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rinnie
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Also I agree you should not question what others should do, but what you should do. But are you responsible to give him a college education, what I am saying is, is it owed to him?
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spockrates
Guest
Yes. This is exactly what the father in the parable of the lost son did. Didn’t he? He gave his son money to live on his own. His son partied and wasted the money. His son realized he did wrong and returned home. His father then welcomed him into the family. As the eldest son, he would be entitled (by ancient Jewish law) to have a new inheritance when his father died. If his father had welcomed him home as an employee, instead of as a son, he would not be entitled to another inheritance.
So if my son took the loan for college and wasted the time by partying and flunking out of college; and if he then returned home and admitted he was wrong, and showed he sincerely would not do it again, then I’d consider signing for him to have a second college loan. This story would be similar to the parable Jesus told about the lost son.
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rinnie
Guest
No, no, that is not what I am saying.Okay lets go this route lets say you sign for him and he flunks out remember Jr, has a loan also. Now what if you can’t afford to send him again, or lets say you do again, you forgvie him, he flunks out again then what? Do you forgive until you are out of money. ANd this shows your love?Yes. This is exactly what the father in the parable of the lost son did. Didn’t he? He gave his son money to live on his own. His son partied and wasted the money. His son realized he did wrong and returned home. His father then welcomed him into the family. As the eldest son, he would be entitled (by ancient Jewish law) to have a new inheritance when his father died. If his father had welcomed him home as an employee, instead of as a son, he would not be entitled to another inheritance.
So if my son took the loan for college and wasted the time by partying and flunking out of college; and if he then returned home and admitted he was wrong, and showed he sincerely would not do it again, then I’d consider signing for him to have a second college loan. This story would be similar to the parable Jesus told about the lost son.
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spockrates
Guest
That depends on what love is (for I should always love) and on what forgiveness is (for I should always forgive)!
That’s why I’m asking you; don’t you see? So please tell me, if you know. Is love only something you feel, or is it also something you do?
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spockrates
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rinnie
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It can be both. But its still conditional. Rather you send him to school because you love him. or send him to school because you want him to have more in this world, or you send him (ny favorite) so he can get out on his own, it does not change your love for him.That depends on what love is. Is it what I feel only, or is it also what I do?
I think what you are asking me, that if you love someone unconditionally do you have to react on that love always. No, But can you? Yes. But rather you react on it or you don’t is it still not the same feeling?
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spockrates
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Yes, I think you are right. Acting on a feeling of love is love. So love is more than a feeling (or at least, it can be). I think we are in good company by believing this, for Saint John the Apostle agreed with us, when he wrote:
Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
(1 John 3:18)
Now, I think I understand how love (as a feeling) is not something I can control (or choose to feel or not feel). But what I’m wondering is if love (as an action) is something I can control (or choose to do or not do). Are you thinking that, when it comes to love, we cannot control our actions? Or do you think we have a choice to show or not show love?
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rinnie
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Sorry bud I mean Unconditional. My bad.
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rinnie
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Sure we can, like for instance how I showed you. My Son needed to wait a year before he hit school. I knew if I let him loose at that time he was a time bomb. He was not ready to make any decisions. While it was the Grace of God and the prayers of his Mother that helped him while he was not with me, he knew he had come home to ME.Yes, I think you are right. Acting on a feeling of love is love. So love is more than a feeling (or at least, it can be). I think we are in good company by believing this, for Saint John the Apostle agreed with us, when he wrote:
Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
(1 John 3:18)
Now, I think I understand how love (as a feeling) is not something I can control (or choose to feel or not feel). But what I’m wondering is if love (as an action) is something I can control (or choose to do or not do). Are you thinking that, when it comes to love, we cannot control our actions? Or do you think we have a choice to show or not show love?
So if he would have otherwise had a drink, which why not, who would care, Ole Mama could smell it on him and he would answer to me.
But could I control my love for him by NOT letting him go to school, sure I could, and it killed me. Trust me, To see all of his friends in college, and him not. But I had to trust God and my Love for him and the common sense GOd gave me.
SO did I not have a choice on how I would show my love, I could have sent him also. IT was in my means to do so. And trust me alot easier to send him AWAY. It would have been an early Christmas, PEACE ON EARTH. But my love for him took the hard road, And it was the right road.
Which unfortunately the right road usually is.
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spockrates
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Yes, I see. So are you saying that love as an action (like love as a feeling) is something I cannot control (or cannot choose to not do)? I think that’s what you meant when you said that the feeling of love is unconditional. I think you were saying that unconditional meant uncontrollable. So I’m wondering if you believe love as an action is also uncontrollable, and something we cannot choose to not do.
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rinnie
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Remember my friend, acting is a form of Love and sometimes NOT acting is a form of Love. Only you and God know your heart.
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rinnie
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Now you are getting into free will. Free will is how we act on anything. LIke if I love my husband with all my heart and soul. which I do, and he would want to leave me.Yes, I see. So are you saying that love as an action (like love as a feeling) is something I cannot control (or cannot choose to not do)? I think that’s what you meant when you said that the feeling of love is unconditional. I think you were saying that unconditional meant uncontrollable. So I’m wondering if you believe love as an action is also uncontrollable, and something we cannot choose to not do.
I could refuse to let him go and do everything in my power to get him to love me. But I can’t. If he don’t love me anymore its over. I have no control over my love for him or his for me.
While we cannot control how we feel, and a feeling is not an actual action, we can control how we react to that feeling. But how we can choose to hold a grudge or not to hold a grudge rather we love them or not, we cannot choose to quit loving them. Even though we may want to. While you cannot make a heart love, you also cannot make a heart un-love.
Thats why un-love is not really a word
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spockrates
Guest
Yes, I understand. How mysterious is this virtue Love! She is as much a holy mystery as the Mother of God, insofar as she is a living example of her! She loves unconditionally with her thoughts, but loves conditionally with her deeds. Mysterious indeed!Sure we can, like for instance how I showed you. My Son needed to wait a year before he hit school. I knew if I let him loose at that time he was a time bomb. He was not ready to make any decisions. While it was the Grace of God and the prayers of his Mother that helped him while he was not with me, he knew he had come home to ME.
So if he would have otherwise had a drink, which why not, who would care, Ole Mama could smell it on him and he would answer to me.
But could I control my love for him by NOT letting him go to school, sure I could, and it killed me. Trust me, To see all of his friends in college, and him not. But I had to trust God and my Love for him and the common sense GOd gave me.
SO did I not have a choice on how I would show my love, I could have sent him also. IT was in my means to do so. And trust me alot easier to send him AWAY. It would have been an early Christmas, PEACE ON EARTH. But my love for him took the hard road, And it was the right road.
Which unfortunately the right road usually is.
But it is good that we try to understand her. For that was Saint Paul the Apostle’s prayer for us:
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
(Ephesians 3:17-19)
I suppose then that, insofar as we are like her, when we commit some loving act, we are loving both unconditionally (with our emotions) as well as conditionally (with our actions). Don’t you think so?
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rinnie
Guest
Hey gotta roll, will get back to you later on this one.Yes, I understand. How mysterious is this virtue Love! She is as much a holy mystery as the Mother of God, insofar as she is a living example of her! She loves unconditionally with her thoughts, but loves conditionally with her deeds. Mysterious indeed!
But it is good that we try to understand her. For that was Saint Paul the Apostle’s prayer for us:
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
(Ephesians 3:17-19)
I suppose then that, insofar as we are like her, when we commit some loving act, we are loving both unconditionally (with our emotions) as well as conditionally (with our actions). Don’t you think so?
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spockrates
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Talk with you later.
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rinnie
Guest
Well, you got me there. I don’t know if people can ever really comprehend the fullness or the extend of what God did for us when he sent his only son to die on the cross for our sins.Yes, I understand. How mysterious is this virtue Love! She is as much a holy mystery as the Mother of God, insofar as she is a living example of her! She loves unconditionally with her thoughts, but loves conditionally with her deeds. Mysterious indeed!
But it is good that we try to understand her. For that was Saint Paul the Apostle’s prayer for us:
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
(Ephesians 3:17-19)
I suppose then that, insofar as we are like her, when we commit some loving act, we are loving both unconditionally (with our emotions) as well as conditionally (with our actions). Don’t you think so?
I mean we think we understand sometimes, but how much do we really sit back and see that by the death on the cross how the whole world was really saved. I mean sure it was an ACT a great act, what more could someone do for another then to die for them. But to give up your own Son, could we really understand the fullness of that kind of Love. Could we do that. Give up our son because we loved someone that much.
I always think back on this, when it hit me at my fullest was when I really watched the Passion of The Christ. I thought there is not one of us in this world worth all of that.
The suffering and abuse Christ took, the sins of all of us who were so unworthy. That is a kind of Love that I don’t think any human can ever truly understand do you?
But yet that is unconditional love, God put no conditions on us, he only did it to Save us. He gained nothing for himself. nothing at all. It was all for US. Christ had no sin, but died to take away ours so we could enjoy Eternal life with his Father in heaven.
So I can see what ST Paul is saying here, do we really grasp what happened here? I more or less agree with St. Paul I believe it really surpasses human knowledge to ever understand that kind of unconditional love.
That is why I believe that you cannot ever put conditions on Love, because what kind of condition would have made it worth it for God. Do you see what I mean? What did he gain for himself? Nothing, He gained nothing and lost it all, his life for the love of us.
IT was US the human race who gained it all, and did nothing to earn it, It was all a free gift.
So while we do have the emotion of loving unconditionally that was only given to us by the grace of God, we could never love unconditionally to the extend that he did.
Like you said as humans we do try to put conditons on love. But when you put conditions on love that is not unconditional love.
When you really want to know the true meaning of unconditional love think of Christ. That is the greatest example I can come up with, and the scripture you quoted is probally the best you could have come to testify for it. The love of Christ. to lay down his life for our sins. He gained nothing for himself but eternal life for us. That is why it is unconditional. There is nothing for him to win, that he does not already have. He gave his ALL for us. We gave him nothing. But we won everything.
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spockrates
Guest
True. We cannot grasp the extent of His love for us–at least, we cannot without His help. I think this is what Saint Paul the Apostle was saying in the next sentence; don’t you?
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
(Ephesians 3:20-21)
That is, you and I do NOT have the wisdom to fully understand or appreciate God’s love, but we can have this wisdom if we pray for it. Why? Because God “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine…” How is He able? “…according to His power that is at work within us.” This is my prayer for you and me, Rinnie. I ask not only that He show us what love is and how He loves, but that He also give us the desire and power to love the way He does. I also ask not only that He show us what forgiveness is, but that He also give us the desire and power to forgive the way He does. I know He will answer this prayer, for Saint James the Greater wrote this:
If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.
(James 1:5)
I know that this is what Jesus wants for you and me, for He Himself said this:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
(John 13:34-35)
The two concepts require one another, for we cannot love each other the way Christ loves us if we don’t have the wisdom to grasp His love. So I pray for both wisdom and power to love and forgive, and I ask this for both you and me. You see?
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spockrates
Guest
But God *does *get something if we repent, Rinnie. He gets us!
Isn’t that the lesson Jesus was trying to teach in the parable of the lost son? Wasn’t He telling us that the Heavenly Father wants to fully forgive us and have us as His very own forever, but He cannot forgive us so completely if we won’t let Him? The irony is that the “good” son who stayed home refused to forgive the “bad” son who returned, and so the son who stayed home refused to repent and love like his father loves. I’d go so far as to say that the son who stayed home would not accept the forgiveness his brother desired, and received, himself.
28 “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
31 “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”
(Luke 15)
When the lost son returned home, the papa gained one son, but (sadly) he lost the other.
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spockrates
Guest
The papa lost the son who stayed home NOT because he did not want to love or forgive his son, but because his son refused to repent and receive his papa’s love and forgiveness. In the end, the truly sinful son was NOT the one who left, but the stayed home. He ended up being further away from his papa than, perhaps his brother had ever been. Don’t you think?
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