This came from a commentary that i read. Your thoughts please.
The message that Jesus brought us about God, the Father. It's so foundational, so true north, and so central to the Gospel of GOOD NEWS that we over look it or take it for granted. I hope I'm about to unpackage some fresh rhema for you on this subject. But, let's start with these words.
There's nothing you can do that can't be done.
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game.
It's easy.
Nothing you can make that can't be made.
No one you can save that can't be saved.
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time.
It's easy.
You do remember the Beatles don't you?
Do you remember the year it was written? Try 40 years ago!
Love, and especially God's love is not a sentimental idea. It is a theological criterion! Want to go deeper? It is THE TEST that needs to be applied to ALL Christian DOCTRINE. Can you guess what I'm going to say next? :bigGrin:
When you apply the test of love to God's just nature, there simply cannot be a HELL! No way. No how! So, let's move on.
One cannot interpret the words of Jesus without using the "love filter". One cannot expound upon Christology and leave out the "love filter". I mean, what's your definition of the incarnation without love? What's your description of the atonement without love? I could go on; however, I hope you see the connection here.
But, I must leave you with a "real story" that demonstrates love.
Why not be real?
I had wine and cheese over the Labor Day weekend with a young 26 year old Marine who "understands" the reality of love that is so often talked about, but not so often practiced. He had taken his small outdoor stove, bought a couple dozen eggs and headed to one of the bridges within view of the Galleria where wealth abounds, and there he cooked eggs for some hungry homeless people.
No preaching! No "teams" to do ministry. Just one young man with God's heart beating within his: practicing the reality of LOVE to those who know little of it.
Got the picture? :bigGrin:
Jesus "commanded" love in as much as it can be so directed, but He understood that it was an "attitude of the heart". You can't make love a law, nor can you set out the requirments as in some doctrine or creedal statement. The church has tried to, but it's not worked. Jesus simply took two Old Testament principles (one from Deuteronomy and one from Leviticus) and Matthew quotes Jesus as simply saying all we need to do is love God (a subjective concept), and then love our neighbor (the objective outworking). Hey, this is too simple. We really need to estalish the "Seven Steps" that our denomination has determined as the WAY to LOVE! NOT!
Loving actions and acts come from an inner loving attitude of the heart!
St. Augustine put it this way, "Thou has made us towards thee, O God, and our hearts are in disquietude until they find their rest in thee." Mine sure is. Jesus had it both ways and we must also. He loved the Father and He love all of mankind. Who frees a thief on the Cross? Who forgives a woman caught in adultery. Who shows no ill will to those who have just beat and nailed him to a cross?
No one I know- except Jesus!
We have so many presuppositions about what it takes, and what it means to enter into the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is where love reigns! It's that simple. And love becomes our way of understanding Jesus. It should be a requirement for seminary students that in order to comprehend and understand Jesus that they do in depth studies on His Jewish heritage (it's who He WAS), and on unconditional love (it's who He IS).
God's love was fully seen in the life of Jesus, the Christ- fully seen in the story of the Prodigal son. You do remember this story don't you?
It is a story about a young man of a wealthy father, who one day stole a large portion of his father's wealth and ran away from home. He took that money and wasted it in riotous living. The years passed, and finally it was all gone, and he came into destitution. Finally, through an intermediary, he appealed to his father to take him back again. With open arms, his father accepted him back into the home and prepared for him a great feast. Does this sound familiar?
As they sat feasting together, all eyes were fixed upon the son. There was a big smile beaming on the face of the father, which broadened, as a look of horror suddenly spread across the countenance of the son. He grasped at his throat, finally realizing too late that he had been poisoned! And Confucius says, "So it shall be with every son that dishonors his Father." How infinite is the gap between that and the story Jesus told of the prodigal son!
Jesus came to reveal the FATHER'S LOVE.
God''s love is really ALL we need!
As I thought, I'm going to end this on the subject of God's love. We say that God is love, but then we live our lives as though He spent His fortune on everyone else. While we have separated ourselves from God, my view of God is that the divide is never complete. Never! Regardless of how dimly we may see His love, and regardless of how defective our response is to that love, there's still a thread that holds us, and will never let us go. Read Romans eight again. The church has so marginalized the power of God's love and made concepts such as the Atonement, a mechanical, transactional, legal, and juridical event rather than a personal, relational, and love action.
The chief causative agency in the world is not POWER- but LOVE!
God will not ultimately be defeated. I simply cannot see the One who created me as abandoning me, allowing my free will to be greater than His will, or birthing me into a no win situation. What god would do that? And why would He do that? God's not going to win my love by coercion, but as a result of His competence in how He designed and created me (we are talking God here, right?). How does love work? Do we really know? What claims does love make? And, what reach (and power) does love have towards those who have never experienced genuine, godly love?
It was God's purpose that we would be sons and daughters- not slaves!
God is omnipresent. He is everywhere in all things, before Jesus and after Jesus, in the most remote mountains, and barely inhabitable wastelands of the North and South poles. Where God is love is! And, God is EVERYWHERE! Those who have experienced genuine love, and practiced it (where civilization is not known), but not associated it with the name of Jesus, having never heard that name, still have experienced God. And where they have responded to that love with their love, who are we to say or state what will become of their souls? What gives us such a right to judge those hearts?
In John 13:1 we find an interesting statement that's too easily overlooked. Jesus loved them to the END! He's the picture of God, who also loves us to the END, and that end is not until the complete this physical cycle on earth. The phrase is "eis telos" which means to full completion, totally fulfilled, without failure. It doesn't mean just on the part of one party, but both.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, (1834 " 1892) was a British Reformed Baptist preacher who reminded us that, "To feel God's love is very precious, but to believe it when you do not feel it, is the noblest. He may be but a little Christian who knows God's love, but he is a great Christian who believes it when the visible contradicts it and the invisible withholds its witness."
Test the waters! View ALL theological arguments through the eyes of love- with the filter of love. Love is the heart of all valid religious doctrines. Without the heart, there really is no life.
QuoteView ALL theological arguments through the eyes of love- with the filter of love.
:thumbsup: I agree completely. Though it can be hard to do, especially when it comes to love contradicting some theological arguments, such as this one:
The Bible says God judges, but Love does not judge. Many people would say that God must judge because He is just, which apparently they assume is in contrast to His Love. ("He may be Love, but He is also Just") But, judgment has nothing to do with justice. Justice is Love, it is merciful and compassionate. Not judging. The moment you introduce judgment, compassion flies out the window. You can't love that which you are judging, and love is a requirement for true justice.
Now, how many are willing to use the filter of love to wipe away a perception of a judgmental God?
I dont think Gods judgement will be anything like the judgements that we make, I dont think God will judge things as right or wrong, good or bad, I somehow think it will be more like a revealing of ourselves to ourselves, I think it will be healing. I believe all the spiritual laws and truths will be made know to us and we will willingly release all that stops us from love, and than we will soar.
amanda