If God doesn’t feel, then God doesn’t have loneliness. So why does God need or want us here? How is that love?
If God doesn’t feel, then God doesn’t have loneliness. So why does God need or want us here? How is that love?
Your question answered itself. If God doesn’t need us, then He created us for our own sake. Had He created us solely to use us, it would have been an act of selfishness. He would be using us, enslaving us, taking advantage of us. That’s not love. Love by its very nature requires selflessness (as practically every wedding will remind us by the reading of 1 Corinthians 13 – “love is patient, love is kind…it is not self-serving”).
People often (in fact, almost always) think that love is a feeling. Love is not a feeling. It is not an emotion. Love is so much more than a feeling, it is a choice. Sometimes love causes us to feel certain ways: happy, for instance. That happiness, though, is not love. It’s happiness. Love often causes us to feel uncomfortable. Let’s say a parent is disciplining their child. Chances are it is a painful experience for the parent as well as the child. No parent enjoys seeing their child hurt (well, no good parent that is). However, they have to hurt their child by disciplining them in order to prevent the child from being hurt in more serious ways. Their action of discipline was one of love. But trust me, they did not feel happy at that moment. Sometimes love hurts.
We have to be careful with our emotions. Feelings often tell us what’s important to us. Like, if you become sad when your friend moves away, it means that your friend was important to you. If you become angry when you studied really hard for a test and still got a poor grade, it shows that your education is important to you. However, emotions can also mess with us. When that sadness leads you to cut, drink to the point of drunkeness, or sin in any other way, it becomes a bad thing. When you retaliate or hurt someone out of revenge because you are angry, it’s a bad thing. Emotions are good when they don’t control you. Sadly, many people are controlled by their emotions.
The Bible tells us that God is love (1 John 4:8). Any action that God does is the action of love, even if it doesn’t feel good.
Your question answered itself. If God doesn’t need us, then He created us for our own sake. Had He created us solely to use us, it would have been an act of selfishness. He would be using us, enslaving us, taking advantage of us. That’s not love. Love by its very nature requires selflessness (as practically every wedding will remind us by the reading of 1 Corinthians 13 – “love is patient, love is kind…it is not self-serving”).
People often (in fact, almost always) think that love is a feeling. Love is not a feeling. It is not an emotion. Love is so much more than a feeling, it is a choice. Sometimes love causes us to feel certain ways: happy, for instance. That happiness, though, is not love. It’s happiness. Love often causes us to feel uncomfortable. Let’s say a parent is disciplining their child. Chances are it is a painful experience for the parent as well as the child. No parent enjoys seeing their child hurt (well, no good parent that is). However, they have to hurt their child by disciplining them in order to prevent the child from being hurt in more serious ways. Their action of discipline was one of love. But trust me, they did not feel happy at that moment. Sometimes love hurts.
We have to be careful with our emotions. Feelings often tell us what’s important to us. Like, if you become sad when your friend moves away, it means that your friend was important to you. If you become angry when you studied really hard for a test and still got a poor grade, it shows that your education is important to you. However, emotions can also mess with us. When that sadness leads you to cut, drink to the point of drunkeness, or sin in any other way, it becomes a bad thing. When you retaliate or hurt someone out of revenge because you are angry, it’s a bad thing. Emotions are good when they don’t control you. Sadly, many people are controlled by their emotions.
The Bible tells us that God is love (1 John 4:8). Any action that God does is the action of love, even if it doesn’t feel good.
posted by Richard Deanda at 6:05 PM
