Can Anything Be Sweeter than Honey?

So it is possible to find out how love is, how it looks like. By studying God we can know about love. Where can we find God then? First, in the Bible. As we have seen, the Bible is about God. This is the main purpose of the Bible: to teach us about God, to describe God, to show us how wonderful He is, to show us then how Love is. What does it mean to love? Whatever we see God doing in the Bible. How is love? However God is.

Is there any other source of the knowledge of God? The Bible is telling us that nature is also speaking to us about God (see Psalms 12; Romans 1,2) although not as clear as the Bible does. The history and especially the history of those people that had a close connection with God, is another source of knowledge. The things that are happening daily are another tool which God is using to tell us about Him. These are some of them, not all of them. But, as we have said from the beginning, the Bible is the judge, the final authority over all these means. The Bible has the final word.

Now, is it enough to know about love? Is it enough to know how love is? Is this knowledge going to make us experience love? Of course not! Knowing how to prepare a tasty food is not going to make the hunger disappear; will make it even stronger! So the next question is how can I enjoy love? Watch this: if we would replace the word love with God (because God is love) then the question will be: How can I enjoy/experience/taste God?

Sadly, for so many people, God is anything else but something to enjoy. At most He is somebody fair but distant, somebody so different from us, some kind of (just) judge who is deciding things for us; somebody that we cannot “touch”; somebody that we cannot call my best friend, my dearest father, my wonderful … anything. Somehow God today is seen so different from what He really is: LOVE; wonderful, somebody so pleasant that you would wish to be around Him forever.

How do you see God? What is God for you? Why don’t you share with us?

Love - the simplest but also the most rejected definition

So what is love? It is so different from what most of us think!

There are different definitions for love and I will not go into discussing all of them. I will just take the most predominant one. Love is feeling. It has to do with our senses and emotions. It’s something that feels good, so good! What is happening when those feelings disappear? The answer which is given: love disappeared. I need to look for it again. Instability, chance, fate, karma… So many of us have experienced those strong feelings which we called love and, after some time, they have grown dim and after more time, they may even have disappeared. Love, it is believed, is something that comes and goes, something that is beyond our control. What we can do is to enjoy it as long as we have it because sooner or later will vanish away. Is this love? No wonder so many are afraid to look for it although they cannot stop looking and hoping that one day, maybe… Maybe … what?

The answer is so, so simple. According to the Bible, “God is love”; if God is love then whatever God is then that is what love is! Does it sound like running in circle? It could if you believe that we cannot know God. But the great news is that we can know God. And if we can know God then we can know what love is. Knowing God is the only way of knowing about love. This is the beauty of Christianity and the Bible: they help us to see how wonderful God/love is. How can we enjoy it, how can we help others do it …

So the next step is: where can I look for God? Is there any place where I can find God? Is there any way of getting in contact with Him? Is there any way of becoming familiar with Him?

L___? What is it?

Let’s start with God. For those of you familiar with the Bible, this passage is well known: God is love! It is found in 1 John 4:8. As you can see, it doesn’t say that God loves or He is loving, but He is LOVE. This is what He is, His nature! LOVE! The God which the Bible portrays is LOVE!

How can we summarize the Bible in one word? One day Jesus was asked: “Which commandment is the greatest”? The answer: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second like it is: Love your neighbor as yourself.” This is it! LOVE! Love God and love those around you! But Jesus didn’t stop here. He continued saying: “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets”. Matthew 22:35-40. This expression, the law and the prophets, was for that time a way of saying the whole Bible. So everything that is in the Bible is based on and comes from this commandment: LOVE.

Another way of putting this: Jesus came on earth to show us how God is (check Heb. 1,1-3) and we have seen that God is love. In John 5:39 we are told that the Scriptures testify/speak about Jesus. So the Bible is showing us how Jesus is which Jesus came to show us how the Father which is love. What is the word that summarizes the Bible? LOVE!

And because Christianity is about God and has the Bible as its book/manual, point of reference, or supreme authority, then Christianity could be summarized using the same word: LOVE! What a wonderful day was that one in which I understood these things!

But wait you might say! What is love then?

We have seen that God is love, the Bible is about God which is love and Christianity is about love but what is love? What a good question! Love is maybe the most misunderstood concept/reality today. So many people are speaking and writing about love, there are countless movies about love, the modern music (most of it) is about love. And everybody is looking for love, everybody wants to experience love. Many have been disappointed and more will be: what they thought was love, after some time, vanished away: from their own souls or from the souls of those who told them: “I love you”. For some love is something which they think can be found only in books or in movies but not so much in real life. Others have reduced it at the level of chemicals: some hormones are the ones responsible with it. What is love for you?

Perhaps this is the most important question of our age: What is love?

Just ONE word for ... everything!

If you would be asked to summarize Christianity in just one word (as it should be and not as it is/was lived by many who call themselves Christians), which one would you choose? Of course, it depends on your background, your experiences with Christianity, your knowledge about Christianity, your … you. What about if you would be asked to summarize the Bible in just one word, which one would you choose? What about God? If you would be told that you are allowed to use just one word to describe God, which one would you prefer? Please, before reading further, take just 60 seconds and answer yourself these questions. Resist the inclination of reading the next paragraph and stop for one minute. It will help you!

When you ask this question, you get a lot of answers depending on the person you ask. If you would have asked me these questions some time ago, I would have said that Christianity is something necessary (if you want to go to heaven, if you want to avoid bad things etc). That would have been the key word for me. The Bible? The manual that would teach me how. God? Maybe the judge… The One who will decide if I can go in or not. Now, these are not the only words which I would have used but I think the describe pretty well my way of thinking at that time. 

It would be great if you would also share with us what is your opinion! And will help me too!

The way we see these things is … our way of seeing them. Many of our description are based on the history, facts, people we know, our own experience. But how would God summarize Himself in just one word or how He would summarize the Bible or how He would describe Christianity in just one word? We will see this in our next post.