Comments on: Love God in 2014

By: Ben Toh

Ben Toh — Wed, 01 Jan 2014 17:38:07 +0000

Thanks, Forests, my favorite verse for loving God that moves me to my very core is 1 Jn 4:19. My question always is “How can God ever love me???” (Some people might even fully agree with my question…and I don’t blame them in the least!) And yet he does!

By: forestsfailyou

forestsfailyou — Wed, 01 Jan 2014 04:54:55 +0000

The image says “I love god I am proud to say that”. I would say that many want to “just love god”. Just it is not enough to “just love him” if we have no idea who he is or how to love him, or why we ought to love him. We need religion for that. It is the error of all those that claim Christianity is not a religion just a relationship. Our love demands more.

By: BK

BK — Wed, 01 Jan 2014 02:06:20 +0000

Hey forests, I can’t comprehend what you just wrote here… but please share it in your 1:1 study :)

By: BK

BK — Wed, 01 Jan 2014 02:05:24 +0000

Yes I think you are correct Ben. I think we need to take a closer look at what makes up heart/soul/strength and identity some components that should not be cut out or denied because God can use those parts and we need them. Some elements of humanity need redeeming/transforming and should not be cut out in the name of self-denial.

By: forestsfailyou

forestsfailyou — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 22:32:25 +0000

As far as I might be proud of a religion whose primary virtue is humility, I am very proud of my religion. I am especially proud of those parts that appear to be fantasy. I am proud of being bound to ancient dogmas and enslaved by dead creeds, for I recognize that it is only heresy that is dead, and that it is only the reasonable dogma that survives long enough to be called ancient.

By: Ben Toh

Ben Toh — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 17:00:46 +0000

Brian, Based on my limited understanding of heart/soul/strength in Hebrew, I think that conscience and identity would be included.

“Heart” refers to our inner self (emotion and mind), which I think should include our conscience, which we will lose if we cheat our conscience.

“Soul” refers to our entire person, which I think should include our identity.

I think that we lose an element of our heart and soul when our identity markers and our conscience are determined more by our ethnicity, denomination, tribal group, elitist tendencies, sectarian biases, propositional statements or core values, etc.

By: Ben Toh

Ben Toh — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 16:54:37 +0000

Absolutely, YES!

By: BK

BK — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 15:31:51 +0000

And we need to carry this further into “I will love people in 2014”. Loving God means nothing if I can’t love people. I love my wife. I love my kids, my mom, my dad, my family, my neighors, my enemies, my abusers. Love for God must spill over to love for humanity. Just as Jesus wept and embraced humanity in all its fullness, so we are called to be human.

By: BK

BK — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 15:28:56 +0000

Good thoughts, Ben. Indeed I am not ashamed to say I love God. I am not ashamed to say I love Jesus, I love the Holy Spirit and I love the Holy Scriptures.

I would expand your heart/mind/soul thinking to include two more pieces of the human existence: conscience and identity. Maybe “identity” is “self”.

I once became a “holy butcher”, chopping up my conscience and my identity, thinking this is included in “self denial” and “taking up your cross”. But I have since learned that God never intended human beings to be masochists. There is no glory in self-mutilation (either in a physical or spiritual or mental or financial sense).

I once thought God called us to live in the grotesqueness of the cross, creating pain and punishment in order to beat out our sins. In fact however, the gospel is entirely opposite. Christ’s sacrifice was “one and done”. Hebrews study is most helpful in this regard. There is one Priest who made one sacrifice. There is one Shepherd who oversees our souls.