The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"Love and Liberty"
Many atheist and agnostic materialists believe that human consciousness is, at least in how we perceive it, an illusion. By this, they mean that natural forces and influences determine the internal realities of thought and choice most human beings believe to be freely determined and experienced in terms of personhood. Materialists contend our consciousness occurs as the product of machinery programmed by the the universe in which we live. According to their view, physics, chemistry, biology, and environment determine our consciousness rather than the personhood declared in the Bible.
Amid the many dark pathways down which such error leads, one transcends all.
"To know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge" (Ephesians 3:19).
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment" (Mark 12:30).
The computer on which I type this message serves me well. In two years, it has done pretty much everything I have needed and desired it to perform. It does not, however, love me. Nor will it ever. Complex and effective as it is in processing information, it has no heart for love, either to receive or to give it. This points to the truth that without freedom, as given by God and defined by Scripture, there can be no love. Most importantly, there can no experience of the main reason for which human beings exist, namely, to know the love of God, and to love Him in response. "This is the first commandment…"
Through the Lord Jesus Christ, God beckons human hearts unto His heart. He call us to know and receive His love by faith in His atoning work, and to thereafter love Him by faith in His enabling work whereby we live in the wonder of His love for us, and the grace of our love for Him. "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed" declared the Lord Jesus of the liberty He offers to fulfill our reason for being (John 8:36). Only spiritual reality establishes and empowers such a glorious internal experience of heart and mind. Deterministic materialism does not allow for love, whether in terms of Scripture, or in the intuitive realization that natural forces of the universe could not and cannot create love as we all know it be. Only spiritual reality, offered and empowered by the Holy Spirit in His revelation of God's love in Christ, can lead us to fulfill "the first command." "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us" (Romans 5:5).
"God is love" declared the Apostle John (I John 4:8). Thus, love is real. Love is eternal. Love is spiritual. Love requires liberty. It cannot be determined or programmed. The Psalmist knew this truth of all truths, that everything in God's creation points to Him and the freedom whereby we know His love, and through His enabling, love Him in joyous response…
"I will love Thee, o Lord, my strength!"
(Psalm 18:1)
"We love Him because He first loved us."
(I John 4:19)
Weekly Memory Verse
And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.
(I Timothy 1:14)
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