Truth is the inseparable ally of love

Have you noticed that satan has co-opted another word from our Biblical culture and twisted it to suit his own ends. We lost gay, rainbow, hate, tolerance, judge, and now love.

• Orlando vigils: 'We will conquer that hate with love'
• US Attorney General Loretta Lynch calls for 'love' in aftermath of Orlando massacre
• Social media shows outpouring of love for Orlando massacre victims
• Thousands Attend Orlando Vigil To Prove That Love Wins
• After Orlando: Love Wins, But When?

The last one on the list is a 'Religion Dispatch' from Huffington Post, whereupon the author asks aloud how God could let such evil happen, and calls those who had been killed inside the homosexual nightclub martyrs of freedom. The inference is that they died for the cause of freedom, but it's only the world's definition of freedom... he meant freedom to live in sexual sin, which is abominable before the Lord.




After the terrible massacre in Orlando Florida this June, I was struck by the emphasis on love. The live news conferences featured speakers from the Orlando Mayor, to the FL Governor, to the city Sheriff, to the FBI, to the State Attorney General. They said things like, "We are a state and a nation of love...we must love each other...love, love, love". Obviously, that is the identified theme. Love was spoken of almost as a mantra strong enough to shield us from more bullets. OK, so love, but NOT God's love. Satan cunningly used this tragedy (never waste a good tragedy) to openly insinuate the word love into the national conversation, but subtly changed its definition and in effect co-oped the word. It is HIS version of love, not God's. The series on God's love is below and worth reading. This is true love, from God to us and between us with each other. Satan has twisted what hate is, now he has pwned its antonym & redefined it, satan's love is not love, but everyone's talking about it.

The source of love is God and His love is revealed and explained in scripture. People do have freedom, freedom to sin. That is our free will. We also have freedom to love, but if we do not have the Holy Spirit in us, we do not know how to love. We don't even know the meaning of the word. The natural man doesn't understand love, because

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14)

The Lexham Bible Dictionary defines love's definition this way:

LOVE A feeling of deep affection. A central theme in Scripture and Christian theology and ethics. Defines our relationship with God and dictates how we should treat others.

A further definition from MH Manser's Dictionary of Bible Themes clarifies why pagans cannot love the way God intends:

Scripture offers an understanding of the source, character and value of love, based on the nature and actions of God.

If one does not have the Holy Spirit, one cannot know or understand the nature of God. Sure, the world can parrot one of the verses they know, "God is love" but they do not have the discernment to understand God nor love in the way God intends for us to understand it.

Sometimes even we Christians don't understand love. Loving in the way God wants us to love is very, very difficult He wants us to love our neighbor as ourselves but we love oursleves way too much for that. It's a daily struggle to do so, even with the Holy Spirit in us to help. And what lind of love? There's Agape love, Altruism, Charitableness, Eros, Philanthropy, Romance, Brotherly Love (Phileo)... What possibility is there for the unsaved to understand the depths of God's love and Spirit-borne love of the saints?

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.(John 13:34-35)

Love is part of the Holy Spirit's fruit. The kind of love spoken of above is brotherly love for the fellow Christian.

Our love for God is expressed through Luke 10:27,

And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

Love is pre-eminent in scripture and should be in the Christian's heart, as expressed in Romans 13:10,

Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

John 14:15 says we demonstrate our love to God by obeying Him. The pagan world never links love and obey. They can't obey God because they don't love Him, and they resist obeying each other. Obey is even removed from marriage vows.

Yet the unsaved world wants love, desires to demonstrate it, yearns for it. After Orlando, this writer shed light on that yearning in his piece called

Orlando, Love, and Labels
People who are most shocked by the violence in our world have the most to gain from looking inside themselves. The violence in our world comes from us. It is generated by the pain of wanting desperately to belong and not belonging, needing desperately to love and feeling unlovable, wanting intensely to love and feeling incapable, seeing ourselves as ugly inside, inherently flawed, and permanently defective. It is an ever-present ever-pressing need to be on the side of “God,” of “right,” of “good” regardless of the cost to others. This is the pain of powerlessness.

We give to one another opportunities to choose love instead of fear, to change the world once and for all and for good. We offer one another the gift of love that underlies appearances of “ally” and “adversary” and is deeper than we can imagine.

The author is Gary Zukav, author of Seat of the Soul and tips on finding your power and aligning your personality with your soul. It's New Age philosophy, to be sure.

This article noted that the outpouring of "love" to the homosexual community in the wake of the massacre shows "how far we have come" as a society. It's the opposite of course, it just shows how far we have descended. We love the sinner, the person, of course. We do not love sin. It's confusing. If it is this confusing for us imagine how hard it is for the unsaved erson who does not Know God or what love is.

The thrust of the article meant that we've come far in accepting homosexuality as normal, which it is not. Telling a gay person that God is angry with them every day for their lifestyle is seen as hate now, not love. That is the world's and satan's effort, to turn what God sees as good into poison and what is poison as good. Love is telling any sinner that they are breaking Gods' law and must repent in order to reach the kingdom of God.

The Gospel Coalition listed 5 ways to show love after Orlando: Pray, Pause, Grieve, Love, Hope. As for the last, love, the author noted that

Christians should be the most realistic people on Earth. While we may support certain policies and solutions that we believe can foster peace, we must always be quick to admit that the root cause of violence and hate is sin. ... Such tragedies, Raymond adds, should cause us to look away from superficial hope. 

Superficial hope is a worldly definition of love, one that believes that hefty donations sent to Homosexual organizations is love, one where Chick-Fil-A's move to offer free food the day after was actually a stamp of approval on the gay lifestyle, one that accepts sin and overlooks it, even twists it into something it is not.

As we watch satan walk off with our word "love" we ask ourselves, not only what is love, but how do we express it? And to whom? We love our neighbor as ourselves. (Mark 12:31) Who is our neighbor? Those of the same race, tribe, creed or family? Yes. (Leviticus 19:18). Those who live near? Yes. (Proverbs 3:29). Those of the same nation or surrounding nations? Yes. (Deuteronomy 1:7, Ps 76:11).

Our neighbor can be and is anyone to whom we show mercy. (Luke 10:29-37). Our neighbor is the beaten man laying in the road who was on his way to Jericho and to whom the Samaritan showed mercy and care.

As RC Sproul said, love means we don't stop to ask the guy in the ditch how he got in the ditch. He's bleeding, needs care. So we give it.

Yes Christian love to the pagan neighbor will be misconstrued. It will be twisted. Nowadays, satan has co-opted the word love to make it mean something it is not. Nevertheless, we persevere in love.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a)

Did you catch that in the verse? The world does not know what love is, but we do. Love rejoices with the truth. Love and truth are intertwined. Anyone can love. Even satan can fake love. But we have the truth and truth is the foundation of the love we have, which satan can never re-define or pervert.

The truth is the Gospel truth, the inseparable ally of love (Eph 4:15; 2Jo 12). The false charity which compromises "the truth" by glossing over "iniquity" or unrighteousness is thus tacitly condemned (Pr 17:15). 

Jamieson Fausset Brown Commentary

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Further Reading

The Problem with God's Love
The Condemnation in God's Love
The Nature of God's Love
The Corruption of God's Love
God's Consistent Love
The Tension in God's Love


What is Love?


I wanna Know What Love Is