** If God is love, you cannot fear him **

by FlyingHighNow 62 Replies latest jw friends

  • FlyingHighNow
    FlyingHighNow

    You will find a host of books and articles that discuss the polar opposites of love and fear. The Bible shows two opposing gods. One is a god of love. The other is a god of fear. Personally, I believe God is love and the angry god of fear is an imposter. If you do not fear God, then love can motivate you. Love as a motivater is vastly superior to fear as a motivater.

    Universalists believe that wayward humans and angels, all of us, will not be able to resist Love forever and will one day be drawn back to it. It stands to reason that fear hinders people and angels as they journey back to love. I believe good(love) will eventually completely conquer evil (fear).

    http://timelessmiracles.com/LightGuide/love.htm

    On LOVE and FEAR

    ©1996 Frank Sant'Agata

    Love and fear are the only emotions we as human entities are able to express. All the others are just sub-categorical emotions. For example, on love's side there is joy, peacefulness, happiness, forgiveness, and a host of others. On the other hand, fear reflects: hate, depression, guilt, inadequacy, discontentment, prejudice, anger, attack, and so on.

    Love and fear can not coexist. Where one is, the other can't be also. The one will leave immediately, should the other enter its presence. If you find yourself in a situation where you are experiencing great joy, and are suddenly overtaken by fear, the joy is gone! But it works the other way too: If you are terrorized, frightened, or otherwise threatened in any way, all you need to do is turn to the love within, and the fear disappears.

    Learning to make the active choice to love and not fear in every situation is the way to find inner peace in this world. Yes, I said choice! We all choose what we wish to see in every situation, at every moment. Most of the time we choose based on what we learned in the past. It is what we were taught by our parents, teachers, peers, doctors, employers, etc. and what we were brought up to believe we should do. We act on laws that we made to control our behavior and that of others so that we may live in an orderly society. When someone gets "out of order" they may be disliked, fined, incarcerated or killed. Sometimes, entire countries get "out of order" and our answer is to declare war on them. These are all things that are done out of FEAR. We fear that, if someone is out of control, that is, not following the rules we set up for them to follow, they are a threat to us, and we fear they will harm us in some way. So we react to our fear by attacking them first. That is the way of this world. The law of the jungle so to speak; eat or be eaten; kill or be killed. That is the way of fear!

    The way of LOVE is quite the opposite. It makes no rules, no laws, for they are not needed! If everyone lived God's law; the law of love, no other laws would be needed. Laws that protect our bodies would not be needed because we would not wish to harm another. Property would not be in jeopardy because we would not wish to deprive another. We would not use drugs because our love for our selves would prevent self-destruction. We would not drive recklessly, or at excessive speeds or under the influence because we might hurt some one or our selves. We would not sue any one, or lie or cheat or deprive or take advantage of them. A world without fear would not need lawyers, courts, police, or jails, because every one would trust and care for one another. Prices would not go up, work would be done right by service oriented businesses, foods would not have harmful ingredients, workers would not be exploited, etc. But that is not the way of a world built on fear! We as individual entities, sharing one God mind can make a world of love. We can do this by keeping connected to our Source, which in fact we are, but need to open our awareness to it.

    Love is LIGHT. Fear is DARKNESS. When you turn on a light, darkness is no more. There is not a trace of it left! There is not even a hint of darkness ever having been there! God is LOVE. Love is light. We are all children of God, therefore, in truth, we are only LOVE. When we act out of fear, we are turning out the light, denying our truth, and entering into the darkness. We leave our love behind and attempt to be something we are not. We attempt to be apart from our Source; apart from God.

    Let us try again this day. Let us tune in to LOVE; to peace, joy, and happiness.
    This prayer follows the article. I find it very refreshing compared to the JW prayers of fear.

    Father, help me stay connected to you this day so that I may know the peace that is my inheritance. Lead me through a world where I see only love in every situation. Guide me to make the choice for love and to relinquish fear. When ever I am tempted to listen to fear's cries, let me listen instead to loves song and know it is my own. Amen

  • FlyingHighNow
    FlyingHighNow

    Love is LIGHT. Fear is DARKNESS

  • choosing life
    choosing life

    FHN, I hope you're right. I don't fear God, but I have a hard time understanding his permission of suffering in this world. cl

  • Satanus
    Satanus

    If your god is love, then he isn't who put the ecosystem on this planet, what w animals and bugs, from the highest to lowest devouring each other, in many cases while still alive. Also, planets, stars and systems smashing into each other doesn't reflect love or happiness.

    S

  • FlyingHighNow
    FlyingHighNow

    FHN, I hope you're right. I don't fear God, but I have a hard time understanding his permission of suffering in this world. cl

    I can't speak for God, but I know that human beings have free will. And we learn by the consequences of free will. We learn by the consequences of our own choices, good or bad. We learn by watching the results of choices others make.

    Since we are not JW's and are not forced to believe what they or anyone else believes, we are free to research all the ideas and theories that would explain our imperfect world. Gnostics believe Jehovah is an under god who created the material universe we live in. They believe that since he is an under god, the world, things in the world and creatures are imperfect. They believe that this is why Jehovah is so angry and jealous and demanding of exclusive devotion. They also believe that the head god co rules with a goddess and that they are father and mother. And Jesus was sent to tell us about this mess Jehovah created and that things will not always be this awful. Is this true? I don't know. It's one of the first things I found when I was coming out, mentally, from the org. I find this interesting light of what we all had drilled into our brains about Jehovah.

    A theory like the Jehovah/under god theory would explain animals eating animals and colliding stars. Jehovah wasn't supposed to have been evil like Satan, but disobedient and then developing some deviant qualities such as jealousy and anger. The gnostics teach that God is love. They teach that The God is not Jehovah, the under god, who often displays very bad habits.

    I am not an athiest. I am more of an agnostic, but have more faith than your general agnostic. I do believe there is a God and that he is indeed love. I am certain there are good reasons for the suffering in our world. I am also certain that it's not essential for us to understand everything in this life as human beings here on earth. One of the biggest reliefs about leaving the org is not needing to have answers for every question or to know the "exact truth" about anything.

  • FlyingHighNow
    FlyingHighNow

    The main reason for this thread, the main point, is that many psychologists belief that fear and love are opposites. If you believe in a god who claims to be love, but will torture you if you don't love him back, then you believe in a contradiction. Your god has a split personality. You can't have a god who is love, but rules with fear.

    I believe human beings are behind these religions of fear. Fear of God is an excellent tool with which to control people.

    If you didn't read the article, please do. I don't believe the author is Christian.

  • golf2
    golf2

    I fear my CREATOR in terms of respect. I do not carry around a guilt complex, why should I?



  • FlyingHighNow
    FlyingHighNow

    Golf, I have a lot of respect for you. So I mean this sincerely when I ask, why not call it respect then? Why does the word fear have to enter your mind when if comes to your creator?

  • StoneWall
    StoneWall

    FHN
    There is at least one scripture in the bible that would appear to support what the psychologist are asserting with regards to fear/Love which I've often thought about over the years:
    1 John 4:18 "There is no fear in love, but perfect love throws fear outside, because fear exercises a restraint. Indeed, he that is under fear has not been made perfect in love." (NWT)

    This is what made me start questioning many things that previously I wouldn't.
    If something is the truth it will stand up under the most intense scrutiny. We should have no fear to ask questions and look for answers.

    StoneWall

  • WTWizard
    WTWizard

    I have precisely zero love for that Almighty Lowlife Scumbag. He has displayed nothing but hatred for me, so why would I love that monstroth?

    Being afraid of Him--that was the primary motive of having served Him at all. Once I realized that He was not going to fulfill His promises, fear was all that was left. At first, fear of destruction. When that failed, it was fear that He would make my problems even worse and create new ones. For sure, that is not the way to get me to ever start loving Him.

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