Love?

December 31, 2024

You’ve probably heard that the Inuit People have several words for “snow” — probably because snow is a part of their lives almost year round. Their survival, the very existence of their families, depends on knowing what kind of weather they are dealing with.

Likewise, the Greeks have several words for “love.”

Greek is the original language of the texts of the New Testament of the Bible. Since words convey ideas, it is essential to understand what words mean. Otherwise, misunderstandings can arise, and people may even be insulted because of them.

For example, once expressing my opinion on Facebook about someone else’s opinion, I used the word “ignorant.” Well that caused quite a disturbance, and I got hostile responses from both the man and his father, as well. They thought I was calling them “stupid” which would have justified their threatening response.

I simply meant that they didn’t have all the facts. They both seemed to be satisfied with that clarification. Still and all, don’t we sometimes fall over each other’s words?

Yet. positive results can develop from understanding what people consider the meaning of your words, that is what ideas people are trying to convey.

This phenomenon carries weight with having proper ideas of the meanings of words and phrases, chapter and verse while reading the Bible.

Here is a core example:

“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.” — 1 Corinthians 13:1, New International Version.

The Apostle Paul had been writing about the operational gifts of the Holy Spirit, and while He said he spoke in the gift of tongues more than everybody he was writing to, he was emphasizing the necessity of selfless, self-sacrificing love (Greek, agape).

“Agape” is a Greek word used in the Bible meaning “unconditional love.” This is, of course, the rarest of the ideas within the word “love”…

…The entire Bible must be looked at through the lens of this Agape love…

An illustration from today would be found in combat, in a theater of operations, where, not only no one is left behind, but sometimes a brother in arms is willing to sacrifice his own life to save another’s! That is where the Congressional Medal of Honor is awarded — which ceremonies with the testimonies have been shown on TV.

Unfortunately, it looks like few bother to think about such people serving in the Military. In fact, something south of 3% of the general U.S. population gives a hoot.

I see this dynamic also with the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Few bother to think about His full attempt to leave no one behind. Few seem to give a hoot about Him sacrificing His life for us.

Nevertheless, “…everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. — John 3:15–17, NIV.

Also, listen to this fact Jesus stated: “No one takes {my life} from me, but I lay it down of my own accord .” — John 19:18, NIV.

Again, it is unfortunate that few bother to think about such a man, the One whom God sent to save all of us from ourselves.

Or do you think Humanity is doing such a great job with the life we’ve been given? Do you imagine that we have made our own lives so beautiful that we don’t need God, Jesus, and the Bible?

To the contrary, I believe we need God to create that new eternal Heaven and Earth spoken about in Revelation 21:1: It is also essential that it begins with each of us — each of us turning to our Rescuer, Jesus.

“Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.” — NIV.

Let there be peace on earth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOwGS1AgYMY

Not interested?

Well, I might liken the situation to the sinking Titanic and everyone on board expecting enough Lifeboats to be available, and the Captain and Crew to know what they were doing… How did that work out, especially for the people below decks?

“Of its total 2,240 passengers and crew, only 706 people survived the sinking of the Titanic, says History.com. After the Titanic first hit the iceberg, there was “a largely disorganized and haphazard evacuation.” Some lifeboats were not used to full capacity, and procedures for boarding them were not orderly — Nov 19, 2022.

Jesus describes everybody’s similar situation today in this way:

“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” — Matthew 24:36–39, NIV.

No? You think, “We Humans have always survived and found our own way out of any trouble, multiple disasters, and any and all calamity. It’s no different now.”

You sure?

We have been warned. So, we must choose — like Captain Edward Smith did? — We can choose to ignore the Iceberg Warnings, or we can choose to do what we can, recognizing the necessity to call on the Creator of Heaven and Earth and Jesus the Redeemer to rescue us — to rescue us from all the personal and societal and environmental messes which consequences we are now finding ourselves in — and by the by, finding ourselves in way, way over our heads.

I mean, how many miles deep is that ocean?

I Have Hope — Dallas Holm — Lyric Video — Words of Hope and Comfort https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Iw-pT94VxU

I’ll leave you with this, from one of the Apostle Paul’s letters to Born Again Believers (this one written from a Roman jail):

What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all — how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died — more than that, who was raised to life — is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. — [ Romans 8:31–39, NIV.

Please, don’t assume. Please, please, please remember this qualifier: “If God is for us…”

That is a big “if.”

Have you turned to Jesus to get right with God, to get on His side, to get Him to be for you? Remember that Paul is writing to people who have been born anew, having accepted Jesus as their personal Rescuer and King, and having been adopted into the Family of God where they know they know that they know… not just a wish, not just a vague hope, not theoretical, factual… Do you know for a fact that you belong to God’s family?

Everyone is invited to become chosen, that is, to be accepted into the family…

God’s promises do not apply to anyone who stands opposed to Him.

Reach out to Jesus, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dd9SS6bThNE

Still, you can reach out to Jesus, because He’s reaching out for youQ