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Do you love God?
- Thread starter Starlight
- Start date
The difference is though that God made me whereas some random man didn't make me
The relationship is very different
stvdv
Veteran Member
Each human is perceived in 3 ways:
a) The one he thinks he is
b) The one others think he is
c) The one he really is
What is love when speaking of humans?
Which love we talk about in "Do you love God"?
To answer this is too complex:
* There are 3 of "you"
* There are 3 of "me"
* There are billions of "God"
It makes no sense to me to try to figure out who or what God is (or not), before we figure out "who Am I". When I know who I Am then no need to figure out God
I find that He is a person, does things and always acts in the way of love.
People sometimes think that mankind has created their God through amphromorphism. I have found that the reason we connect with the person that I call “My Father” is because He made us with who He is and what He feels.
I find that He rejoices when I am blessed. He hurts when I hurt. He cries when I cry. He shares in my pain as well as in my happiness.
He is so consistent that I can actually say there is no shadow of change in who He is and what He does.
There would be an emptiness even as I would feel empty if my wife left me.
Now I am even more befuddled.Surely God does not speak in an audible voice or hug you like a person would, so I have to conclude that this is just a feeling you have of being loved, and I don't know where it is coming from. Mind you, other believers have the same kind of feelings but I never had them. I am not saying it is not genuine, I just don't understand it.
Understand completely. It isn’t like an “audible voice heard by your ears”. You hear your own thoughts but without your ears. It’s a voice that you can hear in your mind but not in your ears.
Not at all… a BIG subject. A lot of factors.
Although His promises are truthful, I was talking more along the lines that I can completely trust Him because He is so transparent… truthful.
Ok. No reason to proceed on this unless you want to.
Thanks, but I did not think you would take offense because I know you.
Much love and blessings to you!And “thank you”.
I really have difficulty loving someone I don't know very well or personally. I do have faith and trust that the gods have our best interests at heart.
However, I find myself getting very angry with God these days - children in Gaza are being slaughtered and the surviving ones are living on eating grass - how can he allow this? I am very disappointed.
No.
Are you a believer, Jay?
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
With all due respect, God did not make you, your parents made you, so if you are grateful to be alive you should love your parents for bringing you into this world.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Same here.
I believe that also but my faith and trust waxes and wanes.
That is the loving God for you. Human and animal suffering does not seem to bother Him.
DNB
Christian
I love the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Jesus, and the Apostles - YHWH, the Father, but nowhere near what he deserves and is worthy of.
My love for Him is extremely deficient and, ultimately, unacceptable - I am more of a sinner, rather than one who deserves to be in His Kingdom - but His mercy is immeasurable.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Why are you so hard on yourself? I am also hard on my self but not to that degree.
Do you think God is as hard on you as you are on yourself? I'll bet whatever sins you think you commit are nothing in God's eyes.
The love that you have for God can ever be deficient or unacceptable. Those of us who don't love God are the ones who are deficient.
Why do you think God is deserving and worthy, just because He is God?
DNB
Christian
God is holy, righteous and just, in him their is no darkness. His patience, mercy, compassion and love is beyond measure, He is all wise and all knowing.
Therefore, God is perfect, beautiful, glorious, and love itself - He is worthy and deserving of every single human's devotion and worship.
I do not love God to this degree, as is merited, and I do not trust anyone who say that they do - loving God with all one's heart, mind and soul is tantamount to perfection - no one is.
Why am I not perfect, because I refuse to be, and, as a wretch, do not love God with all my strength and devotion - I shamefully love myself and the world more than I do God - my heart says one thing, but my actions indict me.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Okay, I can go along with that if we believe what is in the Bible.
I do not think it is possible to love God that much as you believe is merited because you are only human, but the very fact that you KNOW you are deficient in that regard speaks volumes to God, as He knows your every thought. All you can do is strive to do better.
You are the only one who knows yourself, how you think and feel and how you live.
It sounds like you have a conflict between loving God vs. loving self and the world. Of course, Jesus in His perfect wisdom knew that people had such conflicts, which is why He said:
John 12:24-26 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.
Matthew 16:24-26 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
I have no such conflict because I do not love myself or the world, but I also do not love God the way I should because I see so much suffering in the world and I wonder how God could be loving or good. So what I see in the world does not align with what scripture says, and that is where my conflict comes from.
Trailblazer
Veteran Member
Of course not all persons act only out of love, but what you are saying is that God is a person who acts out of love.
Baha'is also believe that God is a person in the sense of being personal, but not a physical person. We believe that the intrinsic nature of God can never be known and that all that can e known about God comes from scriptures.
While the Baháʼí writings teach of a personal god who is a being with a personality (including the capacity to reason and to feel love), they clearly state that this does not imply a human or physical form.[2] Shoghi Effendi writes:
What is meant by personal God is a God Who is conscious of His creation, Who has a Mind, a Will, a Purpose, and not, as many scientists and materialists believe, an unconscious and determined force operating in the universe. Such conception of the Divine Being, as the Supreme and ever present Reality in the world, is not anthropomorphic, for it transcends all human limitations and forms, and does by no means attempt to define the essence of Divinity which is obviously beyond any human comprehension. To say that God is a personal Reality does not mean that He has a physical form, or does in any way resemble a human being. To entertain such belief would be sheer blasphemy.[15][16]
So, what you are saying is that God created us in His own image so that would mean that God knows what we think and feel.
This is where I start to have a problem because I believe that God is unknowable so I don't think there is any way to know how God thinks or feels about us as individuals. Rather, I believe we can only know what is revealed in scriptures about God's thoughts and desires which is not specific but rather general.
On the other hand, Baha'i scriptures say that God is closer to us than we are to ourselves, so you might be saying something similar.
“Consider, moreover, how frequently doth man become forgetful of his own self, whilst God remaineth, through His all-encompassing knowledge, aware of His creature, and continueth to shed upon him the manifest radiance of His glory. It is evident, therefore, that, in such circumstances, He is closer to him than his own self. He will, indeed, so remain for ever, for, whereas the one true God knoweth all things, perceiveth all things, and comprehendeth all things, mortal man is prone to err, and is ignorant of the mysteries that lie enfolded within him….”
I can agree with that since the Bible says that God is unchanging, immutable.
What about if your wife died, God forbid? That is the emptiness I feel every day with my husband gone, and there is nothing I can do about it.
I believe that God knows how I feel, but that does not make the emptiness go away.
I understand that because it is how I feel when I am guided by God to do something or not do it.
I have save myself from a lot of trouble ever since I started listening to that voice.
I don't think there is any way we can know why some people are healed and others are not. I believe we just have to accept that as God's will.
Okay. God cannot lie, it says that in the Bible.
I'm game if you are. We can always learn things from these discussions.
The same to you!
Audie
Veteran Member
Not yet.
I always assumed that you were.
And I have long realized that belief is not a goal that anyone ought to have.
So I am puzzled by this statement of yours. I hope you know why you made it and that it turns out ok in any case.
You're asking a difficult question.
I was, for most of my life, what some might call a militant atheist predicated upon a love of and respect for science, and a contempt for literalism. This perspective transitioned to what some have termed religious naturalism.
This latter term feels perfectly acceptable, but I do not see it as saying anything about preternatural agency other than seeing it as superfluous to understanding the natural world. Still, I find it to be insufficient in deeling with questions such as:
- Why is there something rather than nothing?
- Why the arc from prokaryote to Mozart and Monet?
Rosenzweig's important essay Die Bauleute (The Builders, 1923) discusses the attitude of the Jew to the commandments. Unlike the orthodox Jew, Rosenzweig did not accept all of the commandments, but distinguished between the subjective "commandment" (Gebot), which addresses the individual in the present, and which he readily accepted, and objective Law (Gesetz), which he could "not yet" accept. His beautiful introduction to Hermann Cohen's Jewish writings and his other Jewish essays further testify to Rosenzweig's steadily growing interest in Jewish life. [source]
"Not yet" closes no doors. I value "not yet" as provisional yet non-dogmatic admission which prioritizes honesty over certainty.
I hope that helps.
It does, in as much as I can expect to be helped.
Ultimately it is your personal matter and I have no reason to expect to factor into it.
I don't think that some questions (such as those you present) warrant an answer. There is no "why" nor a reason to want or expect any. But that is my stance, that is all. You will know what makes sense to you.
But I somehow never thought of you as a non-believer.
Ultimately it is your personal matter and I have no reason to expect to factor into it.
I don't think that some questions (such as those you present) warrant an answer. There is no "why" nor a reason to want or expect any. But that is my stance, that is all. You will know what makes sense to you.
But I somehow never thought of you as a non-believer.