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DOES GOD JUDGE ME . . . OR DOES HE LOVE ME?
I was raised a “Christian” with certain values, beliefs . . . and an arrogant and judgmental mindset. Not consciously. I don’t believe my parents, teachers, or most of the members of my religion intended to be arrogant and judgmental hypocrites. We did not know better.
As I reflect back, it seems silly that I was unable to recognize that I thought my religion was the exclusive keeper of “The Real Truth,” and – by the exercise of simple logic – that everyone else must possess less of the truth (or perhaps none at all). No one in my religion ever explicitly said that. Perhaps like me, they never really thought about it in those terms.
How Does God Feel About Me?
It seems so obvious now. I don’t know how I missed the realization that a Loving and Just God would not, and could not, “Save” some tiny fraction of Earth’s population and damn the rest of the people who ever lived on Earth.
People He Created. People He Loves!
And why? Because they didn’t join (or, in many cases, ever even hear about) His preferred religion. So they fail. They don’t receive an “A” in Life. So God sentences all of them to eternal damnation.
Hellfire for the losers.
Even scarier is the fact that most religions teach that “The Losers” in the Game of Salvation includes the members of every other religion.
So the reward from a Loving God for everybody who is sincerely seeking Him, but chooses one of the hundreds of ‘fake’ religions instead of ‘His Preferred Religion’?
GO TO HELL!
DO NOT PASS HEAVEN. DO NOT COLLECT $200.
No “Get Out of Hell Free” Cards.
Just Hell for the humans He claims to Love so much.
Heaven’s public relations staff doesn’t even spin it as “A very long, all-expenses paid vacation to a tropical destination ‘down under’!”
Nope.
Just Hell.
Not even a half-hearted, “Sorry, Losers, but we have some excellent consolation prizes for you backstage.”
Just eternal separation from God.
WHAT?!?!
Fear is the opposite of Love (See, e.g., 1 John 4.18)
That doesn’t sound like Love. It actually sounds like the opposite of Love — Fear.
Either the Apostle John had a pretty jacked-up vision of what “Love” looks like. Or Beloved Johnny was having a brain seizure when he penned … well, almost every single thing he ever wrote.
But wait a minute…
Is there, perhaps, another possible explanation?
Just perhaps, the problem is not on God’s end. Perhaps I have it wrong. Perhaps I have attributed God with possessing an emotion and employing a tactic that He is incapable of being or using. In fact, now that I think about it — I don’t believe God ever employs ‘fear’ as a motivational tool or a strategy to win souls. He is God, after all. If He wanted to ensure victory, He could have just designed every one of us sans Freedom of Choice.
No, upon reflection, I think ‘fear’ is the prime and exclusive operational tactic employed by those who wish to deceive us. Not those who Love us.
Perhaps Big John’s moniker, “The Beloved” was indeed deserved. And perhaps three of the Youngest Disciple’s words are actually three of the most important words to be found in the Bible:
God is Love.
God is Love.
God IS Love.
GOD is Love.
God is LOVE.
God = Love.
It really is not crucial where you place the emphasis in the above sentences.
What matters is the emphasis you place on the thought it conveys.
A more crucial concept does not exist.
Believing and accepting the proposition that God is Love will change the emphasis you place on the meaning to just about everything you read in scripture; it has the power to change the very essence of the way you relate to God; it can and will change the way you relate to your friends, co-workers, members of other religions, atheists . . . and your enemies.
Embracing those three words will exponentially increase the Joy you experience in your House of Worship.
Ultimately, the proposition contained in those three words has the power to transform an aimless and hopeless Life of fear and depression . . .
Into a Life of Meaning.
A Fulfilling Life.
A Life of Abundance.
I am living proof of that fact.
A Life of Abundance
The Abundant Life, the Life Jesus came here to give us, the Life Jesus is Dying for us to accept; that Life begins the instant we initially embrace those three words.
I suspect that we will spend all of eternity learning to fully comprehend the depth, and the breadth, and the beauty, and the Truth, and the Joy expressed in those nine letters.
And one little eternity may not be nearly long enough.
But it all begins with deciding if we believe those three words.
God is Love!
For me, that journey started when I considered that my Mom would Love me every speck as much as she does now if I announced I was converting to a new religion.
Every speck as much.
I know, without question, that my Mom Loves me the same when I do every single thing she expects me to do . . . and when I screw up in the most public, offensive, and despicable ways possible.
Every speck as much.
Her Love does not wane when I ‘transgress her rules.’ It is not diminished when I refuse to follow “her will” for my Life and elect to do what I want with my Life. Her Love for me would not even be affected if I chose to call some other woman “My Mom” and refused to acknowledge her as Mom.
She would still Love me every speck as much.
Even if I chose to become a mass-murderer and serial rapist, her Love for me would not falter. I seriously doubt my Mother’s Love is capable of faltering.
She created me. So Mom Loves me.
She created me. So Mom Loves me.
Why would I think any less of the Love my Heavenly “Father” has for me?!?!
Let me say that again: Why would I think that the Dude that Self-styled Himself as “my heavenly Father” would (or could) Love me any less than my Mom?!?!?
HE IS LOVE!
He created me. So He Loves me.
That is clearly what the Apostle Paul had in mind when he summed up everything he felt was important in being a Christian in a single sentence (notice the word ‘ONLY’ chosen by the man who wrote most of the New Testament):
“The ONLY thing that matters is Faith, which is expressed by the Way we Love.” (Galatians 6.5)
“The ONLY thing that matters is Faith, which is expressed by the Way we Love.” (Galatians 6.5)
Perhaps that is why in the most circulated book and the most popular musical group in history, John and Paul proclaim the same timeless message of Joy and Truth:
“All you need is Love.”
Whether it’s the Apostles…or the Beatles… John and Paul got it right:
“All you need is Love.”
“All you need is Love.”
From my heart to yours,
Scotty b.
GREAT QUOTES ABOUT TRUTH
“The truth is not always beautiful, nor beautiful words the truth.” ― Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
“Truth is the highest thing that man may keep.” -Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.” ― Mahatma Gandhi
“It is always the false that makes you suffer, the false desires and fears, the false values and ideas, the false relationships between people. Abandon the false and you are free of pain; truth makes happy, truth liberates.” ― Nisargadatta Maharaj
“If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.” ― Virginia Woolf
“What people believe prevails over the truth.” – Sophocles, The Sons of Aleus
“One lie has the power to tarnish a thousand truths.” ― Al David
“When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.” ― Khalil Gibran
“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them” ― Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island
“A worship of truth can be idolatry if the truth is small enough.” -Austin O’Malley, Keystones of Thought
“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” ― Mark Twain
“Lies run sprints, but the truth runs marathons.” ― Michael Jackson
“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
“We are what we believe we are!” ― C.S. Lewis
“Pure truth, like pure gold, has been found unfit for circulation, because men have discovered that it is far more convenient to adulterate the truth, than to refine themselves.” – Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon
“The truth is like a nipple: the more you twist it, the more somebody is going to get hurt.” ― Jarod Kintz
“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden
“The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.” ― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
“I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world.” ― Mahatma Gandhi
“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.” ― Ernest Hemingway
“There are no facts, only interpretations.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche
“No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.” ― François de La Rochefoucauld
“The Truth Will Set You Free.” The Bible, John 8.32
WHO IS JESUS? HE WHO MADE ME WHOLE!
An adequate answer is beyond the scope of this post. Perhaps it is beyond the scope of the entire internet inasmuch as the Apostle John tells us that “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” – John 21:25 NIV
Keeping that in mind, however, one of my favorite descriptions of Jesus was made by a man who did not even know Jesus’ name. The story is recorded in John 5.11 and below is the description in three different versions of the Bible:
But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ” John 5.11 NIV
But he answered them, “He who made me well was the one who said to me, ‘Pick up your pallet and walk.'” John 5.11 NAS
He answered them, He that made me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy bed, and walk.John 5.11 KJV
Though I am generally not a fan of the King James (primarily because I am not a 17th Century Anglican – and, no, the King James is not “the original Bible” by any possible meaning of that phrase), I love the King James in this instance:
Jesus: He Who Made Me Whole!
But whether you prefer ‘The Man who made me well’, ‘The Man who healed me,’ as many versions render it, ‘or He that made me Whole’ – that is a terrific overview of who Jesus is.
It is also a great description of what He is Dying to do in our Lives (pun reverently intended)
May you be whole, healed and well,
Scotty b.
THE VERSE AFTER JOHN 3.16
It must be a tough life to follow the Most Famous Verse in the Bible. You might be incredible and yet will never get out of the shadow of your more famous sibling and be recognized on your own merit.
Can anyone actually quote John 3.17 by heart?
Just in case, here are the next two verses after John 3.16 in both the NIV and Phillips Versions
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. John 3:17-18 NIV
has not sent his Son into the world to pass sentence upon it, but to save it—through him. Any man who believes in him is not judged at all.
You must understand that God has not sent his Son into the world to pass sentence upon it, but to save it—through him. Any man who believes in him is not judged at all. It is the one who will not believe who stands already condemned, because he will not believe in the character of God’s only Son. John 3:17-18 J.B. PHILLIPS
What do the highlighted passages mean to you? “Not to condemn” and “not to pass judgment on” – these are verdicts that seem like “not guilty,” The way J.B. Phillips translates the last passage seems like “the prosecutor refused to move forward with the case against the Defendant.”
Does this mean that Jesus has done everything for us? Does this mean that Faith in Him grants me justification under the law? Is it a complete justification or only partial – leaving me with some work I must do? Or commands I must obey?
Am I saying the commands are not important? Absolutely not. They are important for us to follow so that we lead Lives of Abundance – the entire reason Jesus came here for us!
But I think we do ourselves a disservice when we focus on not running afoul of the Ten Commandments instead of focusing on Jesus. Which is focusing on Love.
As long as we live here, we WILL sin. We will have troubles. We will have trials. We will have conflicts and arguments with friends, family, and fellow Church members. And we will break the Ten Commandments.
The question is: When we do, will we be so distraught that we let it upset our Christian Life? Or will we apologize to whomever we have wronged, and apologize to God, and then LEAVE IT RIGHT THERE — knowing unequivocally that we are forgiven? Or do we tend to wallow a bit in how revolting of a Christian we actually are?
The Apostle Paul did not judge himself.
The Apostle Paul came to a place where he said he no longer even judged himself. Can we do that? Can we make the choice to be the best we can, but make daily improvement instead of perfection our goal? Can we choose to be less hypocritical and judgmental? And more Loving like our Jesus?
Eternally yours,
Scotty b.
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IF I DON’T LOVE, I DON’T KNOW GOD.
Whoever does not LOVE does not know God, because God is LOVE. 1 John 4.8 (NIV)
Have you ever let that really sink in?
No really?
Have you stopped for a minute and thought about the implications of “God is Love.”
We can go to Church each week. We can try our best to follow commandments. We can give a lot of money to the Church.
None of it matters if we do not Love.
The Beloved (cool nickname, eh?) makes it unequivocal: If we don’t LOVE others, then all our little “Christian” behaviors and rule-following makes us . . . moral, I suppose.
But perhaps we need to adopt the nickname we deserve: “CHURCHians”
We are Boy Scouts who attend Church.
Real Christians. Real CHRISTians…LOVE. It is not a platitude, it is a job description.
Real CHRISTians understand that LOVE is a verb, not a noun.
Because how can someone be a real CHRISTian if they don’t do the One Thing that Jesus repeatedly said was most important?
In fact, we often pat ourselves on the back whenever we hear talk of the third commandment since we rarely, if ever, take God’s name in vain . . . by saying His name together with an expletive.
But do we not take His name in vain when we call ourselves CHRISTians, but do not LOVE others?
In verse 8 as we read above, John varies the thought of his previous versus, and again very remarkably. Instead of “love is of God” (verse 7), we have “God is Love” – a far deeper thought; and instead of “knoweth not God,” we have “knew not God,” or, as we would say in English, “NEVER knew God.”
Let that one sink in . . .
If I do not LOVE others than I NEVER KNEW GOD.
Being a CHRISTian is much easier than we make it with our rules and rituals: All we have to do is LOVE.
Conversely, being a CHRISTian is much more difficult than we can imagine: We are called on to actually LOVE people.
The person that is not Loving his brother shows that in no real sense has he ever in the past known God: he is of the world (chapter 3:1), not of God. We must beware of watering down “God is Love” into “God is loving,” or even “God of all beings is the most loving.” Love is not a mere attribute of God; like light, it is His very nature. As “God is Light” sums up the Being of God intellectually considered, so “God is Love” sums up the same on the moral side. Only when this strong meaning is given to the statement does John’s argument hold, that “he that loveth not knoweth not God.”
A person who has no idea of any one of the attributes of God, as order, or beauty, or power, or justice, has an imperfect knowledge of God. But someone who has no idea of Love has no knowledge of God, for LOVE is Himself. God alone Loves in the fullest and highest sense of the word; for He alone Loves with perfect disinterestedness. It is LOVE which alone can explain creation.
Consider this: Why should a Being perfectly blessed in Himself create other beings, but to bestow a blessing upon them?
Next time Life gets you down, try to remember that you were created for one primary reason: Because God couldn’t stand to not have you around and He wants to bless you. He can and will make your Life full of Joy, Truth, and LOVE. But He will not force you to accept what you do not want. Decide you want Joy, Truth and Love.
Decide you want God.
From my heart to yours,
Scotty b.
WHAT IS AGAPE LOVE?
Agape, pronounced uh-GAH-pay, refers to selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love. We generally think of Agape as the highest form of Love.
Agape is a Greek word and variations of it are found throughout the New Testament. Agape perfectly describes the kind of love Jesus Christ has for his Father and for his followers, such as in this passage from John chapter 14:
15-20 “If you really love me, you will keep the commandments I have given you and I shall ask the Father to give you someone else to stand by you, to be with you always. I mean the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, for it can neither see nor recognise that Spirit. But you recognise him, for he is with you now and will be in your hearts. I am not going to leave you alone in the world—I am coming to you. In a very little while, the world will see me no more but you will see me, because I am really alive and you will be alive too. When that day come, you will realise that I am in my Father, that you are in me, and I am in you.
21 “Every man who knows my commandments and obeys them is the man who really loves me, and every man who really loves me will himself be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and make myself known to him.”
23-24 And to this Jesus replied, “When a man loves me, he follows my teaching. Then my Father will love him, and we will come to that man and make our home within him. The man who does not really love me will not follow my teaching. Indeed, what you are hearing from me now is not really my saying, but comes from the Father who sent me.
27-31 “I leave behind with you—peace; I give you my own peace and my gift is nothing like the peace of this world. (John 14; PHILLIPS)
Remember that time and time again Jesus explains His command. And His command is this: Love Each Other!
The Prefixed Life 