Thoughts On "God Is Love"

Back in July of this year, I was looking through our local newspaper (the Courier-Journal) while sitting in my dentist's office when the political cartoon on the editorial page (see panel below) caught my eye. Now before I go on, you should know that I do not subscribe to or read the newspaper on a regular (or even occasional) basis; I swore off of the newspaper, especially our city's, a long time ago, so unless I'm waiting around somewhere and one happens to be available among the reading materials, I just don't ever read them. But this panel caught my attention...and piqued my spirit! As the day went on, I couldn't get it out of my mind, because I knew in my spirit that something was very wrong with this message, and that it was going out to hundreds of thousands of people with no challenge to the veracity of its content. The next morning, during my prayer time, I felt like the Holy Spirit was telling me that the reason I just "happened" to come across this particular cartoon was because He wanted me to respond to it with a letter to the editor, the content of which He would provide. I wrote and emailed the letter to the newspaper; a copy of the letter can be found under the panel below.  Amazingly, it was published, in its entirety, in the Sunday(largest circulation day), Aug 2nd edition; the following is a link to the original article:  Letter | Lesson on ‘God is Love’

Letter | Lesson on ‘God is Love’
Agape love is relationship between God and human, not human to human, writer says

View on www.courier-journal.com

Letter | Lesson on ‘God is Love’
10:03 a.m. EDT July 29, 2015
Given the generally overwhelming bias of your paper, this response will probably never see the light of day, butI hope you will please relay it to your editorial cartoonist, if he is at all interested in presenting the truth aroundthe statement "God is Love."

With all due respect to your editorial cartoonist's religious beliefs, the panel he drew for your newspaper's July 23, 2015, edition indicates that he is less than knowledgeable of the source and meaning of the phrase "God is Love." Perhaps he will allow me to enlighten him with some truth about that phrase.
The New Testament of the English translations of the Bible comes from the Greek language. In the Greek, there are four words/uses for the word "love":
1) Storgē - empathy bond, as between family group members;
2) Phillia - friend bond, as between very close friends;
3) Erôs - erotic bond, as in the sense of "being in love" or "loving someone", and the sexual passion involved therein (as between the two men depicted in his cartoon panel);
4) Agápē -unconditional love God has for His children, those who believe in and receive Him. Agape love is the relationship between God and a human or humans, not human to human. Agape is the ONLY type of love involving the Spirit of God, and is where the term "God is Love" originates. It is also the type of reciprocal love demonstrated when a person asks God to direct their life and actions, as in the actions of the clerk the cartoon attempts to vilify.

Perhaps it would be more helpful to the rights of the gay community if he would devote a panel to comment on the incredibly barbaric practices by Islamist countries of stoning gay couples and throwing them off buildings without parachutes if they apply for a marriage license; seems "Allah Akbar" sure doesn't translate to "God is Love" under that religion. But then, that might take more courage than he might care to muster.
Thank you for your time and consideration.

Mark McLeroy
The Prayer Directed Life Ministries

Now, since I knew brevity and succinctness were key to having a letter to the editor be considered for publication, please allow me a few moments here to expand upon the teaching I believe the Holy Spirit gave me to write, especially in regards to "Agápē" love and the often misused and/or misunderstood term "God is love". Let's begin by taking a look at where and how the term "God is love" is used in the Bible.

There are only two references to the phrase "God is love" in the Bible; both of them are in the same chapter of the same epistle of the New Testament, 1 John, often referred to as the Love Epistle, because the word "love", in its various forms, is used 43 times in this epistle (32 times in the section 4:7 to 5:3), with most of those translated from the Greek term Agápē.

The first reference is 1 John 4:8, which says, "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."  Now there are several things we need to know about what is and isn't being said in this scripture:

1. The two uses of the word "love" here refer to the agápē type of spiritual love of God's nature, not to the storgē, phillia and erôs types of human love found in Man's nature;
2. The use of the word "know" here is defined as being of the "nature of God" or having a relationship with Him, not in the sense of knowing about God in an intellectual sense. The only way we can "know God" in this sense is through Jesus Christ living in us through the Holy Spirit (this is what Jesus describes in the 17th chapter of the Gospel of John, and John describes in the rest of chapter 4 and chapter 5 of this epistle, among other places);
3. The Scripture does not infer that whoever loves others with the human types of love (storgē, phillia and erôs) "knows" God, or that God is even in those types of love. It certainly does not infer that if there is any type of "love" taking place then God is in it;
4. Where it says "God is love" it is not inferring that love is the sum total of His Being; elsewhere in this very epistle it also says that "God is light" and "God is spirit". In other scriptures it says that God is: holy, powerful, faithful, true and just.  Love (agápē) is part of God's nature, not His sole existence.  You see, nowhere in the Bible does it say "Love is God"!

The second reference is 1 John 4:16, which says, "And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him."  Once again, all the references to the word "love" in this verse translate from the Greek word "agápē", according to my Concordance and the study Bible I use.  Here is what I believe we need to know about this scripture

1. The only way we can "know (experience relationship with) and rely on (rest in) the love (agápē) God has for us" is through the born again relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus clearly tells us, in no uncertain terms, that He is the way, the truth and the light, and that NO ONE comes to the Father except through Him.(Jn 14:6) 
2. Just one verse before this scripture (4:15), John says "If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God." What this whole chapter is clarifying and confirming is that when it says "Whoever lives in love lives in God..." it means whoever lives in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit, who expressed the ultimate, unconditional agápē love by being the atoning sacrifice for the sins of all mankind, lives in God, and God in him/her. Only then are we capable of loving our fellow human beings with the agápē love God has for us, and only when they have THAT love living in them can they reciprocate to us, to others and to God Himself.

Now here is the kicker about all this "love" talk that we need to understand:  If God is love, and we know He is (among many other things), then that kind of love must be a) Spiritual and b) Eternal (that is, no beginning and no end) like God Himself, and therefore, be completely different than the type of love we know here on earth as humans (and between humans). In other words, the human types of love described in the Greek words "storgē", "phillia" and "erôs" all have a beginning and an end, and are all connected with our human bodies and emotions, which, of course, are temporal. But only "agápē" love is the eternal, unlimited, unconditional love that is of and from the Spirit of God, and only through knowing Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, are we able to experience and share THAT kind of love.

To me, a really important and interesting thing about all this is that the Holy Spirit chose to have the New Testament Scriptures written in the Greek, which, unlike most other languages of the time, actually had different words for the different types of love so that when it came time to translate those words, one could tell the intended use of the word by the term it was translated from, rather than creating confusion by lumping all types of love into one word (as is done in the Anglican English) and letting everyone try to figure out what the intended meaning of the word was as it appears in various scriptures. In other words, we don't have to try and guess what John or any of the other Scripture writers were intending to say through there various uses of the word "love" in their writings...We can simply verify it through a good Concordance or study Bible!  "Well then," you may say to me, "how can anyone who doesn't know the Greek language understand the New Testament Scriptures; or for that matter, how can anyone understand the Old Testament and the Gospels without also knowing the the Hebrew, Aramaic and Latin languages? In fact, how can anyone understand the Bible without being some kind of linguist?" The answer is simply this: Almighty God is not trying to hide the meaning of His Word and Scriptures from you; after all, it's sort of your owner's manual when you become born again. In fact, remember what Jesus told Satan in the dessert: "It is written, 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God!'" The Bible tells us in 2 Cor 13 that there is a veil over the eyes, minds and hearts of those who are not part of the New Covenant. It says in 2 Cor 13:14 that "It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away." 2 Cor 13:16 puts it this way: "But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away." In other words, when we become born again, the Holy Spirit will begin revealing the things of God to us, including His Word, the Bible, as we seek Him and the truth. In fact, you might say that this piece the Holy Spirit has given me to write for you and myself is a good example of how that works!

Finally, please know that I am not dissing or dismissing the importance of those other three human types of love; I believe that all human love certainly have their basis in Agápē love since God created our souls (our minds, wills and emotions) and our bodies with the capacity and ability to engage in actions, words and thoughts to express love and endearment for each other in its various human forms.  But the human love that we share among and have for each other is only a shadow of the complete, eternal, incomprehensible and unconditional Agápē love that Almighty God has for us, and that can only be experienced through His indwelling presence in us along with His Son, Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately, in our typically prideful and human fashion, we have taken this wonderful gift of God and redefined it according to what we want it to be, rather than what God intended it to be...What began as an absolute, we have made relative.  And when we humans start defining love according to what we think it should be, rather than what God says it is, He will not bless it or be a part of it, for I assure you, God is not about to change His definition to coincide with ours.

In a nutshell, I believe Agápē love is this:  God loves us not for who we are, but in spite of who we are...And He will love us all the way to the grave!  But life after the grave, eternal life, only comes when we personally acknowledge that love by believing in His one and only Son, Jesus Christ, who paid the sin debt of all mankind and overcame death, that we might live forever in God's Agápē Love!

Offered in Jesus Name

Is The Bible The Word of God

Recently, my wife and I had an interesting discussion with our adult son, who is a born again Christian (as are we), about the validity of calling the Bible (or the Scriptures) the "Word of God." Since I often find my own arguments and explanations to be less than adequate in reasoning with someone about the things of God, I asked the Holy Spirit in my prayer time to help me to write a note to my son to address this issue on both an intellectual and spiritual level. Here is the resulting letter:

"Mom and I very much enjoyed our discussion with you concerning whether or not the Bible is the 'Word of God'.  Mom is always saying 'Iron sharpens iron', and your questions and points concerning this subject causes we as Believers to have to reevaluate our beliefs and position on this important foundational matter.

Since your intellect is pretty much on a different level than ours, and my apologetic skills are pretty much still in the infancy stage, I wondered if you would consider watching a couple of short videos of Ravi Zacharias answering questions concerning the integrity, validity and accuracy of the Bible in general? They don't directly answer your challenge, but they do provide important points to use when discussing issues concerning the Bible, especially with non-Believers. Here are the links; one is 8 minutes and one is 9 minutes:

                               Why the Bible? Ravi Zacharias at the University of Illinois  

				Why the Bible? Ravi Zacharias at the University of Illin...
				View on youtu.be	Preview by Yahoo

Ravi Zacharias Q & A How Do We Know the Bible is True

				Ravi Zacharias Q & A How Do We Know the Bible is True
				View on youtu.be	Preview by Yahoo

But in my opinion, the crux of this matter comes down to three important points:

1) In terms of its spiritual value and content, the Bible will never be comprehended by non-Believers...essentially, the non-spiritual, or those whose spirit is dead to the Spirit of God; to them, it will always be seen as a literary endeavor comprised of prophesies, teachings, illustrations, stories, etc. But the fact of the matter is that the Message and meaning of the Bible must be revealed to the born again Believer by the Holy Spirit; recall that in the Gospel of John, chapter 14, Jesus said that He would send the Holy Spirit to His disciples and followers (Believers) to "teach you all things and remind you of everything I have said to you" (essentially, revelation knowledge). Then, it becomes like the illustration of sitting in a chair:  If I present you with a chair to sit in, you may believe that chair will hold you if you go sit on it, but you don't actually express your faith in that belief until you go sit in it, without reservations about its structural integrity, partly because you observe its design...and partly because you trust me not to provide a defective chair for you to sit in.

2) One of the big mistakes we make in studying the Bible is that the Gospel Message is interpreted from the Scriptures, which implies that we can use reasoning to decipher that Message. The truth is, the Scriptures must be interpreted according to the Gospel Message, which is written on our heart the moment we accept Jesus Christ into our life as our Lord and Savior and receive the ministry and message of reconciliation (2Cor 5). When we become born again, a veil drops from our eyes (2Cor 3:14-18) and we begin to better understand the things of God, including His Word. This also helps to explain why to unbelievers the Bible seems to contain a lot of contradictions and conflicting statements.

3) I think that before we can discuss the question of whether or not the Bible is the Word of God with anyone they need to answer the question, "What have you done with Jesus?" What do I mean by that? Jesus flat out declares this statement: "I am the way and the truth and the light. No one comes to the Father except through me."(John 14:6)  If we chose to deny that statement, then Spiritually we are dead as a hammer, and what is said or not said in the Bible doesn't really matter in the long run anyway. If we do believe that statement and accept the salvation and rebirth provided by Him, then we begin to see how often He relied upon and referenced to the written Scriptures of His time in His earthly ministries of teaching, healing and deliverance, thus confirming the validity and authority of not only the written words of God, but also the divine inspiration process to produce them.

So you see, although my Bible may not physically contain the statement "This book you are holding is the Word of God", the Spirit of the words it contains shout loudly and gleefully to my Spirit  that it is!  Hopefully, it will to yours as well!

Again, my Wonderfully intelligent son, thanks for the discussion and the push-back; it helps me to comply with Peter's challenge in 1Pet 3:15, which is a very important part of our earthly ministry. Let's do it again some time!

Love, DaD

Mark McLeroy
The Prayer Directed Life Ministries
www.theprayerdirectedlife.com "

Words For The Present, From The Past

Archibald Leish was an American Poet, a Librarian of Congress and a multiple Pulitzer Prize winner.  Here is a somber piece he wrote in The Saturday Review on October 14, 1967 (My first year in College), that I thought you might be interested in reading:

"There is, in truth, a terror in the world and the Arts have heard as they always do. Under the hum of the miraculous machines, and the ceaseless publications of the brilliant physicists, a silence waits and listens and is heard. It is the silence of apprehension. We do not trust our time, and the reason we do not trust our time is because it is we who have made the time, and we do not trust ourselves. We have played the heroes part, mastered the monsters, accomplished the labors, and have become gods, and we do not trust ourselves as gods because deep inside we know what we really are. In the old days when the gods were someone else the knowledge of what we were did not frighten us. There were Furies to pursue the Hitlers and Athenas to restore the Truth. But now that we are gods ourselves, we bare the knowledge for ourselves. Like that old Greek hero who learned when all the labors had been accomplished, that it was he himself who had killed his sons."
— Archibald MacLeish

Sobering...seems like the chickens have come home to roost.

Medieval Weapons For Modern Warfare?

You know, every day I try to take part of my prayer time to just listen for God to communicate His words or thoughts to me...After all, listening to Him is the essence of prayer itself.  Sometimes I hear from Him during that time, but often, I don't.  However, later in the day, I may be involved in some totally different secular activity when all of a sudden I hear His "still, small voice" in my spirit from out of the blue.

Case in point: I was driving down the interstate highway today when I passed a small Army military convoy heading in the same direction as I.  I used to be in the Army back in the early 70's, so when I see one of these convoys I like to take notice of the vehicles to see how they have changed, improved and adapted over the years; often, I see totally new vehicles that have evolved as a result of the different types of challenges that evolving warfare has presented in different theaters of conflict around the world.  Today I noticed, in particular, the armored cars (squad vehicles) in the convoy and how they have evolved from the old armored halftracks and unprotected jeeps of my days in the Army, largely due to the insidious IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) and roadside bombs that have wreaked so much havoc and death against our troops in such places as Iraq and Afghanistan.  I was considering things like the thickness of the glass windows and armor plates, the bulk of the specialized tires and the low, squat profile of the vehicles themselves.  Even the color of the camouflaged schemes were different, as olive and dark green patterns had given way to sandy tan and light brown hues to deal with reducing the profile of these vehicles as they operated in the near east Arab countries with their desolate terrains and sandy topographies.  I was considering the genesis and evolution of our machines and weapons of war in the effort to try and stay ahead of the ever-changing   attempts of our enemies to neutralize the effectiveness of our forces when all of a sudden, I heard His voice speaking to my spirit!  He began telling me that His weapons and armor for warfare, unlike our Armed forces' and those of our enemies, have not changed or lost their effectiveness since He gave them to us over 2,000 years ago when He gave us the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, even while the Enemy has done his best to modernize his forces and weapons of destruction over the centuries, even up to today. His "medieval" belt, breastplate, shoes, helmet, shield and sword are still every bit effective and superior against the weapons and armor of both our ancient and our modern day mortal and spiritual enemies, including satan himself!  Wow...what a word of reassurance!

As soon as I got to my destination, I pulled out my Bible and looked up Ephesians 6 to remind myself of the armor and the weapon that Paul advised us to don.  Here is that passage:

 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.  Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.  For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.  Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness,  and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace;  above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.  And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God;  praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints—  and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel,  for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. (NKJB Eph 6:10-20)

Hope the account of this little encounter lifts your spirit and strengthens your hope as much as it has mine. By the way, you don't have to take off the armor to sleep or take a shower; it's rust proof and very comfortable to wear all the time.

 Be blessed, and have a Gr8 Day!

Your Brother in Christ,

MarkMc
The Prayer Directed Life