Love is, Therefore Love Exists.
Exo 3:14 "God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'"
Exo 20:1-6 "And God spoke all these words, saying, "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. "You shall have no other gods before me. "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments."
It seems strange that God would have to tell us not to have other gods. It seems even stranger to me that we should think there are multiple competing deities or individual gods that we can separate to individual compartments of life. A supreme being that I would serve in this way and forget about while I am bowing down to another. This is utter superstition, but it is how we often live our lives. Disjointed, compartmentalized, and dysfunctional.
How do we find our way to completeness? The Absolute Love of God comes to, is shown to, those who love Him and keep His loving commandments. When we have competing loyalties we can not be complete, purity is a part of Absolute Love and He is absolutely jealous that you find wholeness that you be made complete in being fully submitted to His loving ways. He is Absolute Love.
Joh 14:21-23 "Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him." Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?" Jesus answered him, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
Absolute Love is quite different than unconditional love, a love that holds no standard no grounds is simply capitulation, it is disinterestedness, it is apathy. I realise that the phrase "unconditional love" is often substituted for "love that is not merited". In that sense it is true we can not merit or gain the love of God. We can only in humility accept God's love it is Absolute. In accepting we turn to that Love and we are changed. We can do nothing else but adore and follow.
Rom 5:2-8 "Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-- but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
You can't earn Absolute Love. It is a "condition" of being shown and knowing Absolute Love, that His Love is the overwhelming posture of your heart and life.
Exo 3:14 "God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'"
Exo 20:1-6 "And God spoke all these words, saying, "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. "You shall have no other gods before me. "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments."
It seems strange that God would have to tell us not to have other gods. It seems even stranger to me that we should think there are multiple competing deities or individual gods that we can separate to individual compartments of life. A supreme being that I would serve in this way and forget about while I am bowing down to another. This is utter superstition, but it is how we often live our lives. Disjointed, compartmentalized, and dysfunctional.
How do we find our way to completeness? The Absolute Love of God comes to, is shown to, those who love Him and keep His loving commandments. When we have competing loyalties we can not be complete, purity is a part of Absolute Love and He is absolutely jealous that you find wholeness that you be made complete in being fully submitted to His loving ways. He is Absolute Love.
Joh 14:21-23 "Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him." Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?" Jesus answered him, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
Absolute Love is quite different than unconditional love, a love that holds no standard no grounds is simply capitulation, it is disinterestedness, it is apathy. I realise that the phrase "unconditional love" is often substituted for "love that is not merited". In that sense it is true we can not merit or gain the love of God. We can only in humility accept God's love it is Absolute. In accepting we turn to that Love and we are changed. We can do nothing else but adore and follow.
Rom 5:2-8 "Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-- but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
You can't earn Absolute Love. It is a "condition" of being shown and knowing Absolute Love, that His Love is the overwhelming posture of your heart and life.
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