Jehovah is a Loving God

Does this sound like a loving god to you?

The LORD, hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea,
I have loved thee with an everlasting love;
therefore, with loving-kindness have I drawn thee.
-Jeremiah 31:3-

And hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed
abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given unto us.
For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ
died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die;
yet perhaps for a good man some would even dare to die. But
God commendeth His love toward us in that, while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us.
-Romans 5:5- 8-

But after the love of God, our Savior, toward man
appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but
according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration,
and renewing of the Holy Spirit, which He shed on us abundantly
through Jesus Christ, our Savior, that, being justified by His grace, we
would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
-Titus 3:4-7-

This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have
loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay
down his life for his friends.
-John 15:12-13-

Love sufferth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vainteth
not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemingly,
seeketh not its own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil,
rejoiceth not iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; bareth all things,
believeth all things, hopeth all things, and endureth all things.
Love never faileth; but whether there be prophecies, they shall
be done away; whether there will be tongues, they shall
cease; whether there be knowledge, they shall vanish away.
-Corinthians 13:4-8-

reply to post by bakednutz


yes----this sounds like a loving G-D to me----especially when i think about some of the rotten things i used to do before He fetched me up and opened my eyes to see straight-------think right

and he always wants money, all powerful and omnipotent, but for some reason just cant handle money

reply to post by 23Eulogy23


Actually He could care less about your money (I see your quoting Zietgiest from that part where they used a clip from some comedian).

The Church, how it is now:
Takes money and preaches half truth, uses money to do some missions work and usually doesn't really help out the community.

The Church, how it should be and how God wants it to be:
Uses money to help people by providing the hungry with food and clothing, providing needy parts or the world with food clothing and education (aka Missions). The pastors are'nt really supposed to recieve any of the money, Yeshua told the desciples not to take any money for what hey did. He did tell them to take what is offered to them though. Today the pastors take what is offered to God though which is sad.

Sounds like a loving, albeit imaginary god to me. Christians should convert to that religion.

Humor aside, let's really think about this. Do the bible verses you quoted really mean anything? Is the god of the bible really loving?

What would you do if you had a child in your care when suddenly some burned out perv attacked the child? Wouldn't you do everything in your power to stop the assailant? I think any decent person would be all over that perv to stop them in their tracks but what does the god of the bible do (or any other god for that matter)? He watches.

What do you suppose the criminal justice system would do with you if you just stood and watched while a child in your care was brutally raped and murdered?

Yeah, sure. God is love, and unicorns hatch out of jelly beans.

Originally posted by bakednutz
Does this sound like a loving god to you?

The LORD, hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea,
I have loved thee with an everlasting love;
therefore, with loving-kindness have I drawn thee.
-Jeremiah 31:3-

And hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed
abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given unto us.
For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ
died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die;
yet perhaps for a good man some would even dare to die. But
God commendeth His love toward us in that, while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us.
-Romans 5:5- 8-

But after the love of God, our Savior, toward man
appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but
according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration,
and renewing of the Holy Spirit, which He shed on us abundantly
through Jesus Christ, our Savior, that, being justified by His grace, we
would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
-Titus 3:4-7-

This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have
loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay
down his life for his friends.
-John 15:12-13-

Love sufferth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vainteth
not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemingly,
seeketh not its own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil,
rejoiceth not iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; bareth all things,
believeth all things, hopeth all things, and endureth all things.
Love never faileth; but whether there be prophecies, they shall
be done away; whether there will be tongues, they shall
cease; whether there be knowledge, they shall vanish away.
-Corinthians 13:4-8-

Yes, bakednutz, that does sound like a loving God. Great post! I especially like the quote from Corinthians, it's one of my favorites.

Lilitu--you present some interesting and important questions. There is an area of theology called "theodicy", which basically asks the same questions you are asking--how can a loving God permit evil to happen? I don't think anyone has been able to come up with a satisfactory answer, unfortunately.

I too wonder how God can love us and yet "allow" horrible things to happen to the innocents among us, such as defenseless children. I lay no claim to any great wisdom, but I can only think of two possible answers: free will, which means that God gives us the freedom to choose between good and evil, and my belief that "what goes around, comes around"--people may "get away" with committing atrocities in this life, but they will eventually have to answer to God for their actions. Personally I would not want to be in their shoes when that time comes!!

Note to mods: I would gladly trim my quotes if I only knew how!

Originally posted by abovereproach
I too wonder how God can love us and yet "allow" horrible things to happen to the innocents among us, such as defenseless children. I lay no claim to any great wisdom, but I can only think of two possible answers: free will, which means that God gives us the freedom to choose between good and evil, and my belief that "what goes around, comes around"...

1) Can I assume that god also has free will and can choose between the good (helping the child) and evil (watching - being an accessory to rape and murder)? If god does not have free will, who then binds him?

2) Imagine what would become of you in a court of law if you said that the reason you stood there watching the child get raped and murdered without lifting a finger to help is because you believe "what goes around, comes around".

"God is love". It looks so good in print. It feels so good to say it. In real life it proves to be a nostrum. Why? Because god is imaginary.

Originally posted by Lilitu
"God is love". It looks so good in print. It feels so good to say it. In real life it proves to be a nostrum. Why? Because god is imaginary.

Thus my preference for reversing the term - "Love is God."

Saying it the "normal" way - that god is love - creates an entity separate from ourselves who we are then free to sit around and wait to intervene on our behalf. That's not going to happen. There is no love if mankind does not express it, and by expressing it, we open the door to what countless people in countless religions have termed to be "god"

Originally posted by bakednutz
Does this sound like a loving god to you?

Does this look like a loving god to you?
www.tsunamis.com...

Sometimes I wonder ....

reply to post by TheWalkingFox


Nice diversionary semantics play there but it basically ignores the issues I brought up. At least abovereproach made an honest attempt to find a way out of the dilemma.

reply to post by Lilitu


But your great...great...great grand parents didn't want his help. This world was left to the devices of Satan and man's unconditional freedom.

The only time things were miraculously good is when Jesus was here. Remember when Jesus said the Kindom of the Heavens has drawn near? Jesus gave a glimpse of that future kingdom yet to come. Jesus resurrected the dead, healed the sick, produced food out of thin air and stopped violent storms. God will not interfer in man's affairs until the appointed time.

Originally posted by FlyersFan

Originally posted by bakednutz
Does this sound like a loving god to you?

Does this look like a loving god to you?
www.tsunamis.com...

Sometimes I wonder ....

I can't imagine being one of those parents that couldn't hold onto their kid.. or worse still not being able to confirm their death.

Originally posted by Lilitu

1) Can I assume that god also has free will and can choose between the good (helping the child) and evil (watching - being an accessory to rape and murder)? If god does not have free will, who then binds him?

God isn't a single entity or being like you think of it. right now god has no physical body, for if he did, the creation would not exist, we would not exist, something has to power this joint. and also, if we are indeed all nerve endings of God in a sense that "in the beginning there was God and God was bored/lonely" so God made this to experience everything which was conceivable in his own infinite mind, which is why this universe is seemingly infinite in size. To answer the last part of your question, I will use an example for comparison to help me explain. You say who binds God. It is kind of like .. once you are committed to one thing, you don't just change it for the heck of it. When you write a novel, and it becomes a best seller, you dont recall all the copies and re-edit the book, removing entire swathes of content, and adding different content, after the book was thought of aka conceived and then written down aka created. Once you write the book, you can only burn it and start a new one. But even the paper turns into carbon which floats into the air, eventually becoming parts of other things. These are the spirits which attain enlightenment in this realm of the flesh upon death.

2) Imagine what would become of you in a court of law if you said that the reason you stood there watching the child get raped and murdered without lifting a finger to help is because you believe "what goes around, comes around".

This doesn't hold up, because if you witness a child being raped, surely this was meant to happen in your life, and is a test or trial, and you are supposed to do something about and say something about it, because that is an evil person commiting a very evil action, and this may be a test of your own adherence to the teachings and will of God.

"God is love". It looks so good in print. It feels so good to say it. In real life it proves to be a nostrum. Why? Because god is imaginary.

Because you think of God as a single entity or physical body. What if we were all a part of God, that God could only see through eyes which he created, our eyes, and wanted to experience all which was? He cant split himself in twain, as his equal would then counter balance and neutralize him, thus no ability to make the creation, the universe. So it's one place or the other, and the other is actually everywhere at the same time. But in order to do this, God had to become intangible physically, because 1 physical unique thing cannot be in all places at the same time. If no laws of physics were held to always be the way they are, what parameters would there be to this reality? The laws of physics are the lines of code that make up this computer program called life, and if you mess with the code, the program stops working, and then you have nothing but a pop-up box error.. lol

Also, Love is a positive force. If all men loved each other, this world could be a utopia, a kingdom of heaven like unto the description given by Jesus himself of heaven, except here on the physical earth. Love is so strong, it motivates people so much to do so much positive, changing things, that it causes an undeniable domino effect. One person's love radiating outward to his circle of persons will cause them eventually to give more love outward in their words and actions with their circles of people as well. And all of these people stop doing certain deeds which are hurtful, hateful, or self-destructive or obscuring their ability to do God's will. We hear SO MUCH about "God's will". God's will is LOVE. The more who love, the more this place changes, and the better a collective humanity becomes. If trying to attain righteous is the goal, what better way than love?

To tie it all together, much like we cannot see infrared with the naked eye, we cannot completely comprehend the current nature of God's form. The only thing we can do is find signs of his work, undeniable signs. If this is the only thing we can know of God while we are in the physical other than "that hes a loving God" and all of this type of abstract stuff, then this is what we define him by. So that is why God is love. Because God is God's will, because we cannot experience God directly, but only his will, so then what we think is God is actually God's will. This is starting to go into the direction of Kabbalah so I will stop, as it would be awfully convienent to say that his will channels through all the Sephirot, or "layers of light and reflection of light", which direct God's intents and will outward amongst the physical realm.

[edit on 4/17/2008 by runetang]

To the folks who are commenting on God not being loving because of the evil and wickedness in the world chew on this for a few minutes :

Just because God is not working in your time frame or judging the wicked in a tangible way where you can see it, does that mean it is not happening? Do you think these rapists and murderers pass into the afterlife without any judgment? As Christians we believe that we are given a chance to atone for our sins and transgressions. We are given the free will to do as we please in life. No one is without sin. But people who chose to ignore the opportunity given them, they will be judged accordingly. Just because you can not see it does not mean it does not happen.