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For some reason Tina Turner’s song, “What’s Love Got to Do With It” keeps going through my head. Love, a stupid “second hand emotion,” right? That false notion actually all fits in quite well with Sam’s post the other day and now Mel Wild’s,” The Power of His Love.”
What’s love got to do with it? Everything!
The Bible says, “it is the kindness of God that leads to repentance.” The Bible also says, “God is love.” And it says, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” And, “We love because He first loved us.” And “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
I hope that doesn’t sound critical or shaming because a whole lot of us are just like a kinked up garden hose that can’t let genuine love flow through. We’ve either gotten all scarred up from the world or we didn’t have our needs met as a child. It’s not an admonishment like, “you must embrace the chore of trying to love more,” but rather, you must be loved more yourself.
I suggest that when Jesus tells Peter “unless I wash you, you’ll have no part of me,” what He’s actually saying is, unless you let me love you, you can’t really know me.
Later when we encounter the woman with the perfume, Jesus says,” Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.” By the way, Matthew 26:13 also says, “Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.”
Why? Because that’s the key to the whole gospel. That’s the heart of the matter. One might even say, it’s the whole fragrance of who Jesus is. He Himself thought this was so important, The Bible says, “wherever the gospel is preached….” tell of what she has done.
I once heard someone say, “A loveless gospel is a bloodless gospel.” A gospel without the Blood of Jesus has no power to transform us, no power to save us, no life, no resurrection in it. Mel was right to name His post,“The Power of His Love.”
Love conquers everything. It’s the only force that ever has. Love is more powerful than fear, more powerful than the law, more powerful than good preaching, more powerful then elegant doctrine. In fact, the Bible says that too! “Though I speak with the tongue of angels…” Without love it is completely meaningless.
The other day I was just crying in sheer frustration. A lot of religious people, a lot of Christian people, avoid love, fear love, question love. Over and over again I slam into what basically amounts too, “you can’t talk about God’s love, people need to hear about His wrath and hatred of sin, because repentance must proceed being accepted by Him.”
This little pet peeve makes me quite crazy, because one doesn’t have a prayer, one doesn’t stand a chance, with that false perception. We are dead in our trespasses, a kinked up garden hose unable to receive His love. If we could just make ourselves presentable first, we wouldn’t need His saving grace in the first place.
Some people think I’m being wishy washy, as if to say, we can just love everybody and affirm them as they are and Jesus will just be our BFF forever. Actually no, it’s far, far, more serious than that, it’s really a matter of life and death. Without His love, there is no redemption, no chance, no life.
And there are a whole lot of dead people sitting in church right now like a kinked up garden hose pretending they know the Lord….
I got a little cranky, I got a little feisty last week, because there are some people in my life who wouldn’t shed a tear if I got hit by a freight train or died of a drug over dose, but they’ll sure scream bloody murder over the Passion Bible? Like, if you haven’t said a word, not a single word to me in over a decade, don’t suddenly show up and start lecturing me about drinking blue kool aid and telling me you just care about my walk with the Lord. Pfffttt.
I spoke to a girl recently, she just got baptized, she’s loving the Lord, after nearly a decade in church. I asked her, so what changed? She’d simply walked into a new church, and a woman gave her a hug and another wrapped her shoulders with a blanket and the pastor asked if he could baptize her. She said it was the first time in her life that the love of the Lord had ever felt real to her.
We can’t receive what we can’t feel and we don’t recognize.
There’s a verse in the Bible, in Romans 10 that says, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” So. Many. People. think this means preaching, doctrine, theology, reading the Bible as if by rote, as if it can be absorbed through osmosis.
We hear with our heart.
AfroLatino said:
Absolutely beautiful – thank you.
The story of Mary Magdalene has always been special to me. The love of Jesus took away the fear of her being at the cross with me. Even though the disciples were with Jesus most of the time, ate with him and saw him perform many miracles, they fled during his crucifixion because of fear. There is no fear in love.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Thank you, much appreciated. There is no fear in love.
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Citizen Tom said:
Reblogged this on Citizen Tom and commented:
Think about this excerpt from insanitybytes22’s post.
Is Christianity all about the horror of sin, or is it all about love, love, love, love,….?
Well, what is the Bible about? The story of our redemption by Jesus Christ? Yep!
What did Jesus redeem us from? Was it sin? Our sinful nature? Yep!
Why did Jesus redeem us? Is it because He loves us? Yep!
What did Jesus do? Jesus summarized His mission when He spoke to Nicodemus (see John 3:1-21). Here are the key lines.
Like Nicodemus, we find Jesus’ words confusing. God would allow Himself to be hung up on a cross? By us? For our sakes? Yet Insanitybytes22 and Mel Wild are most certainly correct. God loves us, and we will not be saved unless we accept and believe in God’s love. Still, we must remember why we need salvation — why we are tempted to refuse God’s love. We sin and God hates sin. In our pride we sin, and in our pride we refuse God’s love.
Without the realization that we are sinners, we will not repent. Yet without the realization that God loves us, we will not be convicted of our sins. We will not be shamed enough by our sins to repent. Hence, like that bronze serpent in the wilderness (Numbers 21:4-9), Jesus allowed Himself to be held up — crucified — so we could see God’s His hatred of sin and perceive His love for us, that He loves us even though we are still sinners.
That is why that Bible is the story of our redemption. We need to know we are sinners in need of salvation, and we need to know God loves us enough to save us. We need to learn how to love.
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jeffw5382 said:
He knows my heart and loves me- I must discover and admit my flawed nature in order to realize the need of such love- God cannot help those who don’t need Him
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insanitybytes22 said:
We’re probably just talking past one another with our words, but we can never discover our flawed nature until we first know the great love of Jesus. We can never realize the need for such love if we don’t believe it exists and we don’t know what it feels like, looks like, and tastes like.
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The V Pub said:
Although I agree with you, how can love be a solution when the word is used to describe everything from a TV show to a frozen dinner?
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scatterwisdom said:
The V Pub, Insanitybytes
The answer to your question is apparent to me. However it took a long time and effort to realize for me and a rather short time after to come up with the motto of my blog.
What the World needs now in addition to love is Wisdom.
Perhaps we need to add the adjective to distinguish between the difference kinds of loves imagined or described as “a second hand emotion.”
Spiritual Love and Spiritual Wisdom, as defined in the New Testament of the Bible in my opinion is a “first hand emotion?”
Regards and goodwill blogging..
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insanitybytes22 said:
Good answer. I suggest that a key component to wisdom is love. Wisdom just doesn’t exist without love. When you take the love away from wisdom you have something that looks almost evil, as in some form of artificial intelligence logically concluding people are parasites who must be eradicated.
I once pondered what the difference was between intelligence and wisdom. Serial killers and mass murdering dictators can be highly intelligent, but we sure don’t call them wise. I still don’t really know the answer to that one, but part of what makes intelligence, “wisdom” is love and humility.
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ourladyofblahblahblah said:
When IS the appropriate time to talk about God’s wrath and the wages of sin? Should we ever be speaking of it, and if so, under what circumstances?
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insanitybytes22 said:
The Bible says, “it’s the kindness of God that leads to repentance.” So if our goal is repentance, than we should be talking about the kindness of God. We should be walking out the kindness God, treating others with the kindness of God, doing everything in our power to show people what the kindness of God really looks like.
For some crazy reason, this is often controversial in my world? So many Christian people really just want to talk about God’s wrath and the wages of sin. I’m curious about why we get hooked into that mindset? There’s a payoff in there somewhere. People like to tell me “it’s Biblical.” Well, God’s love is also Biblical, like how we will be known for our love towards one another, like how the love of Jesus is what saves us, how God so loved the world. I’ve never counted all the commandments and instructions to love, but there are many of them. So why then, do we insist it’s got to be all about God’s wrath and the wages of sin?
Without God’s love we just live there, in His wrath with the wages of sin. So if you know a way out, a better way, wouldn’t you want to share that?
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ourladyofblahblahblah said:
Well, I wasn’t really thinking specifically about speaking a word that leads to repentance, or any specific outcome, really.
Let me back up for a second and try again.
Let’s say I’m talking to a neighbour who is struggling. Maybe he’s struggling with sin, maybe he’s struggling with sins that have been perpetrated against him. Doesn’t matter. He’s hurtin. Broken.
Which of God’s words does my neighbour need to hear from me? Shall I beat him over the head with his own wretchedness? Or terrify him further by preaching God’s wrath for his iniquities?
Of course not! Who would do such a wicked thing? We are to *console* the brokenhearted with God’s steadfast, unshakable love for them, to assure them that Christ’s blood is for them as well.
But are there not times when bringing down the hammer upon a sinner is precisely the “kindness” they need to hear?
I’ve told you this story before.
About how my husband had an affair and wanted to divorce me for his girlfriend. While I was undergoing cancer treatment. And do you know why they were both convinced that they should be together?
Because they prayed about it, and “felt” that it was God’s will.
It still makes me sick to my stomach to think about how deceived they both were, how they were clinging to a spirit that was not of God, how dangerously close they were to making a shipwreck of their respective faiths.
By insisting that “this is God’s will”, they were essentially arguing that what they were doing was not sinful for them, placing them outside of God’s grace. You cannot deny that God’s grace is for you and be a part of Him.
I think you would agree, would you not, that the loving thing to do would be to *warn* the Christian of his peril and bring him to his senses? You don’t even have to talk about brimstone and hellfire; a simple, “Dude, you are perilously close to walking away from your faith!” ought to be sober enough a warning for any Christian who loves their Lord to make them stop and think.
I am presuming – as I think you do – that all Scripture is God-breathed and profitable, and so I’m trying to understand where God’s word about sin and wrath fit into your biblical world view. Does it hold a place in your theology at all? That’s what I’m trying to understand.
What do you think about the distinction I have offered? We speak God’s word of consolation to the brokenhearted, and his word of condemnation to the proud-hearted. Does that resonate at all with you?
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Salvageable said:
IB, I sense a “false dichotomy” in your response to the message of God’s wrath. You seem to be saying, “God’s wrath cannot be true because of God’s love.” But the message of the Bible makes sense only when we see both the wrath of God at evil and the love of God to rescue victims of evil, including even sinners who contribute to the world’s evil.
[Based on a true story] Let’s say you are walking down the street and you see a house with people sitting in the living room watching TV and flames leaping out of the upstairs roof. Would you gently, calmly, invite those people out of the house to a safer environment outdoors, or would you warn them in all urgency of their danger? To speak of God’s love to people who are clinging to sin and ignoring their Savior only confirms them in their ongoing sin. That (in response to Our Lady’s question) is a time to speak of wrath before speaking of love–opening a door, one hopes, to be able to speak of love to repentant sinners. J.
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insanitybytes22 said:
“To speak of God’s love to people who are clinging to sin and ignoring their Savior only confirms them in their ongoing sin.”
I don’t believe that, because “It is the kindness of God that leads us to repentance.” Jesus speaks to us of God’s love. We cannot and we will not abandon our sin without His love. His love is the only thing with the power to set us free. So to believe we should just withhold God’s love from those clinging to sin is not only cruel, it is futile if our goal is to actually bring people closer to Jesus.
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ourladyofblahblahblah said:
Ok, that clarifies your position greatly for me, thanks. I wasn’t trying to trap ya or anything, promise! I just wasn’t sure where you made your distinction between law and gospel and didn’t want to make any false assumptions.
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iamcurmudgeon said:
“I hope that doesn’t sound critical or shaming….” Why? So what if calling humanity “sinners” feels critical or shaming, since that’s what we all are. We are in one of three groups: the redeemed, the eventually to be redeemed, and the never to be redeemed. Criticism and shame about their previous state is irrelevant to the first group. Criticism and shame won’t stop the second group from answering the effectual call of the Holy Spirit, and for the third group they are simply another excuse to wallow in sins.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Well, why does it matter? Because I’m telling people to love more and I don’t want them to think of love as a chore or as a way to escape shame or as a response to fear. Why? Because people can’t do what they haven’t received themselves. If you haven’t let God love you, you’ll have no love for others, either.
Can you imagine telling someone, I only love you out of a sense of shame, obligation, and fear? Call me crazy, but I don’t think that’s what God wants from us. 🙂
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iamcurmudgeon said:
The Bible emphasizes again and again that we love Christ because He first loved us, but that’s no big deal unless we were unlovable…..sinners. The Holy Spirit’s call is effectual, no matter what you are telling people and no matter how they feel about what you are telling them. Apologizing for using the term “sinner” is too much like apologizing for the Bible.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Ahh, I don’t think I used the word “sinner.” I probably should have, but I was thinking of wounded people who can’t receive love. Is that sin? Well yes I suppose so, but than I would have to define what sin is and write long explanation. My point though, wasn’t really about sin at all, but rather that we can’t stop sin or cleanse sin from ourselves or others by being critical or shaming. This is especially true when it comes to our own failures to love. Why are we not loving as we should? Because we don’t know how to! To try to shame or criticize people who can’t love is like trying to shame and a criticize a learning disability out of a kid. Not only does it not work, it does a whole lot of damage.
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Mel Wild said:
Thanks for the plug, IB. I really like where you’re taking this conversation. A “kinked-up garden hose” is sadly an apt description for many people’s hearts. I said this about receiving God’s love in the comments over at my place:
“But for most of us, that means that there needs to be some healing in our wounded hearts so we can learn how to trust again. So, again, it starts with letting God love us back together. We’re going to have to learn how to let Him in before we’re going to be any good letting anybody else in.”
I think many Christians feel more comfortable with wrath and punishment than talking about love for two main reasons: (1) that’s been the emphasis of teaching for the last 300 years in our evangelical culture; (2) it lines up with our unhealed hearts that still feels like we should be punished. Unconditional love is quite foreign to us.
And I felt exactly that way for 23 years as a Bible-believing Christian and leader of my church, preaching more on wrath than love. I was very angry at the world in my “us vs.them” worldview. That is, until I let Jesus heal my heart! Now, I see things very differently. I see His wrath very differently. Even His wrath is that of a father who is giving an emphatic “NO!” to seeing His children abused and bound. His love is furious!
18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. (1 John 4:18)
I was also surprised to find out that this is the way the early church fathers saw salvation when I started to study their works. Their view of the cross wasn’t at all so that God could get His pound of flesh from Jesus instead of us, it was a rescue mission! This perspective changes everything. It really helps us to understand what Jesus meant when He said for us to learn what this means: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” I think we all should learn what this means. 🙂
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insanitybytes22 said:
I really like that, “letting God love us back together.” That’s it exactly! I know these things to be true, because I too was once a badly kinked up hose. Still am sometimes, but not so bad. 🙂
So, I did not even start to comprehend what a rescue mission looked like, what sacrificial love even looked like, until this man drowned trying to save his son. In the midst of that sadness, I just had this major revelation. I understood what we would do for our own children, the depth of love we have for them. We would take all their suffering and grief upon ourselves if we could. We’d even give up our own lives to save them. Well, if we are capable of loving our own kids like that, than surely God is even better at it?
Then in church we often turn it all around so it becomes God pouring His wrath out on His own Son in this cosmic act of child abuse. Ai yi yi.
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Mel Wild said:
“Then in church we often turn it all around so it becomes God pouring His wrath out on His own Son in this cosmic act of child abuse. Ai yi yi.”
Exactly. If that were true (which it’s patently false) then the Christian despisers have an argument. This is why I think bad theology breeds more ex-Christians than anything else.
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Salvageable said:
I totally and absolutely agree that the nature of God is love, that his message for us is a message of love, and that we need to share his message lovingly with everyone who needs to hear it.
But…
I may be perceiving your message in the wrong way, but it seems as if any mention of the wrath of God, any mention of the price that must be paid to redeem sinners, is somehow contrary to the truth of God’s love. If you encounter Christians who only preach the wrath of God and never get around to mentioning his love, by all means rebuke them without apology. But don’t put them in the same category as those who teach both the wrath of God and the love of God. Throwing out the wrath of God is throwing out the baby with the dishwater.
My high school band instructor used to ask, “Did you walk to school or carry your lunch?”
In the same manner, one can say, “Does God love and rescue sinners, or does he hate sin and require that a price be paid for sin?”
The only answer is yes. God loves sinners and rescues sinners. But the rescue involves saving sinners from his own righteous wrath which is a holy response to their sin. If God is holy, he must hate sin. That holy wrath in no way cancels his love, which is even greater than his wrath. Because his love is greater than his wrath, he “endured the cross, scorning its shame.” J.
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insanitybytes22 said:
I find it darkly comical Salvageable, I cannot even speak or write about the kindness of God without triggering Christian people. It’s always like, “You forgot His wrath! God hates sin! God requires a price be paid.”
“If you encounter Christians who only preach the wrath of God and never get around to mentioning his love…”
It’s not just that they preach that, it’s that they walk in the wrath of God, they live in the wrath of God, and much like the Bible says, they remain in their natural state, their default, as quite literally, “the children of wrath.” There is no life in wrath, no transformation, no progress, no resurrection.
God’s love is what heals us, not His wrath. God’s love is what brings us to Christ, not His wrath. So let’s go tell people that God loves them.
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Salvageable said:
I just got back from reading your “How to Wreck a Car,” and i see clearly that you and I are accusing one another (gently and lovingly, I hope) of the same error–overreaction to someone else’s fault, veering into one extreme to avoid the other extreme. In the midst of a sermon about blessing and forgiveness and living the forgiven life, Jesus said something odd about not giving dogs what is holy and not casting pearls before swine. Chose any sin you want: sexual sin, addiction, hatred, greed–imagine the sinner saying, “God made me this way, and he is just going to have to accept me this way.” If you respond, “God loves you,” aren’t you affirming them in their sin? By all means speak to them with kindness, but let them know that their sin is a huge problem which can bar them from the kingdom of God. Moreover, I still affirm that the glory of the cross cannot be described without understanding the wrath of God that was removed by Christ’s sacrifice. (And, I’ll say it again, love must predominate over wrath; we recognize the wrath of God because it is real, but we celebrate the love of God because it is greater.) J.
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insanitybytes22 said:
I’m fairly sure we are not all that opposed, Salvageable. There’s too much agreement on the other things that really do matter. I sometimes like to reduce these discussions to what basically amounts to, “just arguing over how best to love other people.”
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Anna Waldherr said:
So true. ❤
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geoaffleck said:
Absolutely true. Love is not an emotion, coming from within; it is a part of God’s essence and is gifted to us from Him our of His abundance.
https://geoaffleck.wordpress.com/2018/11/26/love-is-not-an-emotion/
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