If we look at what the Bible says about love, we can see fairly quickly that it is far different than what the world says is love. When the world’s thought of love is passed off in the professing Church as love, then we have true hate being passed off as love. People will be deceived into thinking that their hate of God is true love. Whole professing churches will be deceived into thinking that they are Christians because of what they think of as love when in fact they hate God. This is one of the most deceptive things that is happening within the professing Church in our day. What is truly hate for God is being passed off as love for God. This is a deception of monstrous implications that has tentacles in all things that relate to Christianity.
1 Corinthians 13:1 – If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. 4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
This is said by many that this is at the heart of Christianity. It is very true that nothing we can possibly do is pleasing to God without love. We can have the best of grammar and have the best possible word choices or have the greatest gift of public speaking possible, yet without love we are nothing more than a noisy gong. We can have all sorts of gifts in terms of preaching or foretelling or be the most knowledgeable person alive, yet without love we are nothing. We may think that the gift of faith is a great thing, yet without love it is nothing. Faith is nothing without biblical love. We may think that we are wonderful people, give so much to the poor, and do things that cost us a lot, but without true love it is nothing. We may think that we are making great bodily sacrifice, yet without true love it is nothing. We may think that we are patient, kind, without jealousy, humble, and certainly not seekers of self, but without love those things are absolutely of no benefit.
But let us switch this around and look at it from a different point of view. If our idea of love is not that which Scripture teaches, then all that we do is actually hatred of God. If we are wrong on what love truly is and we don’t have true love, then all we do (even our religious and social actions) is hatred for God. The Greatest Commandment is to love God with all of our being. If we are without love for God, we hate Him and are in violation of the Greatest Commandment each moment of our existence. The Bible teaches us that we will give an account for each careless word (Mat 12:36). If each careless word will be brought into judgment, then what of our religious discussions and taking the name of God on our lips? Could it be that every word we use that is not out of love for God is a careless use of language and in fact a vain or empty use of the things of God? The third commandment tells us that we should not take the name of the Lord our God in vain (empty, meaningless use). But when we are made in the image of God, all that we do is a use of His name. All of our language if not from a love for God would actually be a hatred for God since our words are from our souls made in the image of God. We cannot escape the Greatest Command so easily. It penetrates to all of the commands and all we do.
Imagine what would happen if someone changed the “language” of a computer. What you thought you “commanded” it to do it would do the opposite. It would result in a lot of anger toward the computer screen which images forth what happens in the computer. It would create utter chaos in the computer and all it did. Now imagine that a human being is commanded to love God in all it does. Satan came in and changed the “programming” of the soul so that the very definition of love and of God is now distorted and changed. That leads to proud human beings thinking that they know God and love God when in fact they have idols in their minds and hearts and hate Him in reality. All the religious things they do, even when they think they are coming from the Bible, are actually hatred for the true and living God. People can read I Corinthians 13 and feel quite good about themselves and their own works. Yet because they don’t understand what true love is they actually hate God in all they do. This is perhaps a very accurate description of what is going on in the professing Church today. Much of its learning and its working in the name of religion is done from a “love” that has been distorted and so is really hate for God.
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