Loving Living

One of the great joys of living is loving. I was thinking, “What would a loveless world be like”? Here are some things that came to mind.

There would be no joyful relationship only debauched and defrauded impurity because from love comes all virtues of the Fruit of the Spirit. There would be no workable knowledge but it would be empty and worthless because knowledge without love is... There would be no authority structure of freedom, as it would demand dictatorship of the worst kind. There would be no hope as sinfulness of self would continue and multiply without limit. Peace, longsuffering… all the aspects of the joy of life would be diminished if not dead, because lust would rule and demand by all, from all, and with all. We can see a bit of this in the countries that limit the love and joy of God. A narrow point from this is the principle that freedom does not exist without love. An axiom is the less the love, the less the freedom. Love of fellow man is the requirement for democracy to exist. And love of man is contingent on love of God.

I was in DC a while back and had a discussion with a chief advisor to President Bush. He was making the point of the “Bush Doctrine”. Basically that means that freedom will become the ingredient for stable democracy. I disagreed. Here is why. Freedom is based on moral law. Moral law is based on absolute law which again is based on Eternal truth/God. If we give up the foundation for absolute law, God, absolute law will not be long accepted or submitted. With the rejection of the absolute law of God, we have relative law based on the wisdom (ignorance by God’s definition) of man. Morality (law) based on relative law becomes Immorality (Law). And freedom based on moral relativism becomes relative freedom. (some get it and some don’t) This is brutal dictatorship.

Liberty
Morality
Absolute Law
God

Slavery
Immorality
Relative Law
Man



Harmony, freedom, joy, and the giving of grace is determined by the level of love. When love dies, so does all other virtues, as God is love, and our love is taught to us by Him. To be completely without God is to be without love. So, I believe, democracy of any kind will long exist where love is not. Given that, the trial of freedom by democracy without Christianity will fail. It is Christianity that produces self-control, love, joy, peace… Freedom is the result of stability, not the key to stability. Look at the example of our own nation. Freedom is being lost because laws must multiply in order to limit the immoralities of man. And with law comes power and power without love is brutality.


I am going to speak at the NANC Annual Conference. I will teach a workshop. It is a great time to learn and renew friendships. I will be there from Monday to Wednesday. I ask for your prayers to speak concise and clear. Thanks.


Will

Now here is some thinking…

"...there is a difference between having an opinion, that God is holy and gracious, and having a sense of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. There is a difference between having a rational judgment that honey is sweet, and having a sense of its sweetness. A man may have the former, that knows not how honey tastes; but a man cannot have the latter unless he has an idea of the taste of honey in his mind. So there is a difference between believing that a person is beautiful, and having a sense of his beauty. The former may be obtained by hearsay, but the latter only by seeing the countenance." – Jonathan Edwards