04/25/2021 – Day 343 – 1 John 4 – 5 // Chapter 4:16:”…God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in him.”// 1 of ?
The Triune God – three persons, one God. How can that be? Well, the fact we can’t get our head around it without the Holy Spirit, does not make it untrue? Perfect love: We certainly cannot conceive of that either from our own strength.
Let’s look at the unipersonal God religions: One God / One Person. Such a God can certainly be omnipotent, even create the world in a a flash with the “big bang”. But you cannot have a “God is love” in that, can you? Why? For love is relational by definition. Therefore, in order to love, you need another person. The devil “loves” himself but that is not love, we are talking true agape love. So, what kind of sense does it make to say : “All religions are basically the same” It doesn’t because it is “schizophrenic”. It is akin to: “the light is basically the same as total darkness. We are talking Aristotle’s axiom, the law of non-contradiction here.
So, a God that is in the light vs. a god of our making, in the dark, which do we choose? That is the most important question in the short breath we have in this lifetime. In fact, the significance of all other questions combined, do not have a measure, it is the limit -0-.
By the way, I would submit that the true Jewish religion does not believe in a unipersonal God. For the trinity is in Genesis from the start (*) followed by a plethora of Messiah prophecies, that were confirmed, even in minute detail centuries after they were pronounced. And the last I checked ,Genesis is a part of the pentateuch. In case you haven’t noticed over the past generation, there has been a proliferation of Messianic Jewish rabbis proclaiming the urgency of accepting Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior . Just as the fastest Christian church, confining our definition to “countries”, would be Iran. A skeptic would retort with: “hey, they probably haven’t even reached one million yet.” Soon after the resurrection, Paul noted a day where 400 souls came to Christ. If the growth curve is and remains geometric, the numbers will follow mathematically. And besides, what is the significance if it were just one soul? Infinitely significant, particular if it is you! It is evidence of the Holy Spirit! . “Emmanuel” through the Comforter.
(*) Genesis 1:20 “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our Image, according to Our Likeness,…..” Other note for witnessing to future brothers and sisters: Muslims do not believe that man was created in God’s image. So, if I am not created in God’s image, how is it I can live in heaven forever with an unfathomably perfect God? Is He going to say: “Come on in Jimmy, don’t let perfect get in the way of just good enough.” Jesus said: “No one comes to the Father except through me.” (Jimmy just ain’t going to get there without the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ..) Ask a Muslim friend in love whether or not they are “assured” that they are getting to heaven.
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Look at John Gill’s commentary on 4:18 – “No fear in love”, by reading the verse in the Bible again, and then reading this commentary. One quick note, “fear” here does not include “fear of the Lord”, it is strictly in the context of “fear of man and the devil”.
https://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/gills-exposition-of-the-bible/1-john-4-18.html
Soli Deo Gloria!
Love,
Jimmy