Before entering into the study of The Divine message to us, we must be under the influence of our Mentor, The Person of God who teaches us, and by whom we grasp spiritual phenomena, God The Holy Spirit. To worship God we must do it "in Spirit, and in truth (The Word)". But some reading this may be "carnal", or without The Spirit, which is easily corrected. IJn 1:9 is the "purification verse"; "If we cite our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us of all wrong doing (unknown sin)." Instantaneously we are filled with The Holy Spirit and ready to glean from The Word.

My morsel this morning from RBT concentrated on loving God, and as usual, his teaching is thought provoking. You can't love someone unless you know them, or I should say, you can't love them for who they truly are, which is tantamount to not loving them at all. We place our trust in a self-created illusion. We call this "feet of clay syndrome" when our machinations victimize a human being. I think, for the distortions that apply to God in this category, we should inaugurate a "brain of clay syndrome", eh? In my little world, I see our ultimate objective in this existence as coming to the point of loving God as He is. Our destiny, as designed by God, is to establish a mechanism in our souls which reflects his infinite love for us, and thus the circuit is completed....what is sent forth returns bearing fruit. What gives this process value, in God's eyes, is the working of a free will on our end. We love Him because we want to. In fact, to love Him we must oversome formidable opposition, even suffering, yet we persist. In the end, if we are on board God's plan, all the distractions of a body of corruption, and the wily schemes of the super-demon, cannot destroy the pristine intention of The Divine. The eternal purpose is realized. This is the distinguishing factor between the elect in eternity, those who fought savagely to sustain their love for God, and those who never came to know Him. Our devotion is a delectable prize where God is concerned. This Taliban crowd are a prime example of pseudo god-lovers. The worst case. They invent a diety and assign Him their evil notions. There is no love involved, there can't be. It's impossible. Hate and love cannot co-exist. But the more destructive psuedo-lovers are those steeped in self-righteous illusion. From what I can gather, their God is a wimpy sovereign that approximates a glorified version of Mahatma Ghandi. Driven by this ridiculous effegy of The Most High, they demand leniency for bloody murderers, and shy away from joining in mortal combat with the enemies of freedom. They persecute women seeking an abortion, and even resort the destruction of private property and murder. As man is wont to do, they cram God into a little mold of their own design and assume that their own emotional impressions of life are condoned by Him. It's no surprise that not one liberal Christian can reconcile the God Who kills the enemy, and exhorts heroes of the past to go to war and their honored vision of a meek, do-gooder God. I guess the point at which they loose connection is in understanding the corralation between love and death, or violence of any sort. In the human realm this disparity does not exist. We humans feel anything but love for a mortal enemy. And we aren't supposed to! God loves the Taliban, but He is rational and all wise. He doesn't expect His creatures to rise to this unattainable height. We can remain impersonal, professional, but love is not our forte. Not Divine love. We are forced to the conclusion that God loves all men, but the treatment they receive from Him depends upon their own actions, the function of their free will. If they exceed the boundaries of civilized behavior, and attack the innocent, they must be dealt with. It seems a clear issue to me....when hate is returned to Him when He expresses love, it doesn't diminish His love, but He must act in defense of the innocent. He loves both parties, but the one (who loves Him) must be free to do His work, and any creature that attempts to disrupt the mechanics of redemption comes to a bad end. Not that God wills it so, but rather, they have willed it themselves in defiance of God. Libs want it both ways, and it simply doesn't happen that way! You cannot love someone into being good, and repenting their evil, so the only alternative is to defend freedom and right. We will never have the power to love as God loves in this life, and woe to them who try, for in the process they fail understand the rectitude of violent self-defense. You might say that God has set in motion the machinery of human history, and His will has been established from the beginning. We are in the "human will" phase of creation. What happens, for the most part, is determined by human volition. So...what comes of man's evil is the product of his own arrogance. In effect, God observes, monitors, and judges, but the ultimate conclusion of any life is left to the individual will. The extent of Divine involvement is merely administrative, and not causative. In other words, He set creation in motion, made every provision for our blessing and redemption, and the rest is up to our thought processes. When we malfunction, He does nothing. He observes. And the calamity we suffer for transgressions is of our own making. [ HOME ]