All True, Authentic, Love Comes From God

How can we know anything about anything

To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald

Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible?

NO!

That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about.

Take science as an example. How can we know anything about the created material world around us?

How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences?

We all see the same things in the material world, but we don't come to the same answers.

Why is that?

How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches? Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read.

Why is that?

Same scientific facts. Different answers.

Same Bible. Different answers.

Why is that?

The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get from what we can see through science or what we can read in the Bible?

How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible?

How do we analyze what we have seen and read?

How do we interpret what we have seen and read?

We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock. That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation. There are also the false foundations of the ungodly.

An example might help.

Question: Why do believe in evolution?

Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact.

Question: Why do you believe your science teacher?

Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read.

Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice.

If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts.

When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered. So where to the foundations come from?

There are three possibilities.

things that we make up, pulled from the air
demonic lies
divine revelation

Question: Why do believe in creation?

Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith so that I could believe Him.

See how quickly we got to the foundation. This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved.

In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air, are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan. So these are one and the same.

Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ. So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices? Because God has revealed this truth to us.

The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God and the lies of Satan?

The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know.

Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me"

The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem. It is a moral problem.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened. *

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew 7:7-11 *

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe those things that they don't want to submit to. They have to want to obey God.

How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver

Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)

"If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it"

Lies appear to have no price upon them. They seem cheap and they abound everywhere. But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay.

[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness. And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).

"There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48)

That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus. When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject. Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own.

"When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19)

Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university. On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them, but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true.

In listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning, the unbeliever finally came to his foundations.

They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air. When asked why he believed his basic assumption, the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out, “I guess I’m making the whole thing up.” It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions. However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn’t want God to rule over him.

Before you can understand anything about true love, you must realize that all true, genuine, love comes from God. The sad thing is that there are many definitions of love, and it is harder than ever to tell the difference between true love and the many things that are falsely called love.

It seems as if not only love but all the important words have been re-defined. Satan has redefined faith into something that is just plain silly. Satan has redefined hope into, "I hope so" or "high hopes" rather than the hope that comes from God. Love has also been re-defined into emotion, feelings, friendships, socialism, and many other things. Misconceptions like these can stand in the way when we want to understand and partake of God's love.

The many common misconceptions of the culture can keep us from entering into that deep, spiritual love, which affects our spiritual health. A 2009 Barna poll shows that 81% of self-identified Christians endorse the notion that spiritual health means "trying hard to follow the rules described in the Bible." This in spite of the fact that Paul told the Galatian church that, if they are trying to finish the work that God started by trying hard to follow the rules, then they are making the grace of God of no effect, Galatians 2:21. Self-generated "love," like the kind of "love" that is generated by trying really hard to follow a set of rules, just frustrates God's free gift of love. We may try to have both the supernatural love, agape love, that comes from God alone and also the kinds of love that we try to generate by self-effort. So, we can have self-generated love or we can supernatural love, but the two are not compatible. Only one is true and authentic.

All true, authentic, love comes from God. Counterfeit love, on the other hand, can be had without God.

The counterfeit love we hear most about is the kind of love that people "fall" into. This is infatuation. God created it, but the abundance of popular misunderstanding of this type of love is the cause of an awful lot of misery. A man and woman "fall in love." They experience what is basically an electro-chemical reaction, which lasts anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of years. The feeling is euphoric and temporary. For those who lack understanding, they say, "The feeling is gone." Then they move on to their next relationship--or marriage--in hopes that this new relationship will last. It will not. The feeling is temporary. Lasting "feelings of love" must be cultivated.

The second most promoted form of counterfeit love is the kind of love that says, "Smile on your brother. Everybody get together, and try to love one another right now," and "Put a little love in your heart." This is the self-generated--without God--type of love. Those who are deceived by this are proclaiming a commandment, which is the commandment that actually does come from God. The trouble is that they are trying to have love without the God who is love. They are trying to do what is impossible, have love without God. This form of love often turns into a kind of love that is used to promote politicians and entertainers so they can get more money and power. They want to be sincere, but they are being fooled by a deceptive lie. Even some churches are promoting this lie in the form of a social gospel and often a political gospel--a gospel with human-generated righteousness and human-generated love.

All True, Authentic, Love Comes From God

How can we know anything about anything

Love

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