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Love of GOD - Tree of Life
What is Love for you?
Love is a language communicated either through actions or words. Of course, we are happy when someone speaks words of love for us. It is in our human nature to feel love and to love. Every child longs for love from someone, especially from their parents. Love is a word usually applied to describe or express a feeling, a noun , or an adjective. I think the best way is to use it as a verb that can be seen & felt even without saying a word about it.
Love is a language that does not require words for us to feel and see. Love is both romantic and non-romantic. Love is both emotional and non-emotional. Love is both tangible and intangible. Love is both holding on and letting go. Love is both definable and undefinable. Love is timeless, and love makes time that makes every moment count.
Nature of GOD
The Nature of GOD includes Love, Purity, Holiness, Omnibenevolence, Omnipotence, Omnipresence, Omniscience, Perfect, Incorporeal, Almighty, etc. Why does the author put love above all the nature of GOD from our human point of view?
To answer the above question, let me give an example. One father, who is very intelligent, strong, good-hearted, wise, and gentle, saves money for his son. The father worked hard, using all his skills and abilities to give his son a better future. What is the most valuable attribute of his father from the son’s point of view? The answer is the love of his father because if his father is so intelligent but has no love for him, then having an intelligent father would serve no meaning to him, likewise to other attributes.
In the same way, the love of GOD acts as the bridge that connects the nature of GOD to humanity. Why would GOD ensure justice for the oppressed? Is He obligated to do so? The straightforward answer is that it’s not a matter of obligation, but because of His love for us, He ensures justice for the oppressed. It is by the Love of GOD that we exist. Our life depends on the Love of GOD in ways we can understand and often in ways we cannot.
The author recommends making the Nature of GOD the foundation of our Faith. By the Love of GOD, He allows us to co-exist with Him and His plan for Salvation. How can we love GOD if we do not know what GOD is and His Nature? How can we have strong Faith in GOD if we do not know what GOD is and His Nature? When a boy loves a girl, he will find time and exert effort to learn all about that girl. If the girl loves the boy and shares her interest with the boy, this provides an opportunity to develop their love for each other, building a stronger relationship. This scenario is similar to our Faith. GOD loves us, so the remaining part is on our side. Learning and knowing GOD and its nature will allow us to develop our love for GOD, which builds a strong faith in GOD.
Love in Creations
A lion or lioness is a ferocious animal. What if a lioness gave birth to a cub and got hungry? Would she still go out to hunt for prey? Or would the lioness eat the cub with no effort to struggle? Eating would be an effortless, happy meal for a lioness, but why the lioness won’t eat their cub? Even in nature, GOD has embedded Love in His creations. If we trace back to who taught the lioness about loving their cubs, some can answer that it learned from the parents. But what about the first lioness that existed, who taught the lioness love? It is GOD who taught Love in His Creations. Otherwise, lions would have been extinct, and many animals would have been extinct because they’d eat their young ones or leave them to die in hunger or without care.
Our Loving GOD has embedded Love in His Creations, which serves as the Foundation of Life for all creations. Love binds the creation to other creation and the whole creation to the Creator, for GOD is a Loving and Compassionate GOD.
Love is Shared
Why do some people love dogs? Why do some love cats? Why do some love other kinds of animals? Why do some people like to grow plants, and some grow because they like flowers? The truth is there is part of us that loves animals or plants. Before arriving at the point, let me share some videos to differentiate the term “like” from “love.”
True Love, is a love of giving, not a love of receiving.
— Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twerski
Without a doubt, the love of GOD permeates all of His creations, including humans. We are instrumental in spreading GOD’s love to all His creations. Whether it’s a love for animals, plants, or the natural environment, it stems from the love GOD bestows upon us. Your love for your pet reflects GOD’s love for animals flowing through you. The Love of GOD is shared with all creations.
Humanity
Love is like the number 10. If we remove 1 (not subtract) from 10, what remains is 0. It is similar to us, i.e., without the One True GOD, we are nothing. If we put GOD first, we will find value in life, and humanity has its meaning and purpose. Together with GOD, our lives become valuable.
GOD existed even before the universe existed. In that existence, GOD can live alone without any form of dependencies. At the beginning of the physical existence of our universe or multi-verse, the narrative is there is nothingness, and I agree with that context. However, if our context is overall existence, GOD already existed before anything existed, so there’s Someone who does exist. Thus, it’s not all nothingness because GOD exists.
In His Love, GOD allows us to co-exist with Him. GOD did not leave us, but He is with us in our existence. How can we co-exist with GOD in that eternity if our existence only causes pain and sorrow to our GOD? Remember that we are the image and likeness of GOD, as reflected in Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 5:1-2. Many have interpreted this literally and thought that image means having physical attributes of GOD, e.g., having a face, mouth, etc. However, many are innocently unaware that True GOD is Incorporeal in Nature (we will have a separate post for this topic, so please subscribe to my blog to get the latest posts and updates). What these verses refer to is that we humans have the potential to reflect the Nature of GOD. For example, you can live a holy life, and it reflects that the Nature of GOD is Holy. You can live being a good person just as GOD is Omnibenevolent. So, the two verses above do not translate to literal interpretation.
To live harmoniously with GOD, we strive to reflect GOD’s image and likeness. However, we are inherently imperfect and make mistakes that can impact others. That is where the importance of laws comes in. Laws provide us with guidance to live eternally with GOD. To illustrate, it’s like a baby and its cradle. The cradle may feel confining or burdensome from the baby’s perspective, but from the parent’s perspective, its design is to keep the baby safe because the parents love the baby. Similarly, we are like the baby, and the laws given to us by GOD serve as the cradle, designed to help us coexist with Him in peace and harmony for eternity.
And now we’ve come to the picture of the Tree of Life about our eternal existence with GOD. The architecture that GOD has designed for us is like a family tree. Each child sprouts another grandchild, and this process repeats as humanity continues to generate branches in the family tree. Some may not have children as they represent the last node leaf in a tree branch. Like in real trees, some leaves fall apart and wither, and these are the bad ones that got excluded from that Tree. In the Tree of Life, only those good leaves stay because the nutrient that they get is the Love of GOD. The only way to get that nutrient is to follow the path that GOD had designed for us, i.e., to follow the stream that adheres to the laws GOD created. The stream of nutrients flowing in that Tree of Life is Love, the very root sustaining that is GOD. With the Love of GOD, this Tree of Life continues to grow. Love allows humanity to live with GOD for eternity in Harmony and Peace.
Salvation
For us to live eternally, GOD has provided us salvation from our sins and imperfections. This salvation is designed, i.e., following the Tree of Life, which involves connections formed by the covenants that GOD has established with humanity. We will explore the details of these covenant connections in a future post, so subscribe to stay updated. The above topics discussed in this post are also discussed, in detail, in the book Save Our Souls , which you can download for free. Blessed be GOD.