Re: [TruthTalk] God Hates

[Wm. Taylor]

BT wrote: Are you the kind of mother who would say "I'll love you if and only if you do your chores, and your homework, and eat all your vegetables"? Assuming you're not, Do you think it would be wrong if you were? I do. jt responded: To love a child is to discipline. God says that an undisciplined child is an unloved child. Bill > Nice spin, Judy. But it hardly addresses the point. Let me ask the question a different way. Let's say you had told your kids (or your grandchildren) to do their chores, their homework, and to eat all their vegetables. Would you stop loving them if they did not? Let's say they did not do these things, and this in spite of knowing how important they are to you, would you hate them because they disobeyed you? I'm sure you may discipline them if they didn't do what they were told, as well you should, but does this make your love conditional? Do this or I will not love you, but I will discipline you. That doesn't make much sense to me.  ___________________________________________ BT wrote: But from where does this right sense come if not from God? Why should it be wrong for us to place conditions upon our love if this is how God enacts his love for us? jt responded: Love is a two way street Bill  >  I've heard this saying many times, Judy. But I do not believe it. A relationship is a two way street. A loving relationship is the heart of God. But love itself is not dependent upon reciprocation. How could it be? we are to love our enemies. We do not tell them we will love them if and only if they will love us in return. Jesus says we are to love them, not expecting anything in return (cf Luke 6.35). This does not sound to me like something that is a two way street. Quite the opposite, in fact. And is God any different? Paul says that God demonstrated his love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, and that it was while we were enemies with him that he reconciled us through the death of his son (cf Rom 5.8,10). Love suffers long, and it does not seek its own. It bears all things. There is nothing that has to be two way about any of this -- not at least that I can tell. How about you? I don't know, Judy; I think maybe you've been duped by some of that philosophy you don't read. ____________________________________  jt wrote: and a parent's responsibility is to train a child so that he is able to love in return, so this analogy kind of breaks down. Bill > Well Judy, that is yet to be seen, isn't it? Have you answered the above questions? ____________________________________ BT wrote: God's love is unconditional. He loved us before we loved him. Did you get that? -- Does this not indicate that he also loved us before we were meeting any of his requirements? jt responded: He loved mankind enough to allow His only begotten son to go to the cross for us, however, this is not carte blanche nepotism. Sin makes a breach causing God to not only hide his face from us - but to allow the curse to light because of our transgression - love or no love. What do you do with that?  Bill  >   I don't really know what to do with it, Judy: Where did you get it? I am pretty confident of this: the curtain has been torn from top to bottom; God is no longer hiding his face; our sins have been removed as far as the east is from the west; God remembers them no more; God in Christ reconciled the world to himself. Does this have anything to do with that?