The Essence of Love

Love is often a multi use term, as most define it as a noun.  But truly it is to give, a verb.  So the concept must be refined or agreed on.  I think Freedom captures the intended notion best, Shalom also works, But Shalom is the Fruit of Freedom, and Captivity as the opposite of Freedom. So let's define a few things.  Note that in John 3:16 God defines love as to give.  But so much more is conveyed.  He demonstrates trust, truth, listening (humility), acceptance, and without any fear.  He has shown us many things in this one short passage.  To summarize the description of love or freedom. So lets give them a low level explanation, based on components of human data.  Taylor series works good.

And were off to see the the truth

Freedom = Truth, Love, Humility
Captive = Deception, Hate, Arrogance
Shalom = Faith, Joy, Peace

Truth/Trust = Full disclosure and trust.
Deception/Fear = Withhold of info or suspect
Faith = Fruit of full truth between two people

Love/Acceptance = Give and Receive,
Hate/Rejection = Take or Reject
Joy = Fruit of Charity(=Love is a verb)

Humility/Understanding = Unity
Arrogance/Judging = Division
Peace = Fruit of Humility

Freedom is the subset given as the intersection of all things positive. Captivity is its the complementary subset of Freedom, Captivity = Union of everything not in Freedom.

God has given me a special sense. I can feel (or lets say I am aware of) the human heart. I can see what heaven could be if we can all stop everything but love. Love is misunderstood, but as it is misused I will follow that and allow it to be the cover word for all things positive. 

In John 3:16 "God so Loved ... He Gave... His only Son" This passage tells us that Love is to Give. Give what? His son, something He cared deeply about. So He is making a grand offer to us even more significant than when a man asks a woman to marry.  He shows us He cares deeply. This offer also implies faith, trust, and hope, that it will be accepted.  Let's go deeper...

English is often very low context, but this verse has a lot of context that should be considered. God knows we are not able to meet the requirements of the first covenant, so this offer expresses concern, understanding, empathy, and acceptance of us as we are. All in exchange for just giving the same treatment back to Him, and your fellow man. 

Further this is a demonstration of perfect communication, as He is patient, He has listened, He has spoken from the heart, made an offer, and conveyed the full Truth. A truly amazing verse. So recapping what Love means, based on this verse Love is to Give and Express, Truth, Trust, Concern, Empathy, Understanding, Acceptance, Humility, Hope, Patience, To Listen, To Care.  The meaning of "Love your neighbor" it is almost the same as that of open communication. 

So anything that opposes those thoughts I believe to be sin. So to not Love is to Hate = Deceptive / Secrets / Witholding, Fear, Disinterested, Misunderstanding, Rejection, Arrogance, Despair, Hurried, Ignore, not Care. But if you can achieve this I feel you will have found one of the keys to heaven. Another way to think of this is Freedom is achieved in true Love which means all of the positive and none of the negative. 

Even though this is not in the Bible I feel it is a fundamental truth that positive thinking and energy makes us and everyone around us happy, and brings a sense of peace. Once there you fear nothing, no concerns, true freedom. But getting there is the trick as you cannot be concerned with others thoughts or actions, you have to accept.  We will not discuss it here but tapping into the subconscious is important as it relates to the future, love, and heaven.  Remember that when Jesus died the inner curtain ripped.  Symbolic of the taking off of Rebekah's veil she kept on in front of Isaac.  So it is symbolic of women letting men see them spiritually naked.  The same is true for government.  Freedom can only be achieved in this way.  Transparency and Truth are critical for Freedom.

God Says Close Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp

Deuteronomy 27:19 ‘The one who denies justice to a foreigner, a fatherless child, or a widow is cursed.’

The Breakdown of Order, We Need to Let Go

Our basic premise as a culture is competition.  We teach our children to compete through organized sports, even board games.  Think about how many times there was an argument over Monopoly or Risk.  Now consider the soccer mom culture.  We clearly teach our children it is important to win.   To win is to take the prize, to take victory, to take bragging rights, but not to give.  To love is to give, not take.  You could even state that to love is to lose because you would rather lose than take something from the other.

Our competitive nature drives us to win at all costs in some cases.  But the status quo, is to contend or compete from the start.  The picture to the left could even be considered the playbook for the Congress and the White House, basically ur policy is the opposite of theres.  Why is that?  Because We The People demand to be represented.  No problem,  except that to us representation means we want to have our way, or see a substantial fight.  We have become a people that want to be entertained by our news.  The news accommodates by adapting to ratings.  This creates a bias in our news.  What did you say!  Biased news means a biased reality. That is truly dangerous.  Ask any controls engineer, a system with a biased output (the media reporting of our governments actions)  and feedback with memory the human voter/poll/call to senator, becomes unstable.

Our system is also more sensitive than it was in 1776, because of instant feedback due to global instant delivery of news.  When Paul Revere made his ride there was a lot of time to consider their response as he rode his horse to inform the citizens, that the British were coming.  In a feedback control system the speed of the feedback affects the phase margin.  The faster the feedback the more unstable the system.

The third component of a feedback system that needs to be considered is the feedback gain.  The higher the gain the more likely the system will become unstable.  So in the Paul Revere example he rode by and stated the British were coming. Very little in the way of analysis.  But look at the 24/7 coverage of local crimes like that of George Zimmerman.  The difference is by considering so much the most contentious atypical cases.  It amplifies the out of the norm case that causes contention.  If you consider that there are roughly 100 deaths by gun per 1,000,000 people in the US each year, and approximately 1 NBC per million. So if a death is not a celebrity,  there is no point in nationwide coverage, it only serves to amplify hate.  This is a feedback gain of 200 to 300.  So nationwide broadcast of anything creates an illusion of the problem being 250 time worse.  That is 250x!!!

We do not see the nationwide broadcast of love based news, because humans are drawn the watching hate.  Not because we are evil but because we are not. Everyone is curious about things they do not know.  There becomes a point where we become entertained, then we are hooked on "infotainment."  Then you factor in that some people make a living off of division.  Personally this should be considered as a hate crime.  There needs to be a hate crime that involves creating division.  Additionally the bias of the media should be made a responsibility to accurately reflect reality.  We need to be lead not sold.

Love is the opposite of Hate, there are several components of that make up the love - hate spectrum.  God defined love in John 3:16.  A good way of thinking of it is to consider it as energy.  Positive energy is attributed to Love, and the negative counterparts are attributed to Hate.   So the attributes of Love/Hate are give/take, truth/secrecy lies, trust/fear, acceptance/rejection, humility/arrogance, freedom/control, generous/selfish, peace/violence, protect/neglect.  So to Love is to give, truth, trust, acceptance, humility, generous, peaceful, protective.  Pure Hate would be taking, secrecy or lies, fearful, rejecting, arrogant, controlling, selfish, violent, neglecting or ignoring.  Most reality lies somewhere in between.  But to get to Heaven we must be in Christ's love.  God perfects love in his children.  Not one is perfect, but we all should work to improve our behavior toward the positive side.

We need to let go. Not try and control. Just be.

Our World

Our country is broken as even the leaders are afraid.  There are so many silly secret networks and they are all playing against each other.  The problem is they all see real anger in their own eyes.  Every possible group is become out of control.  Including gender,  race, religion, socioeconomic, nations, and governments, gun control, etc.  It is so simple I am sure if you look at a division that you ave no interest in you will think they are silly. Truth is we all are silly, and all wrong.  There are a handful of evil people in the world who have more money than morals, and a few handfuls of people with more need for money than morals.  And if you were to plot these,  it would look like a bell curve where the two tails of the money spectrum are conspiring together to wag the dog in the middle.

In short the super rich and the super poor, of f which we extract those with low morals are the group that is controlling the violence in the world.  It is called false flag terrorism and our nation's CIA created the notion.  One well known case was the creation, training, and support of Al-Queda in order to harass the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

The question is who?  Well the answer is in the money flow. Since Obama came in the spending has went up over $1 trillion per year.  But as congress has oversight, who is to blame?

The US War Machine

Our military actions are outside the desire of God.

• They use assassinations, which kill in secret and  Deuteronomy 27:24 “Cursed is anyone who kills their neighbor secretly.”
• deny a foreigner justice. Deuteronomy 27:19 “Cursed is anyone who withholds justice from the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow.”
• hey move neighbors boundary lines.  Deuteronomy 27:17 “Cursed is anyone who moves their neighbor’s boundary stone.”
• Additionally  Habakkuk 2:12 “Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed and establishes a town by injustice!"
• We are being mislead by the hidden nature of our system.  18 “Cursed is anyone who leads the blind astray on the road.”
• We The People are responsible.  Deuteronomy 27:26 “Cursed is anyone who does not uphold the words of this law by carrying them out.”

We Need a Noah Flood of Love

We all need to remember our roots. We are all children of God. Black, white, hispanic, asian, male, female, etc we all come from God. We get too caught up keeping score for our team. Can't we all play for one team.  How about we ask God for a Noah like flood of Love.  I bet in 40 days we could drown out the fear and hate.  Pray!

Joel 2

An Army of Locusts

2 Blow the trumpet in Zion;
    sound the alarm on my holy hill.

Let all who live in the land tremble,
    for the day of the Lord is coming.
It is close at hand—
2     a day of darkness and gloom,
    a day of clouds and blackness.
Like dawn spreading across the mountains
    a large and mighty army comes,
such as never was in ancient times
    nor ever will be in ages to come.

3 Before them fire devours,
    behind them a flame blazes.
Before them the land is like the garden of Eden,
    behind them, a desert waste—
    nothing escapes them.
4 They have the appearance of horses;
    they gallop along like cavalry.
5 With a noise like that of chariots
    they leap over the mountaintops,
like a crackling fire consuming stubble,
    like a mighty army drawn up for battle.

6 At the sight of them, nations are in anguish;
    every face turns pale.
7 They charge like warriors;
    they scale walls like soldiers.
They all march in line,
    not swerving from their course.
8 They do not jostle each other;
    each marches straight ahead.
They plunge through defenses
    without breaking ranks.
9 They rush upon the city;
    they run along the wall.
They climb into the houses;
    like thieves they enter through the windows.

10 Before them the earth shakes,
    the heavens tremble,
the sun and moon are darkened,
    and the stars no longer shine.
11 The Lord thunders
    at the head of his army;
his forces are beyond number,
    and mighty is the army that obeys his command.
The day of the Lord is great;
    it is dreadful.
    Who can endure it?

Rend Your Heart

12 “Even now,” declares the Lord,
    “return to me with all your heart,
    with fasting and weeping and mourning.”

13 Rend your heart
    and not your garments.
Return to the Lord your God,
    for he is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and abounding in love,
    and he relents from sending calamity.
14 Who knows? He may turn and relent
    and leave behind a blessing—
grain offerings and drink offerings
    for the Lord your God.

15 Blow the trumpet in Zion,
    declare a holy fast,
    call a sacred assembly.
16 Gather the people,
    consecrate the assembly;
bring together the elders,
    gather the children,
    those nursing at the breast.
Let the bridegroom leave his room
    and the bride her chamber.
17 Let the priests, who minister before the Lord,
    weep between the portico and the altar.
Let them say, “Spare your people, Lord.
    Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn,
    a byword among the nations.
Why should they say among the peoples,
    ‘Where is their God?’”

The Lord’s Answer

18 Then the Lord was jealous for his land
    and took pity on his people.

19 The Lord replied to them:

“I am sending you grain, new wine and olive oil,
    enough to satisfy you fully;
never again will I make you
    an object of scorn to the nations.

20 “I will drive the northern horde far from you,
    pushing it into a parched and barren land;
its eastern ranks will drown in the Dead Sea
    and its western ranks in the Mediterranean Sea.
And its stench will go up;
    its smell will rise.”

Surely he has done great things!
21     Do not be afraid, land of Judah;
    be glad and rejoice.
Surely the Lord has done great things!
22     Do not be afraid, you wild animals,
    for the pastures in the wilderness are becoming green.
The trees are bearing their fruit;
    the fig tree and the vine yield their riches.
23 Be glad, people of Zion,
    rejoice in the Lord your God,
for he has given you the autumn rains
    because he is faithful.
He sends you abundant showers,
    both autumn and spring rains, as before.
24 The threshing floors will be filled with grain;
    the vats will overflow with new wine and oil.

25 “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—
    the great locust and the young locust,
    the other locusts and the locust swarm—
my great army that I sent among you.
26 You will have plenty to eat, until you are full,
    and you will praise the name of the Lord your God,
    who has worked wonders for you;
never again will my people be shamed.
27 Then you will know that I am in Israel,
    that I am the Lord your God,
    and that there is no other;
never again will my people be shamed.

The Day of the Lord

28 “And afterward,
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
    your old men will dream dreams,
    your young men will see visions.
29 Even on my servants, both men and women,
    I will pour out my Spirit in those days.
30 I will show wonders in the heavens
    and on the earth,
    blood and fire and billows of smoke.
31 The sun will be turned to darkness
    and the moon to blood
    before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
32 And everyone who calls
    on the name of the Lord will be saved;
for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem
    there will be deliverance,
    as the Lord has said,
even among the survivors
    whom the Lord calls.

Joel 3

The Nations Judged

3 “In those days and at that time,
    when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem,
2 I will gather all nations
    and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat.
There I will put them on trial
    for what they did to my inheritance, my people Israel,
because they scattered my people among the nations
    and divided up my land.
3 They cast lots for my people
    and traded boys for prostitutes;
    they sold girls for wine to drink.

4 “Now what have you against me, Tyre and Sidon and all you regions of Philistia? Are you repaying me for something I have done? If you are paying me back, I will swiftly and speedily return on your own heads what you have done. 5 For you took my silver and my gold and carried off my finest treasures to your temples. 6 You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks, that you might send them far from their homeland.

7 “See, I am going to rouse them out of the places to which you sold them, and I will return on your own heads what you have done. 8 I will sell your sons and daughters to the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, a nation far away.” The Lord has spoken.

9 Proclaim this among the nations:
    Prepare for war!
Rouse the warriors!
    Let all the fighting men draw near and attack.
10 Beat your plowshares into swords
    and your pruning hooks into spears.
Let the weakling say,
    “I am strong!”
11 Come quickly, all you nations from every side,
    and assemble there.

Bring down your warriors, Lord!

12 “Let the nations be roused;
    let them advance into the Valley of Jehoshaphat,
for there I will sit
    to judge all the nations on every side.
13 Swing the sickle,
    for the harvest is ripe.
Come, trample the grapes,
    for the winepress is full
    and the vats overflow—
so great is their wickedness!”

14 Multitudes, multitudes
    in the valley of decision!
For the day of the Lord is near
    in the valley of decision.
15 The sun and moon will be darkened,
    and the stars no longer shine.
16 The Lord will roar from Zion
    and thunder from Jerusalem;
    the earth and the heavens will tremble.
But the Lord will be a refuge for his people,
    a stronghold for the people of Israel.

Blessings for God’s People

17 “Then you will know that I, the Lord your God,
    dwell in Zion, my holy hill.
Jerusalem will be holy;
    never again will foreigners invade her.

18 “In that day the mountains will drip new wine,
    and the hills will flow with milk;
    all the ravines of Judah will run with water.
A fountain will flow out of the Lord’s house
    and will water the valley of acacias.
19 But Egypt will be desolate,
    Edom a desert waste,
because of violence done to the people of Judah,
    in whose land they shed innocent blood.
20 Judah will be inhabited forever
    and Jerusalem through all generations.
21 Shall I leave their innocent blood unavenged?
    No, I will not.”

The Lord dwells in Zion!