Fearless Surrender: Love & Lenses

Yesterday I came to this conclusion - I read the bible to interpret it correctly via hermeneutics (the study of interpretation) but I interpret God anyway I please. It's so easy for me to view God through my culture lense - to put Him in the box of my predetermined expectations and knowledge that's biased based on my background and culture.
One example that came to mind is Love. We've grown to know what love is and define it through a variety of channels. This formed and shaped idea of love guides and defines how we view God and His love. Think about the different places we find and are influenced by the definitions of love. We find earthly love through our families, through our friends, in relationships, in movies, in music, in the media, etc. We view love as: a warm feeling. A broken heart. Cheap sex. A ring on your finger. A kiss. A hug. A word. A text. A holiday. A call. A kind gesture. A gift. Our view of love is shaped by how we were raised. If you grew up in a broken home - your view of love is different than that of a child who had two parents in their household. If you've lost someone close to you, your view of love is different than someone who's never loved and lost. All in all - our experiences shape how we see God's love. I've come to the conclusion that the way I've been viewing God's love might not be correct. I can definitely say that my view of His love is seen through the thick lenses of my experiences, and is therefore skewed.
So lets go back to the basics - to the truth - to the word of God, to try to truly define what Love is when it comes to God.

Bible gateway comes up with 687 results for the word "love".

John 3:16-17 --
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

John 15:11-13 --
I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

Romans 5:1-8 --
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 8:35-39 --
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
   “For your sake we face death all day long;
   we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Isaiah 64:4 -I-
“What no eye has seen,
   what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived—
   these things God has prepared for those who love him”

1 Corinthians 13 --
Gives an example of how we ought to love others, and we're suppose to represent Christ here on earth, therefore we are representing His love in these ways.
If I speak in human or angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Fearless Surrender

Love & Lenses

Aunica

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