His Son. Then you can and will love truly. You can love one another. Live in the moment and show the love to everyone you meet and any who might see or are watching you. Tell every one about eternal life and the Way to know it. By this, they will know that you love them rather than hating them by hiding the truth and leaving them in the grip of death. After all, this is exactly what God did in that “God so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten Son so that whosoever would believe on Him would not perish, but have everlasting life”.
:)
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