No, I'm not judging the spiritual condition of anyone. After all I don't know any of you personally.
Nor, have I ever said that this love is "self-centered, worldly love".
I did say that even our BEST concept of love falls far short of God's love and is not a reliable guide, we still need a reliable "measuring rod" (as in God's Word and commandments) to check that we are on the path of righteousness.










No one is trying to stop you from studying Christ and by beholding become changed.

That's my point -- we must never let "love", even when we're convinced it's the right kind of love, be the standard, we must always study Christ, His Word, His law, if we want to be changed into His image.

Yet, when people tell me God's Word and commands are not above our love, what am I supposed to think? And I have been told that.



So everyone is responding to what is going on their mind.




See -- you are responding to what's in your mind, not to what I said. No where have I said you have a "sickly view of Godly love".
My point was that people can never have the right view of Godly love unless they subject their ideas of that love to God's Word and law.

That was my point from the start -- OUR love, must be subjected to God's Word and commands, or it will lead astray.

Then I was told (not by you) that love is not bound by law, but love, as defined by God, determines what the law is to be.

I'm sorry but that statement troubles me.
I don't care how noble (not sickly but NOBLE) our love is, it can never, never place itself as the definer of God's law.





No, we don't have godly love, we fall far far far short, and that's why we NEED to place our love under the searching light of God's Word and law. Why are people (not you) telling me that I'm "putting the cart before the horse" and "preaching another gospel" by saying we can't make our love the standard, but that we must compare it TO GOD'S WORD and law? That God's commands and Word must take precedence or be placed above our love.


I fully agree we need to study the life and teachings of Christ.




Indeed it shouldn't be neglected, that includes giving serious thought and study to the prophecies, and to Christ's ministry in the heavenly sanctury, as well as many other portions.

The books of Daniel and Revelation, we are told, are to receive serious study -- they deal with Great Controversy issues, Christ's heavenly ministry, and with God's judgments and final acts of putting an end to sin forever, and establishing a new heaven and earth.

We must always place our love under the scrutiny of God's Word, and let the Holy Spirit guide us THROUGH God's Word and commandments to change.

noone said you were judging the spiritual condition of anyone and so is not valid in this discussion. my point for your next sentence was that something else was going on in your mind that had nothing to do with what was said.



noone said our best concept of love was any kind of guide for anything-again that is what you are hearing for some reason. we need to study the life of Christ who the messenger of the Lord said was a blend of the law and the gospel.


again noone said anyone was trying to stop me from anything. i was making a point, again, that you completely missed, it seems.



it wasnt in this thread unless you misread someones point.

much of this is just saying the same thing over and over with some ungodly acts.



Christs life determines what the law means. as we humans do not have the right view of love, we also do not have the right view of the law. we are no more capable of judging love by the law than we are of being able to judge the law by love. and we are not even capable of rightly understanding Christs life, the bible or anything else without second-by-second surrender to God and the Holy Spirit.



noone did. you saw "our love" but noone said it.





do you deep down feel inferior to others?

or do you just think you know, others dont, so you have to tell them?

do you know how to enter into a discussion and share ideas, or even disagree, without making the other person less than you?

But you have not been told that here. "Our love" has not been the focus here, except by you. You are the only who keeps bringing it up.

Look at what you said above. You were talking about Christ's word and Christ's law in order to be changed into Christ's image. Then you switch to "our" love. How about sticking with the motif and focusing on Christ's love? Then we will all be talking about the same thing.


Here you pull to old switcheroo again. Based on some of your earlier posts, I thought you were an experienced logician. But here you fall for one of the biggest fallacies - switching definitions.

We were talking about God's love determining what the law should be. God's love, God's law. Jesus said that the law hangs on the principle of love. It's pretty basic.

But then you switch over to "our" love again. You say that should not define God's law. Welcome to the club; we all believe that.

Unless you believe that "God's love" and "our love" are equivalent, you have fallen for a fallacy. And it is that fallacy that has driven the opposition against what you have been saying.

Because we're talking about different things, your rejection of my statements regarding the relationship between God's love and God's law is unfounded. It may turn out in the end that we have significant disagreements, but as it stands, you are fighting against a sentiment that nobody here holds.

This is irrelevant to your question. You asked why there are so many denominations, if people are dwelling on God's love. First of all, it wasn't asserted that people *were* dwelling on God's love, but we'll let that go. Your question is why, then, are there so many denominations. The answer is because they (the people that form the denominations) don't know God (don't know the truth about Him). If they did, they'd all join the same denomination, of course.

This doesn't mean there aren't true followers of God who belong to different denominations, are Catholic, or, for that matter, Buddhists or even Atheists. That's not the point.

We have such a reliable "measuring rod" in Jesus Christ, to check that we are on the path of righteousness.



This mentions both the law and Jesus Christ. The Pharisees used the law as a "measuring rod," but got it all wrong. There's nothing wrong with the law, but without Christ, it will just make us into Pharisees. The true goal is to walk as He walked. Now, since Christ walked in perfect harmony to the law, in Christ we have the true picture of the "measuring rod."

Another way of seeing the importance of Christ is to remember that love is the fulfilling of the law. In Christ, we see the love of God poured out. By receiving Christ, that love can be shed about in our hearts, and by beholding Him, we can be transformed into the same image.

Welcome to my world.

you make the point in the pages following this post that "our love" cannot be the basis for what is right or wrong. i believe everyone here agrees with that.

can we also agree that noone was referring to "our love" but the concept of love presented in the bible?




i cant see anyone disagreeing with this. but by the same token ones idea of "righteousness" can be severely warped. far too many times it is just a word without any true conception of what it means by the user. or, as you stated, "Jer. 17:9 The heart is deceitful...."



i have to disagree with this because it leads to scary conclusions for me. it is basically saying that "love" is wrong. adams love was not a lack of trust and reliance upon God. adam could have, in spite of his love for eve and not wanting to be separated from her, still trusted and obeyed God.

as stated above the statement makes love wrong. and i cant believe that at that point in time adams love was "sinful" or wrong. it would have made him a sinner before he disobeyed God and ate the apple. we are not told that is so anywhere.

but since the fall "our love" is certainly sinful. nevertheless whatever real love we do possess is not wrong, only which way we choose to go because of that love.

the ultimate conclusion one would come to from that statement is that we should not love because it makes us do wrong. there is the possibility we will do wrong because we love, but doing wrong is not the ultimate result of love.

the lesson from adams mistake that we all need to learn is to trust God no matter how badly it may hurt, as with abraham and isaac. we should also probably put ourselves in adams shoes and have a little sympathy for his situation. playing the "blame game" does not in any way change the results of their actions. but acknowledging that we might have reacted the same exact way were we in his situation might go a long ways towards our own healing and restoration into Gods image.

what we need to overcome is not loving because it many times hurts very badly. if God didnt love because it can hurt so bad where would we be?

NO -- do you?
NO - do you?
Yes, people seem to enjoy my Sabbath School Lessons because we have lively and thought provoking discussions.

Amen! (including the rest of the post)

That's MY world. You're just a squirrel trying to get a nut.