We are dealing with a phantom God, a God that we cannot see nor touch; a God that we can reach only by faith. Nobody has seen Him and lived. He gives and takes away and created troublemakers just to save us but not all of us. We ought to FEAR this God! I am comfortable with the belief that God did not create us equal and because of Love. God is Love there is no problem but since we have the Gift to choose freely, He would have violated our rights had He made us equal, sharing His bounty on this Earth, offering Him that which He does not need.
People are saying the world is filled with Love, that is, HUMAN LOVE – fleshy, imperfect, and unacceptable to God.
In the past human Love was a daily communion confined only to eros. Eros a Greek god of sexual affection and desire was the Cupid in Roman mythology. Love then was just an ordinary human need similar to hunger and thirst. Passion turned into fantasies and humankind lusted for more. Men wanted their women to look more beautiful and women decorated themselves to become goddesses of innate passion and desire. Human love became an enterprise of indescribable art and was raised into the level of worship. This wickedness de-purified what is perfect in God!
Anthropologist Helen Fisher (Rutgers University) said: ¨People compose poetry, novels, sitcoms for love,."they live for love, die for love, kill for love. It can be stronger than the drive to stay alive." Elaine Hatfield a psychologist of the University of Hawaii noted: ¨It seemed only people in the West were goofy enough to marry for passionate love,.¨ "But in all of the cultures I´ve studied, people love wildly.¨
Everybody got drank with Love, saying the strangest things about it, like:
1- Kiss me and you will see stars, Love me and I will give them to you;
2- A woman of 35 thinks of having children. A man of 35 thinks of dating children;
3- When Love is not madness, it is not love;
Saul of Tarsus, who himself was a jilted lover, had a difficult time putting together the puzzle of Love in his first letter to the Corinthians. St. Thomas Aquinas declared his version to be to will the good of another that prompted Christians to love others for the mirror effect that they are loving God!
What are we going to do?
Nothing superhuman really but just keep ourselves in the righteous path within the sanity of human wisdom. Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. From here we can learn to submit to God in all humility and obey Him without being boastful. For those who earnestly believe that they are grossly in love with God and that God is loving them back by the fruits of grace, their efforts are not turned to naught. Yes God has no need of any emotion. He sees through us and cleanses our hearts of obstacles to be worthy of His Magnificence. What God DEMANDS is not the emotion of love. As Creator and Sustainer, He DEMANDS surrender, submission, obedience, worship, and work - our total self in this life. This is the Eternal Message of all the Prophets that erases the fingerprints, (now) making us equal before God.
In translating the Words of God, scribes and copyists have been dancing around honesty and accuracy. For instance the words ahab, agape (as nouns) and agapao, phileo (as verbs) have all been translated as LOVE (except one where agape is translated as CHARITY in the KJV. This was done without regard to the radical distinctions of the original words. Casual love, moral love, intimate love, brotherly love, etc. are all stuffed in a can and decorated with puzzling Greek cross-references in both the Old and New Testaments. Another problem is that the Hebrew ahab for Love is not a noun or a state but an action which leaves a sea of difference when expressed into English. Although the Greek eros didn´t make it into the Bible, agape took its stead to mean sexual love or illicit love.
As imperfection is not acceptable to God, I have considered another word in place of Love in the so-called Golden Rule to be more realistic. The word is Worship but with extended meanings as surrender+submission+obedience+work the total dedication of one´s life and trade to God alone. But a more fitting word has roared in the Old and New Testaments, emanating from the Creator Himself.
The word is FEAR and in Hebrew it is YA-RE.
FEAR is the intelligent key to a peaceful and fruitful relationship with God. Fear includes the affections of the soul towards God. I would rather Fear God than Love Him. FEAR and LOVE can´t dwell together it is true but the Love penned in 1 John 4:18 is beyond agape not just that kind of LOVE (say) to possess or be possessed. The Lord God has made FEAR OF HIM, our FRIEND. It keeps us away from sinning (Exodus 20:20). Abraham was a believer in God and was unceasingly obedient to Him. But it was only after that precise moment (Genesis 22:10) when he exhibited FEAR in Obedience, did the True God called Abraham HIS FRIEND!
The Fear of the Lord casts out all other fears. The Fear of the Lord is healthy and clean and right (Psalm 19:9).
SO HERE IT IS RE-WORDED FOR US TO TRUST:
29 ¨The most important one,"answered Jesus, ¨is this: ´Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is One. 30 FEAR the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.´ 31 The second is this: ´LOVE your neighbor as yourself.´ There is no commandment greater than these.¨
AND ONCE MORE FROM ECCLEASIASTES 12:
FEAR God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. (Saturday, Feb. 5, 2011)
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