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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?
Friday, January 29, 2010
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Question: What about my lovely asian friend? All his life he worshiped Buddha as a faithfull follower and, no doubt, he is full of compasion, kindness, and sacrificing love, unlike manny christians (no offence). He never met your God! He barely heard of Him. Will you tell me that he's a fake, it's nothing genuine there, just an outside behavior??...It's not the case, believe me... That acctually Satanas is playing with his life? Who is the source of his love? What do you thing about this?
ReplyDeleteIf this is the case, I would love to have him as my good friend! He is a joy for God even if he doesn't know Him. If he lives to the best of his abilities and knowledge, he is on the right path.
ReplyDeleteWhat is the origin of his love? The Bible says: "The fruit of the Spirit is love..." Galatians 5,22. And in James 1,17: "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights..." Even if he doesn't know it, God is the One who not only gives him the strength to love but also motivates him and teaches him how to do it!
As I have said before, the Bible is one of the tools that God uses to tell us about Himself. There are others like: nature (read Romans 1,19-20), day by day events, conscience (I don't say that God is our conscience but He speaks through our conscience) etc. Now, these tools are not as effective as the Bible but, if this is all that a person has, then God will use these. And if that person lives according to what he/she knows then will receive more.
Appreciate the question. Hope that my answer was satisfactory. If not, please let me know.
Thank you! A rigorous answer, although pretty dogmatic, due, most likely, to your christian heritage. But beneficial for me.
ReplyDeleteStill...Earlier, during your input, you said(quote),By studying God we can know about love. As you can imagine, if you will ask my friend about his god, he will precisely name the former Prince Siddhartha, Lord Buddha. THAT is for him the source of his inspiration (Love). Considering just two forces in the world - good and evil - what do you think, is evil the one who ispires my beloved friend? Because...if that's not the christian God, then...who else can be? Or is God using that round, cute, dead image(caracter) to reach billions of his children?
What is the origin of his love? The Bible says: "The fruit of the Spirit is love..." Galatians 5,22. And in James 1,17: "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights..." Even if he doesn't know it, God is the One who not only gives him the strength to love but also motivates him and teaches him how to do it!
ReplyDeleteAccording to what it is written above, God is the One who inspires every bit of true love even if we don't know it. Even if I believe that Buddha is doing it. As long a person is honest (living in accordance to what they know it true and good), that person has God as the source of his inspiration (in good things).
What about the bad things he is doing it in his sincerity? What do you think?
...Maybe this time I didn't make myself clear. I had understood your opinion about who is ispiring the man, but now I wanted to know what do you think about Buddha himself: evil vs. divine. Is God mingleing with Satanas' devices? Or is the poor creature worshiping God in a wrong way? For me this is a mistery...Because, drawing nearer to the eastern religious world, you will find out how full of positive values this is and, the results accordingly, many unswerving people, as their ancestors also were, for thounsad years...Extending, I am in the same obscure point regarding Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, just to mention few of them. From a christian vision, what will happen with all those good people? And if they will be alright, why trubble them with christian misionarism? ( recall, please, the cristians initiated so far two world wars and extinsions of whole nations). If they are anyway geting The Love, as you said, from God, aren't they reaching the pick following a different, but valid path?
ReplyDeleteIndeed, my buddhist friend is not perfect. But he is daily eliminating his impurities, endeavouring to get , one day, the total "metta". This will be his answer :) My opinion? Before any of my judgements, you should know what I am: I would like to say that I am a beliver, but a dusty one. And, moreover, I recently found myself incapabil to carry through what I thot I strongly believe. So...for now, I prefer not to share my insignificant beliefs. Maybe aboard the way...I am rather searching for some help from a...simple christian. If that is O.K. with you, ofcourse.
Good to see you back! As far as I can see there are more questions here and not easy ones. So I won't be able to answer them properly in just one post.
ReplyDelete1. What will happen with all those good people who didn't know God; who were honest in what they believed and lived; who lived according to all their knowledge and skills? As I have said before, God looks and them with joy. Although they have more of less things with they do wrong, their honesty is sufficient when is coming about their future life (Heaven of Death). The fact that they don't know more and don't have the possibility of knowing more, it's not their fault so they cannot be held responsible. Are they as happy as a TRUE christian who has the privilege of knowing the true God?
2. That's another question together with: "Why then should we go and tell them about God/Christianity if they will anyway reach Heaven? Keep in mind that we are speaking about an honest person. Because it's not about only being in Heaven but also the quality of life which you have here on earth. I will go to that person because I know that he/she can be much, much happier if he will be able to know the Bible's God which is love. And if he knows Him, he can become more and more like Him by practicing what he finds out from the Bible about Him. And the more he becomes like Him, the happier he is. Because happiness has it's source in loving (God is love). So the more he love (this is what means to be like God) the happier he is. Happiness is not something that God magically puts in ourselves but is a consequence of the choices we make! And it's not enough to be honest; you need also to think and do the right thing. The cause-effect law.
3. What about the wars/atrocities which were made in the name of God? First, God didn't do them, the men did them. Second, God condemns those terrible things (crusades, inquisition etc). They were inspired by sin/selfishness/Satan. They have no Biblical foundation! They were against any Christian principle. They had nothing to do with Christianity! So, as far as I am concerned and as far as Christianity is concerned, those people were anything else but Christians! They were not serving the Bible's God and for sure they didn't have anything to do with Love. A personal comment: if I am a Christian, I'm not because most of the Christians are/were good. The reality is that, in general, Christians were/are far away from being Christians! There are/were more false Christians than true Christians. But this is a choice which the people make and not God's will or Love's way. The fact that people don't live according to what they profess is not an argument against Christianity but against themselves.
The question which we should ask ourselves is this: "Which group am I part of?" Am I an honest person, living according to my whole knowledge and ability? Or I am a false person who, for different reasons, I choose to go against what I know is good and right? Everybody will be judged according to their choices and not other people choices! Let us make the right ones!