Love Me Or Leave Me

[Monomonk]

The gist of what I am understanding in the Christian Religion today is that we are loved by God no matter how evil we might be: "God loves all little children", "God loves you", "No matter who you are, or what you have done, God loves you." Is this true? What does the Bible say? The disciples of Christ were his closest companions, but even so, he said to them: "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love." St. John 14:10. in other words if his disciples do not keep his word, he will not love them.
And Christ himself, if he does not obey his Father's commandments, his Father will not love him.

And again, Christ says: "If ye love me, keep my commandments." St. John 14:15
Therefore for Christ to love you, and for you to love Christ, the command is the same: you must obey his commandments.

I here the deceivers preach, and their message is that God loves you no matter what.
This is a Satanic message, Satan really doesn't care what you do, or who you say you love, for as long as he can keep men in sin, he can accomplish his purposes in this world. You need to understand this: as long as you are a sinner, you love Satan, not
Christ.

Do you know what men love more than anything else? It is sin. Try to take a man's
sins away from him, and he will kill you. That is one reason why they nailed Christ to
the Cross. So I say: Wake up, and lets get rid of our sins (yes, and me too), if we claim to love Christ.

More to come. monomonk

 

[Heneni]

This post raises a very interesting question. What are the commandments?

There is only one commandment that god gave the gentiles. Love him, and love your neighbour as yourself. Now how do you command someone to love you? If god intended it as an instruction,surely he knows that people are not able even if they tried to love someone because they are commanded to do so.

Love is an entirely spontaneous response, it can hardly be commanded!

Giving such a command to the gentiles would prove equally hard to obey as the law proved difficult to obey for the isrealites. Sin uses the law as a weapon to trip us up. If god commanded us to love him, then sin will use the commandment to love as a weapon to trip us up yet again.

Ask yourself this? CAN you really love god because he tells you to?

I dont think so...this is love.....god loved us first. Now if he loves us...then there is nothing that can seperate us from this love. If we think that we can have favour with god because we love him, we will slip up, because sin uses the command as a weapon to make us slip up. Then we will feel seperated and we will tend to question gods love for us, rather than question our own love for him.

What is gods idea of love? Is it obeying commandments? Do what he tells you, or else you dont love him? Do christians have the ability to love god fully and without reserve and without fail?

What god is trying to say, ...which im poorly able to put into words properly...is this.

I know you want to love me
I know you try to love me
I know your intentions is to love me... but change your focus...

I love you...that will never change. Peter was asked by Jesus three times...do you love me? Peter must have felt the piercing force of this question! Peter said he would die for jesus....and what did he do instead? He denied he ever knew jesus, and watched his best friend die a horrible death right after it. But peter missed the fact that it is god's love for us that matters, not the other way around.

Love the lord your god with all your heart, soul and mind. Notice...the body/flesh is not in there. Because the body/flesh uses the commandment to love god to trip you up, and then...your heart will condemn you...but god is greater than your heart.

Love your neighbour as yourself. The love that we humans feel towards god can hardly be demonstrated by obeying commandments. That is a legalistic opproach to love. If you feel like giving god a hug...give your brother one. If you feel like giving god a gift...give your brother one. The selfish nature of the 'self' (the body) will always try to make you love yourself more than your brother. If you want to love god, not only with your mind, body and soul, you can also love him with your flesh...and you do that by becoming self-less, and pouring your life out for your brother.

If you love me you will obey my commandment..

what is the commandment? To love...so then the above statement becomes....

If you love me you will love me with all that you are, mind body and soul, and even with your flesh. That cannot be forced on someone. That is an entirely voluntary action.

 

[Inky]

"If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love." St. John 14:10. in other words if his disciples do not keep his word, he will not love them.
And Christ himself, if he does not obey his Father's commandments, his Father will not love him.

And again, Christ says: "If ye love me, keep my commandments." St. John 14:15
Therefore for Christ to love you, and for you to love Christ, the command is the same: you must obey his commandments.

I don't see how that follows. If I tell someone, "if you love me, do this", it doesn't mean "if you don't do this, I won't love you." Even if I say "if you do this thing for me, I will love you", that doesn't automatically imply that I won't love them if they don't do it.

 

[spearman]

I here the deceivers preach, and their message is that God loves you no matter what.
This is a Satanic message, Satan really doesn't care what you do, or who you say you love, for as long as he can keep men in sin, he can accomplish his purposes in this world. You need to understand this: as long as you are a sinner, you love Satan, not
Christ.


I could not agree with you more, I have noticed this tendancy with people in my community. They seem to believe that they can live any way that pleases them and when they die the Lord will turn his head and say come on in pal. And the preachers spew out the same venom, I think most "Christians" make up there own version of Jesus to make it easy on themselves. And then heap on false teachers to tell them the most important thing in life is wealth, health, and being happy. But I could be wrong? and Im not good at quoting scripture, but dident Jesus promise that if you belong to him that life will be hard, if the world hated me, it will also hate you. I just dont understand where this kind of stuff gets started, but its quite popular now. Pick up you cross daily and follow me has turned into pick up your golf clubs and meet me at the country club. Pleasure and entertainment seem to be more important than salvation its hard to take some days. But enough of my rambling incoherant venting:sorry1: just had to get that out. But really what happend to virginity, purity, sacrifice,holiness, service to our fellow man, and being light in a dark world ok im really done now.

 

[Poisonshady313]

I can't speak on behalf of Christians... but here's a little something from the Jewish perspective:


Leviticus 26:44. But despite all this, while they are in the land of their enemies, I will not despise them nor will I reject them to annihilate them, thereby breaking My covenant that is with them, for I am the Lord their God.

45. I will remember for them the covenant [made with] the ancestors, whom I took out from the land of Egypt before the eyes of the nations, to be a God to them. I am the Lord.




God does love Israel unconditionally. I guess that's all that needs to be said about that.

 

[Monomonk]

You are so right, you are right on, good for you.

monomonk

 

[Monomonk]

God also punishes Israel unconditionally. For the evil Israel committed, God sent in the Babylonians,
then later the Romans.

monomonk

 

[Heneni]

I can't speak on behalf of Christians... but here's a little something from the Jewish perspective:


Leviticus 26:44. But despite all this, while they are in the land of their enemies, I will not despise them nor will I reject them to annihilate them, thereby breaking My covenant that is with them, for I am the Lord their God.

45. I will remember for them the covenant [made with] the ancestors, whom I took out from the land of Egypt before the eyes of the nations, to be a God to them. I am the Lord.




God does love Israel unconditionally. I guess that's all that needs to be said about that.

Hebrews 8:9
It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they did not remain faithful to my covenant,
and I turned away from them,
declares the Lord.

 

[Scuba Pete]

I here the deceivers preach, and their message is that God loves you no matter what.

It's amazing to see you call the apostles deceivers.

Do you know what men love more than anything else? It is sin. Try to take a man's
sins away from him, and he will kill you.

How true. The sins of ARROGANCE and PRIDE make men try to control others using the Scriptures of Love and Tolerance. They can not comprehend God's amazing love and so they seek to deny it to others. They are waterless springs who seek to spread their misery to as many as possible.

If you want to wake up, try reading a modern translation of Scripture. The KJV was fine in it's day, but we don't speak that dead dialect any longer. Even those who THINK they speak it can't possibly have it right.

 

[tomspug]

The gist of what I am understanding in the Christian Religion today is that we are loved by God no matter how evil we might be: "God loves all little children", "God loves you", "No matter who you are, or what you have done, God loves you." Is this true? What does the Bible say? The disciples of Christ were his closest companions, but even so, he said to them: "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love." St. John 14:10. in other words if his disciples do not keep his word, he will not love them.
And Christ himself, if he does not obey his Father's commandments, his Father will not love him.

And again, Christ says: "If ye love me, keep my commandments." St. John 14:15
Therefore for Christ to love you, and for you to love Christ, the command is the same: you must obey his commandments.

I here the deceivers preach, and their message is that God loves you no matter what.
This is a Satanic message, Satan really doesn't care what you do, or who you say you love, for as long as he can keep men in sin, he can accomplish his purposes in this world. You need to understand this: as long as you are a sinner, you love Satan, not
Christ.

Do you know what men love more than anything else? It is sin. Try to take a man's
sins away from him, and he will kill you. That is one reason why they nailed Christ to
the Cross. So I say: Wake up, and lets get rid of our sins (yes, and me too), if we claim to love Christ.

More to come. monomonk

Clearly, you aren't reading those scriptures correctly. It is not God's love that is conditional, it is ours. God's love for his children is assumed. What John's scriptures are saying is that if we are keeping God's commandments then we are showing love to Him. By not following God's commandments, we are not loving Him and therefore bringing Him, the one who will always love us, sorrow.

abide in his love.

Consider what that means... abiding in his love, as though his love is clearly already present, but the question is whether or not we also "abide" in it by both receiving it willingly and returning love to him.

 

[Poisonshady313]

God also punishes Israel unconditionally. For the evil Israel committed, God sent in the Babylonians,
then later the Romans.

monomonk

No... punishment is conditional. We screwed up and were punished for it. We were redeemed from the Babylonian exile... we'll be redeemed from this one as well.

 

[Poisonshady313]

Hebrews 8:9
It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they did not remain faithful to my covenant,
and I turned away from them,
declares the Lord.

Very cute... thing is, the book of Hebrews is meaningless to me... it's no more authoritative regarding God's will than any of the Harry Potter books.

 

[Scuba Pete]

Very cute... thing is, the book of Hebrews is meaningless to me...

Sucks to be you then, huh? I think it's great when ALL of us can appreciate the various religions without feeling the need to bash them or their scriptures. You fit right in with the OP's need to hate that which disagrees with you! Sad, that.

 

[Poisonshady313]

Sucks to be you then, huh? I think it's great when ALL of us can appreciate the various religions without feeling the need to bash them or their scriptures. You fit right in with the OP's need to hate that which disagrees with you! Sad, that.

I don't hate that which I disagree with, nor am I bashing anyone or anything. A verse from a source that wields no authority over Judaism was used to counter a verse from a source that does wield authority over Judaism... discussing the fate of Judaism.

But if you want to get all bent out of shape about it, you go right ahead.

 

[Scuba Pete]

Oh, I am not bent out of shape. The Hebrew Scriptures have no hold over me, and still I can find lots of truth in them as well as beauty. They are far from meaningless and the same can be said for the Koran as well as many other non-Christian scripture.

But if defending your bashing of another religion floats your boat go for it. Just don't expect everyone to accept it as anything but.

 

[Poisonshady313]

Oh, I am not bent out of shape. The Hebrew Scriptures have no hold over me, and still I can find lots of truth in them as well as beauty. They are far from meaningless and the same can be said for the Koran as well as many other non-Christian scripture.

But if defending your bashing of another religion floats your boat go for it. Just don't expect everyone to accept it as anything but.

The point I'm making is, the book of Hebrews is not authoritative regarding the status of Israel's covenant with God.

 

[Heneni]

Jeremiah 31:31"The time is coming," declares the LORD,
"when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.
32It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband toD them,E"
declares the LORD.

What is this new covenant?

 

[Sonic247]

Hebrews 8:9
It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they did not remain faithful to my covenant,
and I turned away from them,
declares the Lord.

For this context I think I should just mention real quick that this prophecy of the new covenant, although telling of Jesus, was given to Israel by Jeremiah, so it's not rejecting the Torah it's just the fufillment of one of it's promises.(Jeremiah 31)

edit: oh.. ha,ha nevermind, someone beat me to it.

 

[Scuba Pete]

The point I'm making is, the book of Hebrews is not authoritative regarding the status of Israel's covenant with God.

Excepting it's quoting YOUR scripture. How droll. But then, you could probably get that same quote from Harry Potter.

 

[Harmonious]

Jeremiah 31:31"The time is coming," declares the LORD,
"when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.
32It will not be like the covenant
I made with their forefathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband toD them,E"
declares the LORD.

What is this new covenant?

It was a clean slate. In context, God told Israel to stop whatever sins they were doing.

If they DID, it would be AS IF God made a new covenant, such that all the sins from the time of the Golden Calf forward would have been as if they never existed. Hence a "new" covenant.

Considering the fact that in the Five Books of Moses, which are the most authoritative when it comes to talking about Jewish law, says that God's covenant with the Children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were eternal, this means that by definition, a "new" covenant cannot be precisely that, because that would mean that the covenant God declared as eternal wasn't.

No prophet after Moses had the authority to override the prophecy of Moses, as no one has ever before or since had that clarity of "face to face" discussion with God, besides, perhaps, Adam and Eve.

So, if Jeremiah is talking about a "new covenant," it cannot mean an actual NEW covenant, or that would invalidate God's promise that the covenant with Israel.

Therefore, it was a renewal, a chance to start over, if Judea would have taken it. Unfortunately, they didn't.