Before I begin this post, I want to acknowledge Ety W’s post on unconditional love. I have been mulling the subject over recently, and her post prompted me into action. So thanks, Ety.
I believe that God creates each one of us with a finite amount of love: just enough to keep us alive. Now, I can’t find anything in the Bible that would support this view exactly, so I am definitely open to any and all comments (Biblical or otherwise) that either confirm or contradict this belief. But, I do believe we need a minimum amount of love to survive, and although an inadequate amount of love won’t “kill us outright,” we begin to die inside without it.
So in the course of life, we give love to, and receive love from, many of the people we encounter. And if we are particularly giving, or we give love to those who don’t give back, we are in danger of giving away more love than we receive, and essentially starving ourselves to death. I think I’ve encountered people like this: they are starving for love on the inside because they’ve had so much taken from them, and they themselves begin to take as much as they can from everyone around them in an effort to satiate themselves.
To me, this is the definition of conditional love, because we absolutely need to get love back to satisfy the hunger that is created by giving love away. And I don’t believe we are capable of unconditional love on our own.
So, now I can go to the Bible:
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. 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. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
1 John 4:7-21, NIV
I once read a story of a man who took his wife and son on vacation from the city they lived in to the farm where he grew up. On arrival, he eagerly led his five-year-old son into the barn, grabbed a cup, sat down beside a cow and milked into the cup. Then he presented the cup to his son with a big smile on his face and urged him to drink up. His son’s reaction? “Daddy, that’s not milk! Milk comes from the store!”
Of course, we all know where milk comes from, be it a cow, a goat or whatever. And we also know that we can get perfectly good milk from the store. But if you’ve ever had truly fresh milk, directly from the source, you know the difference.
But do we know what the source of unconditional love is? Love in its purest form? The passage above sums it up: God is not only the source of love, but he is love itself.
One thing I didn’t mention when I made the statement that we are created with a finite amount of love: our capacity to accept love is much, much larger. And it is only when we choose to let God fill us with himself that we suddenly realize we have more than enough love for ourselves. Then we can begin giving love away without worrying about whether or not we’ll receive some back. That, by the way, is the definition of unconditional love.
The sad part is that we tend to approach God with our cups, but he wants to fill buckets. He has so much love to give us that we have a hard time comprehending it.
So I have a prayer that I pray often, and it comes with a visual. I pray that God will fill me with more love than I have the capacity to hold—fresh, pure love directly from the source—so that it will overflow and wet the feet of everyone I come close to.
And may you be filled to overflowing in the same way.
Blessings, Robert
Robert…Gosh a beautiful post that makes my head swell with thoughts. So here goes.
First of all, it is a proven fact that a baby will die without love. If it is only fed, it will die if there is no other contact established.
Secondly, I don’t believe that we are given a finite amount of love within ourselves to give. We have an infinite pool of love in which to tap into. We choose to tap into it what we want. It is our choice. Period. Sometimes, it takes a tragedy or challenge to make us learn that. Sometimes we are suprised at the amount of love we can give. Often its to our own children.. or spouse.
With a deep breath here goes for the next section of my comment – and this will not make me popular with you or Dude. Whilst I believe in the teachings of Jesus, I do not pray to Jesus. I go straight to the source and that is God himself. I don’t believe in the divinity. I am a follower of Jesus but not a Christian does that make sense?
I have a personal and extremely satisfying relationship to God of my understanding. I live by the rules that God has handed down through the bible and other holy teachings and I walk the path of positive and light. I don’t need to pray to anyone else but God to intercede for me, not even his son on earth. I believe we are all his sons and daughters. Maybe some more evolved than others, but still all loved equally in the eyes of our father.
I am filled with love for my fellow man. I am filled with love for our world in general. I ache when I see injustice and cruelty. I try to teach by example and always treat others with love, dignity, kindness and respect……
I absolutely agree that we are incapable of unconditional love on our own. I have to admit that I haven’t thought a whole lot about the source of our conditional human love, except that it is obviously very needy and that folks have a lot of different ways to try and meet their need for love.
Your prayer is beautiful! One all Christians should pray. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for your comment, Amber. About the content of my post, as I said, I am open to other ideas. The part about being created with a finite amount is not a Biblical teaching as far as I know. The part about God being the source of love, and even love itself, is; so for me, that’s not negotiable. :oP
Now for your comments about Jesus. First and foremost, they don’t make you any less popular with me, and as little as I know about Dude, I believe he would feel the same way. Secondly, I pray to God also, but I do it through him. Biblically speaking (again… won’t this guy shut up?), praying in Jesus’ name means that your requests are regarded as having been made by Jesus the Son directly to God the father.
In the book of Romans, Paul states that the two ways to absolutely know that you are “saved” is to confess that Jesus is Lord (which you have just done by declaring yourself a follower of Jesus, and also as evidenced by your posts and comments), and believe that he was resurrected from the dead.
The part about the resurrection is crucial because, without it, Jesus is just some really nice guy who did a lot of really nice things.
CS Lewis states that Jesus, making the claims he did, was either a madman, a con-man, or the Son of God. I won’t get into the details, but the first two possibilities are actually more unlikely than the third.
But it’s a decision you need to make for yourself. Rest assured, however… it’s gonna take a lot more than your comment here to make me think any less of you.
And by the way, I’m still praying.
This is the thing… maybe you wont understand. I don’t despute that Jesus is the son of God at all. Nor that he died for our sins…my interpretation of it is a little different.
I believe that Jesus did die for our sins. So that the message of peace and hope that he taught would be carried forward by his martyrdom. All of the esoteric stuff… to me it isn’t necessary. Jesus didn’t need to walk on water to make him the son of God in my eyes. He didn’t need to be of virgin birth to make his divinity absolute as the church would like us to believe. His actions, his message of love and hope, his teaching by example – that alone is enough. If God were to send a messenger and teacher of peace and hope to us all, that is what I would imagine him/her to be.
I don’t disagree with so many things.
But I also want you to understand… God is alot smarter than we are. So please read my post: http://amberfireinus.wordpress.com/2007/11/10/religion-is-like-a-car/
I heard a quote somewhere that always made me stop and catch my breath. It was: “Jesus never said to WORSHIP ME. If he did he would be the biggest egotist in the world. What he said was, live like me, follow my example and worship GOD.”
All of this to me comes down to interpretation. Do we need Jesus to be this supernatural creature for his message to be the truth or not? Well, I dont. I dont need for him to be raised from the dead. I don’t need his face on my cinnamon roll.
We are all the sons and daughters of God. Its up to us to choose to act like it.
I don’t ask anyone to believe as I do. I know many Christians would have me burned at the stake for my views. I am glad you are not one of them.
I love reading your thoughts on the bible. I love it when thatdudeyouknow points out references for me to learn it more indepth and give me better understanding. There is joy in those words. There are lessons there for us all.
Sorry Robert.. I decided to repost Religion is like a car for tomorrow’s posting….
Hmmm… you believe Jesus is the Son of God and that he died for our sins. And you also choose to follow his example with your life.
Were we disagreeing about something? :oP
I actually understand your position completely. I often find it amazing that, despite the miracles that were witnessed first-hand, even Jesus’ original disciples didn’t understand who he really was until after his resurrection. And Thomas had to actually touch his wounds before he would completely believe.
None of them were condemned for their doubts. I actually find it amazing that you would believe without the testimony of his miracles, even the greatest one of them (the resurrection).
And I feel you are more of a Christian (follower of Christ, or, literally, “little Christ”) than many Christians I know, because you are a Christian in the way you choose to live your life rather than in name only.
Looking forward to reading your post!
Thanks, Ety. It’s a subject I’ve been thinking about and meditating on for some time. And as you no doubt see, I don’t necessarily have it all down. What I love about being able to share these thoughts is that I get honest feedback.
Hi Robert and thanks for this thought provoking post.
I need to talk about belief a lot in my reply so before I did, I wrote a post on my blog about what I think belief is so we understand each other.
http://saveourspecies.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/belief-part-1belief-part-1/
This is what I believe and it helps me to make sense of things I do not understand. Please feel free to interchange the word God with Universe
The universe is one and the universe is everything. Everything that is, is in the universe and so everything in the universe is connected.
The universe contains energy that came into being with the big bang. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. So the universe is what it is and cannot be more or less.
Matter and energy are interchangeable according to Einstein’s famous equation E = MC2.
You and I are made from matter, which is a localised concentration of some of the energy contained in the universe. Since we are made up of some of the substance of the universe, we are an integral and eternal part of it. The universe could not exist without us or us without the universe. We are one and the same.
The part of the universal energy we are composed of is currently manifest as human beings. The first known creation to be blessed/cursed with self-consciousness. With self-awareness came choice, which gives us the ability to be creators if we so choose. As a side product of choice and free will evolved a sense of self, which Freud called the Ego or Id, the I am.
This sense of ‘I am’ means there has to be stuff that I am not so the ego perceives itself to be separate and distinct from the universe. To maintain this sense of self, we start from birth to construct a wall around ourselves to keep us intact and distinct from that which we are not.
Sadly this wall also keeps the universe out. In other words we cut ourselves off from the source like branch lopping itself from the tree. Once cut off from source we start to whither and die.
I believe this is why you feel we have a limited amount of love. We only feel we have available what energy/love that we have shut inside our wall with us. In actual fact though the distinction between the universe and us is an illusion and exists only in our minds. If we can break down our barriers and reconnect with the universe we will be bathed in universal love and will be able to channel unlimited amounts wherever we choose.
This perception of limited love also results in love being given conditionally. If you knew you could never run out you wouldn’t think twice about giving it.
So loose yourself and find God ;)
Oh poo – that URL is wrong sorry. Please could you replace it with this one – Thanks
http://saveourspecies.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/belief-part-1/
Visionary… that was absolutely beautifully said…
Robert… thank you. Thank you for understanding and accepting my non traditional thinking. :)