A Unique Kind of Thing, More Than A Feeling

          “And I love you so. The people ask me why... I tell them I don’t know.” A love song that tells how much the person singing loves the other person to whom the song is intended. But is it really love? What really is the definition of love? How will you know if it’s really love you’re feeling? Is true love real? Where can we find it? Is true love meant to be out of bounds? What problems do we encounter when it comes to love or relationship with the people that surround us? What are the things that make the definition of love ugly? What does the Bible say about this? And what makes it unique? Is it really more than what we just feel?

          Many people define love as mutual, beneficial and a physical kind of feeling. Mutual because they want to receive the same amount of love that they give. They don’t want to give it freely. It’s like, ‘love me as I love you’ syndrome. Some people just wanted it to be mutual and have it equally, like brothers sharing it like a piece of pie sliced in half. Some people also describe it as a beneficial kind of feeling. They wanted only to receive and receive but are afraid to give something away. They enjoyed it as long as they get something in return. But disappears when you need something. They are afraid of the consequences of giving. They focus only on one thing, and that’s themselves. To benefit is their goal, nothing more. And there are also people who define love as a physical kind of thing. They believe in the thought of, ‘love at first sight’. Seeing and loving the person the first time they met with their heart beating strongly in their chest. Especially when that person had the looks of Daniel Padilla and Richard Gutierrez or Julia Baretto and Marian Rivera.

          But what does the Bible say about this? 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (New International Version) says, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no records of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes and always perseveres.” A complete definition of what true love really means. True love is also known as Agape love or abounding love. There are also two other kinds of love: Phileo and Eros. Phileo is the kind of love that is brotherly and beneficial. It’s like, “Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” Unlike it, Eros refers to that part of love constituting a passionate, intense desire for something; it is often referred to as a sexual desire. In these three kinds of love, Agape love is considered supreme. According to William Barclay:

 Agape has to do with the mind: it is not simply an emotion which rises unbidden in our hearts; it is a principle by which we deliberately live.

          The statement describes how unique true love or Agape love is. How supreme and unfathomable it is. That it is really more than a feeling.

Although, the world was made out of God’s love and power. It does not mean that all people knew about it. How this love changed our destiny and saved us from the pits of hell.

But there are some problems that arise even when you’re inside the dwelling of that love. The last one that I’ve interviewed when I had my research has a problem with her family. They sort of misunderstood her. They hinder their daughter from going to other religious denomination's activities. They force her to be in the same religion, and as devoted in that religion like them. Their reason; I was born with this, I will die with it. People tend to force their own beliefs because they thought that it was the best thing to do for their loved ones. Some people, mostly products of broken families, tend to seek love from another person who is sometimes the wrong person. While, some people because of their faulted understanding of love, drive away from everything and everyone that they love. They compromise purity with love. The main reason why there are so many unwanted offsprings, abortions, and street children.

Love really is a variety of things. You cannot love without understanding the person. Also, you cannot love without forgiving. It is simply because love is a sum of all the wonderful things taught by God. And love can be found not on the person beside you or the girl in the corner but can only be found (look up!) on the creator Himself. The one who made the heavens and set the earth’s foundations, the Almighty One. Solutions on these problems of love can and will always be found none other than Him. He gave Jesus, his only begotten son, the complete definition of love to save us from our original destination which is death and then, hell. Though parting with His son and seeing him humiliated in front of many people was too much to be taken, still, he had let it happen. Why? Because of love. The most powerful thing in heaven above and earth below. Even if many people try to change its meaning just to fit it with the life they’re living, the truth will remain just as it is. For the truth is not someone’s opinion that it should change or something made up for someone’s entertainment but rather, it is something that exists even before the dawn of time. An unfathomable truth that fills, connects and completes our inmost being. A truth that leads us into understanding and adapting to the changing world. And this truth called love tells us that God gave his son Jesus Christ, who died and gave his life as a ransom for us, so we can live and continue living even after death, to save us from eternal torment and most of all to express how much he loves us and have cared for us ever since the beginning of time. How wonderful to hear that someone was looking after you even before you were born, and watches you’re every coming and going, you’re standing up every start of the day and you’re sitting down at its end! Would you care to accept this offering of Agape love from the Father? He is waiting, you know. All you have to do is call, he will surely answer it, and your life, take my word for it, will never be the same again.

Plato vs. The Bible

         To start, God in the Christian view contains Omni-traits. He contains absolute power, goodness, freedom, intelligence and does not depend on anything to continue existing. He has no beginning and no end, as the Bible says, He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. He is reasonable and all-knowing. He created man in his own image and allowed man to know him and desired for man to seek him, to find fulfillment and completion in loving him, because of this love that He gave man a free will. He enabled us to choose between entering a genuine relationship with him or reject him. And it is through this rejection that sin and imperfection came to the world. But once again He demonstrated his love by a redemptive plan, through Jesus Christ. This is the Christian point of view.

Moving on to the Platonic Natural Theology, it says that the divine is rationally intelligible. That man can use his reason to understand the transcendental truths and perfections found in the world of forms. Forms in the Platonic Theory refers to the assumption that beyond the world of physical things, there is a higher, spiritual realms of forms, apprehensible only to the mind. That things (form of man, stones, love, justice, etc.) in this world are only imperfect copies of these perfect forms. . Everything in reality is created in forms, as there exist within humanity itself an ideal concept in which we call humanness. From this, we must say that all good Forms came from a good creator, as chaos cannot form order. In addition, Plato realized that the world is in constant motion, but objects do not move by themselves, there must be a force that makes it move. However, the human body can initiate motion itself, and the Mover of the Human Body is the Soul. Plato also gives us a conception of a finite God, one that leaves little room for freedom. The Platonic God is subjected to creating the best possible world, and for striving for perfected order. The Platonic God cannot choose to not create the world, but is “subjected to an inner moral need for emanating order and law.” (West 9). “The Platonic Deity is only the maker or moulder of a coexistent matter or spatial receptacle, not a creator exnihilo.” (Wild 9). This finite God is subjected to being always good. The Christian God, however, has true freedom, and could have easily chosen not to create the world. In a Christian point, God created everything from nothing while in the Platonic viewpoint, they believed in molding of the organized world from preexistent matter.

In conclusion to the given information, Plato refer to knowledge as God. He believed that to reach divinity you must have reasoning and be intellect which is contrast to the Christian viewpoint. Plato also believes in reincarnation in a divine aspect. That when you die, you reincarnate into a much higher form that can be called as God. Unlike what Christianity had taught us. That in death there is no reincarnation but incarnation, going to heaven. But we should understand the fact that Plato helped set the intellectual stage for the early church. Platonic theory for me, suggests us to think rather than be contented with what we hear. It wanted us to seek knowledge and have our own stand against certain issues, and not rely on what we just have, and not to believe what we just heard or be contented on what our minds have. But to exercise the knowledge given to us by the Most High.

References:

http://leonardooh.wordpress.com/2008/12/22/168/

http://www.academia.edu/1082782/The_Similarities_between_Platos_form_of_the_Good_and_Christianitys_concept_of_God

http://www.jeffriddle.net/2006/02/platos-republic-and-biblical-worldview.html

http://www.nyu.edu/classes/keefer/hell/plat2.html

https://blog.logos.com/2013/11/plato-christianity-church-fathers/

How Do I Love Thee?

How Do I Love Thee?
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Hindrances in Prayer (1 Peter 3:1)

             It is the Lord’s delight to give us what we ask of him in prayer. It shows that we rely on him and trust his pleasing and perfect will for us. As Christians, it is part of our everyday lives to pray, whether in public or private. We all know that prayer is our way of communicating with God. It is the expression of our inner spiritual needs. It is through prayer that we find the strength of spirit, guidance, wisdom, joy and inner peace. It is where we seek sanctuary at times that we are lost. Praying is just like loading our phones. We use it to send messages and communicate not just with God but also with people who need our prayers the most.

            While all of this is true, there is the fact that our prayers are often hindered. In 1 Peter 3:12 it says:

            For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.

            God surely hears all of our prayers but there are times that he chooses not to answer it. Here are some of the reasons why our prayers are being hindered.

Hindrances to Prayer

1.) Spending less time in Prayer (James 4:2)

            There is power in praying. Praying should not be the least in our options, it should always be the first. Praying, we should keep in mind, is a form of communication with God. It helps us understand and know God. It is how we can have an intimate relationship with Him, and having this kind of relationship is crucial in our lives as Christians because it makes our spiritual, as well as our physical senses attentive to the Lord’s will.

2.) Unconfessed Sin (Psalm 66:18)

            It doesn’t mean that we have to be perfect to have our prayers answered. It only means that in order for our prayers to be heard, our hearts should be cleansed first. God is holy and we know that nothing impure can come to him, might as well, reach him. So before our prayers can reach Him it is important to confess our sins and wash it in the name of Jesus Christ, the only one who can purify us (1 John 1:9).

3.) Selfish Motives (James 4:3)

            We can pray about our needs and desires but we should always remember that the priority of praying is God and his glory. The Lord is holy and if our prayers are selfishly motivated, we can be sure that he will not answer it. That is why it is very important to put God first in everything that we do (Prov. 3:6), his will before ours. Even when Jesus prayed, he prayed not that his will be done but that God’s will be done, in the events to come in his life. It should also be the same with us because after all, everything is not about us but about God and his plans for us.

4.) Broken Fellowship (Mat. 5:23-23)

            It is also important that before we bring our prayers to God, the broken fellowship we have with our brothers are already mended. The Bible says that if we will not forgive others, God will not forgive us either (Mat. 6:14-15).

5.) Lack of Faith (Heb. 11:6)

            The world’s perspective differs from that of God. The world tells us that we should see things first before we believe it. While God tells us that we should believe first then we shall see. Believing that God will grant our prayers means that we trust him and that we rely on his promise of a prosperous and hopeful future (Jer. 29:11). It is important that we put faith in our prayer and believe that God in his perfect time will answer it according to his pleasing and perfect will.

Conclusion

            There are many hindrances to prayer and some of those are what we have discussed earlier. But the most significant thing is that we learn to examine our lives as ambassadors of Christ and learn to trust the perfect plan of the Creator for us.

Preaching Idea

            . Overcome hindrances! Trust God and evaluate oneself.