God is more than just love

[Annagrace]

 

[Anaphora]

God is love and also vengeance. Its written in Peter, God Hope's they will repent. Many people wont. Jeremiah chapter 5, God judges sin. Romans chapter 12, vengeance belongs to God. Psalm, God is angry with the wicked every day. Nahum chapter 1, the heathen and wicked will get vengeance. Those who love and serve God have nothing to worry about.

 

[BB1956]

THE Most High God, who is love, and because of love of life, created mankind, and gave us his written Word, the Holy Scriptures, setting forth many promises therein. These prophecies foretold that in time a holy One would be brought forth to bless all the families of the earth. That promised One was Jesus Christ, the True God's only begotten Son. Today mankind, conceived in iniquities, conceived in sins, wonders why there is so much difficulty, why so much pain, sickness and sorrow among men, why so much selfishness and discontent in this world, so long after this promised One, Jesus Christ, was brought forth. Mankind wants and seeks blessings. So they ask: “If Jesus Christ is the promised Seed of God and he is to bring blessings that will affect men of all nations, why is it that something is done about it now?

One of the most wonderful things that ever occurred on earth was this miracle, a man-child born of a virgin. It was Almighty God in heaven who, through his holy spirit, transferred the life of his heavenly Son to the virgin’s womb and in due time brought forth the promised Seed. God’s prophet Isaiah had foretold this: “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign. Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son: and his name shall be called Emmanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14).

This marvelous miracle was performed in fulfillment of God’s promise, a virgin bringing forth the Son of God, and His further promise will also have fulfillment, “His kingdom shall never have an end.” Why, then, was God’s Son brought forth in this manner? Primarily to make known the name, the Word and the kingdom of the Most High God, his Father in heaven. In his ministry Jesus himself told us that very thing: “No man has ever seen God; but now his only-begotten Son, who abides in the bosom of the Father, has himself brought us a clear message.” (John 1:18) Yes, this Son, who had resided with his Father in his prehuman existence, was transferred from heaven to earth and made a “little less than the angels” to give us a clear message from his Father. He knew his Father, and we come to know the Father because the Son was with the Father. For the Son said in prayer to the Father: “I have exalted thy glory on earth, by achieving the task which thou gavest me to do; now, Father do thou exalt me at thy own side, in that glory which I had with thee before the world began. I have made thy name known to the men whom thou hast entrusted to me, chosen out of the world.” (John 17:4-6) So Jesus’ primary purpose on this earth was to make known his Father’s name, Word and kingdom. His secondary purpose was to provide the ransom sacrifice for mankind.

These two purposes accomplished by Jesus are great blessings that affect us all. So this gift of God, this sending of his Son into the world for these purposes, shows the great love that God has for us and proves that God’s way is love. Time and again he has manifested his love toward mankind, and he is constantly arranging for blessing them, even though man today thinks that God is slow in doing it. But are we patient enough to find out further what God has done, is doing and will yet do for us?

From his walking with Jesus Christ, the apostle John tells us that “God is love”, which means that His way is love in guiding and dealing with mankind. “How can the man who has no love have any knowledge of God, since God is love? What has revealed the love of God, where we are concerned, is that he has sent his only-begotten Son into the world, so that we might have life through him. That love resides, not in our shewing any love for God, but in his shewing love for us first, when he sent out his Son to be an atonement for our sins. Beloved, if God has shewn such love to us, we too must love one another. No man has ever seen God; but if we love one another, then we have God dwelling in us, and the love of God has reached its full growth in our lives.” (1 John 4:8-13) God is love, it tells us everything about the True God, even when he punishes the sinner, destroys the wicked.

 

[Fastfredy0]

• Love = Favored. You are loved to the degree you are favored/benefited.
• Love is Holy/ethical/immutable. That which is not holy is not loved. Habakkuk 1:13b You cannot look on wickedness with favor, 1 Corinthians 13:6 Love rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth
• Love is a "bond of unity" (Col. 3:14). Two cannot walk together unless they are agreed.

 

[Christ_empowered]

I’m with Fastfredy0 …

Largely because he’s using Scripture. The bullet format helps too.

 

[Tenchi]

While there are many important things, biblical things, the woman in the video points out, her thinking is slogan-ish, almost a chain of Christian truisms strung together.

Love is, at bottom, strong desire - not for oneself (which is lust), but for another; it is a strong, over-riding desire to know and serve another. The Psalmist described this desire for God as a thirsting, or yearning, or longing for Him (Psalms 42:2; 63:1; 84:2). Paul, the apostle, offered a similar description of an all-consuming desire for Christ:

Philippians 3:7-10
7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ
9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—
10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,

In agape form, this strong desire - love - expresses itself in the manner demonstrated by Christ (1 John 4:7-11) and described by the apostle Paul 1 Corinthians 13:4-8:

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant
5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends...

The expression of a strong desire for God, a love for Him, is necessarily constrained by God's truth and shaped by His holiness. We love, "not in word, but in deed and in truth," (1 John 3:18); we should be "holy and blameless before God in love" (Ephesians 1:4). Agape love, then, that is divorced from God's truth and neglectful of His holiness is not agape love.

Love - a strong, over-riding desire to know and serve another - precedes those things that express it. Too often, though, the effects, or products, of love are confused for love itself. Under this mistaken thinking, obedience becomes synonymous with love. But, as the Pharisees amply demonstrated, obedience to God's laws by no means indicates a person actually loves Him. Jesus said of the professionally-obedient Pharisees, known for their careful observance of God's laws, that their hearts were far from God. (Matthew 15:8).

The apostle Paul also distinguished love from its effects when he wrote:

1 Corinthians 13:1-3
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

No matter what a person might say, or know, or do, if these things don't have love as an underlying motive, which is to say preceding and giving rise to them, they are all spiritually useless. Many times, however, believers with hearts cold toward God, who don't desire Him really at all, obey His commands and say to themselves, "I've done the right thing, I've obeyed God even though I'd rather have done otherwise, and so this proves I love Him." They've acted from fear, perhaps, or guilt, duty or self-righteousness in their obedience to God rather than love, but doing so rules out their "obedience" as spiritually worthwhile.

The First and Great Commandment is to love God - to desire to know and serve Him above all else (Matthew 22:36-38) - not go to church, or give a tithe, or teach a Sunday School class, or sing on the worship team. Getting this wrong, putting right action before right desire, doing the former separate from the latter, is to disobey the First and Great Commandment and to stand in jeopardy of the terrible end of those in Christ's story in Matthew 7:21-23.

 

[BB1956]

Tenchi said,
Too often, though, the effects, or products, of love are confused for love itself. Under this mistaken thinking, obedience becomes synonymous with love. But, as the Pharisees amply demonstrated, obedience to God's laws by no means indicates a person actually loves Him. Jesus said of the professionally-obedient Pharisees, known for their careful observance of God's laws, that their hearts were far from God. (Matthew 15:8).[/QUOTE\]

The scriptures don't speak out against obedience to God. In fact obedience is linked with love of God.(Deuteronomy 5:10; 11:1, 22; 30:16; 1 John 5:3) The scriptures say obedience is better than sacrifice.(1 Samuel 15:22)
There in Matthew 15:1-9 Jesus said that the Pharisees were obedient to commands of men. So the Pharisees were not putting the law covenant first in their lives. The Pharisees knew the law covenant but it was the oral law, which wasn't inspired by God but simply the traditions of men, that the Pharisees put first and foremost, even if the oral law contradicted the law covenant. So I don't agree that the Pharisees were ever putting the law covenant first and obeying it. They did know the law covenant that's true, but were not obedient to it, they were obedient to the oral law, which the scriptures show were just commands of men.

 

[Tenchi]

The scriptures don't speak out against obedience to God.

As I pointed out, God's word clearly speaks out against obedience that is hypocritical, that arises from some motive other than the motive of love for God.

In fact obedience is linked with love of God.(Deuteronomy 5:10; 11:1, 22; 30:16; 1 John 5:3)

Yes, of course love for God gives rise to obedience to His commands. I've not suggested otherwise. But obedience very often arises from other motives - fear, obligation, self-righteousness - and when it does, that obedience is rejected by God. This is what both Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, and Christ in Matthew 7:21-23, explained.

There in Matthew 15:1-9 Jesus said that the Pharisees were obedient to commands of men. So the Pharisees were not putting the law covenant first in their lives. The Pharisees knew the law covenant but it was the oral law, which wasn't inspired by God but simply the traditions of men, that the Pharisees put first and foremost, even if the oral law contradicted the law covenant. So I don't agree that the Pharisees were ever putting the law covenant first and obeying it. They did know the law covenant that's true, but were not obedient to it, they were obedient to the oral law, which the scriptures show were just commands of men.

In context, in Matthew 15:1-9, Jesus is giving the Pharisees as good as he's getting from them, pointing at the very thing in their own lives of which they were accusing his disciples. But the heart of Christ's criticism of the Pharisees was that they honored God with their lips but their hearts were far from Him (vs. 8). Were the Pharisees, then, in constant, open contravention of the Mosaic law? No, they were so keen to live under law that they'd made some of their own! They wouldn't have been regarded by their fellow Jews as the religious leaders of their time if they'd been grossly neglectful of the laws of God. It was the very duplicitousness of their lives - obeying God and appearing to have a heart for Him, but actually having no love for Him whatever - that made them the hypocrites Jesus said they were.

This same duplicity exists in many believers today, who seek to show they love God by their "Christian living," when, in their hearts, they are far from Him, desiring many other things much more than they do Him.

In any case, your objection to my reference to Christ's words doesn't negate what Paul wrote concerning love.

 

[BB1956]

In context, in Matthew 15:1-9, Jesus is giving the Pharisees as good as he's getting from them, pointing at the very thing in their own lives of which they were accusing his disciples. But the heart of Christ's criticism of the Pharisees was that they honored God with their lips but their hearts were far from Him (vs. 8). Were the Pharisees, then, in constant, open contravention of the Mosaic law? No, they were so keen to live under law that they'd made some of their own! They wouldn't have been regarded by their fellow Jews as the religious leaders of their time if they'd been grossly neglectful of the laws of God. It was the very duplicitousness of their lives - obeying God and appearing to have a heart for Him, but actually having no love for Him whatever - that made them the hypocrites Jesus said they were.

This same duplicity exists in many believers today, who seek to show they love God by their "Christian living," when, in their hearts, they are far from Him, desiring many other things much more than they do Him.

In any case, your objection to my reference to Christ's words doesn't negate what Paul wrote concerning love.

Jesus showed the utmost respect for the Torah and for those to whom it granted genuine authority. (Matthew 5:17-20; Luke 5:14; 17:14) But he frequently denounced those who overstepped the commandments of God. (Matthew 15:3-9; 23:2-28) Such men followed traditions that came to be known as the oral law. Jesus rejected its authority. In turn, many rejected him as the Messiah. They believed that only someone supporting the traditions of those in authority among them could have God’s backing.

You know as I do the Israelites came into a covenant relationship with YHWH God at Mount Sinai in 1513 B.C.E. Through Moses, they received the statutes of that covenant. (Exodus 24:3) Following these regulations would allow them to ‘prove themselves holy as YHWH their God was holy.’ (Leviticus 11:44) Under the Law covenant, worship of YHWH God involved sacrifices offered by a designated priesthood. There was to be a central place of worship which as you know eventually became the temple in Jerusalem.(Deuteronomy 12:5-7; 2 Chronicles 6:4-6)

So as do I, you know the Mosaic Law provided the overall structure for Israel’s worship of YHWH God as a nation. However, some details were not explicitly stated. For instance, the Law forbade work on the Sabbath, but it did not draw an explicit line between work and other activities.(Exodus 20:10)

If YHWH God had seen fit to do so, he could have provided detailed regulations covering every conceivable question. But he had created humans with a conscience, and he allowed them the initiative to serve him with a degree of flexibility within the framework of his statutes. The Law made provision for judicial cases to be dealt with by priests, Levites, and judges. (Deuteronomy 17:8-11) As cases increased, certain precedents were set, and no doubt some of these were passed on from generation to generation. Methods of caring for the priestly duties at Jehovah’s temple were also conveyed from father to son. As the nation’s collective experience increased, so did its traditions.

At the heart of Israel’s worship, however, remained the written Law given to Moses. So you know what Exodus 24:3, 4 states: “Moses came and related to the people all the words of Jehovah and all the judicial decisions, and all the people answered with one voice and said: ‘All the words that Jehovah has spoken we are willing to do. Accordingly Moses wrote down all the words of YHWH." It was in keeping with these written commandments that God concluded his covenant with the Israelites. (Exodus 34:27) So in fact, the Scriptures nowhere mention the existence of an oral law.

The Mosaic Law clearly left primary religious authority and instruction in the hands of the priests, the descendants of Aaron. (Leviticus 10:8-11; Deuteronomy 24:8; 2 Chronicles 26:16-20; Malachi 2:7) Through the centuries, however, some priests became unfaithful and corrupt. (1 Samuel 2:12-17, 22-29; Jeremiah 5:31; Malachi 2:8, 9) During the era of Greek domination, many priests compromised on religious issues. In the second century B.C.E., the Pharisees, a new group within Judaism that distrusted the priesthood, began instituting traditions by which the common man could consider himself as holy as the priest. These traditions appealed to many, but they were an unacceptable addition to the Law.(Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32)

The Pharisees became the new scholars of the Law, doing the job that they felt the priests were not doing. Since the Mosaic Law did not allow for their authority, they developed new methods of interpreting Scripture through cryptic allusions and by other methods seemingly supporting their views. As the chief caretakers and promoters of these traditions, they created a new base of authority in Israel. By the first century C.E., the Pharisees had become a dominant force in Judaism.

As they collected existing oral traditions and searched for Scriptural implication to establish more of their own, the Pharisees saw the need to give added authority to their activity. A new concept regarding the origin of these traditions was born. The rabbis began to teach: “Moses received Torah at Sinai and handed it on to Joshua, Joshua to elders, and elders to prophets. And prophets handed it on to the men of the great assembly.”(Avot 1:1, the Mishnah)

In saying, “Moses received Torah,” the rabbis were referring not only to the written laws but to all their oral traditions. They claimed that these traditions, invented and developed by men, were given to Moses by God at Sinai. And they taught that God had not left it up to men to fill in the gaps but had orally defined what the written Law had left unsaid. According to them, Moses passed this oral law down through the generations, not to the priests, but to other leaders. The Pharisees themselves claimed to be the natural inheritors of this “unbroken” chain of authority. Because Jesus condemned the oral law which were actually traditions of men the Pharisees as an organization would never accept Jesus as the Messiah because the Pharisees believed the Messiah would have to accept their oral law if he truly was the Messiah.

You can believe that the Pharisees were obedient to the law covenant when Jesus himself shows they cared more about their tradition or oral law than the law covenant. The Pharisees often opposed Jesus regarding Sabbath observance, traditions, and association with sinners and tax collectors. (Matthew 9:11; Mark 7:5; Luke 6:2)

"The nature of the difference [between Jesus and the Pharisees] is made clear only in the light of the two opposing understandings of God. For the Pharisees, God is primarily one who makes demands; for Jesus he is gracious and compassionate. The Pharisee does not, of course, deny God’s goodness and love, but for him these were expressed in the gift of the Torah [Law] and in the possibility of fulfilling what is there demanded. . . . Adherence to the oral tradition, with its rules for interpreting the law, was seen by the Pharisee as the way to the fulfilment of the Torah. . . . Jesus’ elevation of the double command of love (Matt. 22:34-40) to the level of a norm of interpretation and his rejection of the binding nature of the oral tradition . . . led him into conflict with Pharisaic casuistry.” (The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology.)

 

[Tenchi]

Uh, yeah...not sure why you're info-dumping...