Love has been sold and bought with money, benefits, and vain words.

 

Everyone needs to be loved which makes love the most highly demanded and very lucrative commodity and business, but this is Fake Love.

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Let us begin by listing some Fake Love:

True love is NOT emotions or feelings. Feelings may or may not follow.

True love is NOT sex. Sex is one expression of love in marriage.

True love is NOT vain words or promises. Words must be sincere and committed.

True love is NOT a relationship with benefits. Love is not a commercial interaction.

True love is NOT found in Hollywood lifestyles.

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✦ When preachers teach or preach about “love,” they always describe love in vague terms. Each hearer imagines what he or she wants to understand and what kind of love they hear. I was in a church service in France which was led by a Baptist missionary (a multimillionaire) and his sermon was about love. In the middle of his sermon, a very intelligent French woman, Gisèle, stood up and asked him with a loud voice to clarify and explain what he means by love. The reason for this was that Gisèle had two teenager attractive girls who were active sexually with numerous boys and the girls appeared very excited during this sermon. Apparently, they interpreted the love in this sermon as sexual and physical and they found this sermon approving their multiple boy-girl friendships. I noticed that their mother was watching them with frustration and she knew that this preaching about love in a vague way, as churches usually do, will lead her daughters to a justification of their behavior. That pastor had no idea how to respond or to explain anything. To him, love is treating everyone nicely and have a good feeling towards everyone. That was a sad and a typical normal Sunday Church service.

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WHAT IS LOVE?

The Best Way to Understand What God Meant by Love is from the Hebrew Language:

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✦ The Hebrew word for love is “ahava” which is made up of three basic Hebrew letters: aleph, hey, and bet. It can have two roots:

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(1) “hav,” which means to give. The letter aleph modifies this word thus it means I give.

Giving is fundamental to loving “ahava.”

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✦ For example, the love relationship between a husband and wife is to be that of giving oneself to the other without restriction.

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✦ Yeshua Jesus uses giving and receiving as an expression of love?

Jesus says, when you love someone unconditionally, without expecting a return, you will receive love also maybe from that person, or maybe from other persons.

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● "Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." (Luke 6:38)

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This verse is misused by missionaries, pastors and churches in order to generate more money to themselves. But, they do not return anything back to you, they claim that God will bless you if you bless them, but it is all about the money. And, in my humble opinion, it is dishonest on at least two levels.

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(2) “ahav,” which means to nurture, to nurse, or to devote one's self completely to another person.

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We can see this image in Isaac and Rebekah. The expression in the following verse indicates that Rebekah loved him and cared for him as did his mother. She was more than a mother to him, she was a submissive wife and lover.

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● “Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent; and he took Rebekah and she became his wife, and he loved her. So Isaac was comforted after his mother's death.” (Genesis 24:67)

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✦ The language of God, the Hebrew language, enlightens us as to the true meaning of love. It is not a feeling, but it involves action. Feelings may come after our decisions, commitment and actions. Love is not something that simply happens to us, but something that we create through our commitment and actions towards others as we give of ourselves to others.

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Love is a conscious willful act

Rebecca loved Isaac before even she saw him, she had committed herself to him.

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SELF AND LOVE

✦ Love begins with me.

Since we have no control over the other, love does not begin with the other person; we need to begin love with ourselves.

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✦ Many women feel that they love someone only after that person goes to the extreme showing them that he loves them immensely first. These women do not truly love but they are simply reacting to being loved with a feeling of love. Their feelings is NOT true love, but rather a response to keep the man who loves them.

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✦ To love others, we need to examine ourselves first. Am I anxious or insecure or needy or hoping to gain something from loving the other? Or, am I satisfied and content, but I want to sacrificially care for the other?

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OTHERS AND LOVE

✦ In Judaism, to love is to relate to another with deep, intense attachment First, by “da'at” which is knowledge, Second by “midot” which is emotions.

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✦ Feelings follow actions just like a train car which is hooked up to and follows the locomotive. The locomotive is the decision, the commitment and the actions.

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THE THREE LOVE COMMANDMENTS

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✦ FIRST: How can I love God?

God gives us, the believers and the wicked equally, life, joy, health, strength, intelligence, food, shelter, success, relationships, and everything we have 24 hours every day. He cares for all our inner and external needs every second of our lives. We ought to love God although none of us can out-give God.

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✦ We are to love God by giving him our soul, our mind, our body, and everything we have or symbolically the tithe and offerings. Remember, giving your money to God means giving it to the poor and the needy, NOT to a church or an organization.

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✦ To love God is equally expressed as obedience to God’s Ten Words (Commandments) and the Kashrut (Clean Food) Law.

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● “Yeshua Jesus answered and said to him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.” (John 14:23)

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✦ SECOND: How can I love my neighbor?

Moses taught us to love our neighbor as ourselves. Yeshua (Jesus) repeated this, noting it as second in importance to loving God. (Leviticus 19:18, Mark 12:31)

Later rabbi Hillel and then rabbi Akivah affirmed the same practical manner of loving others. I believe and hope that most rabbis believe the same.

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This means that loving is treating others with goodness, acceptance and respect.

For this reason I simplify the description of love to:

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   (1) Accept the others as equal human beings. No discrimination or racism or rejection.

   (2) Respect the others always. No discrimination or racism or humiliation.

   (3) Do good deeds (care) to the others as much as possible without rewards.

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✦ Much of Hebrew Scriptures laws is devoted to how we are to treat others, in love. We love our neighbors by giving “tzedakah” gifts to those in need, not to speak falsely of others, not to cheat them in business deals, and not to lie to or about others.

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● "The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God." (Leviticus 19:34)

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✦ Love is not a lofty or an esoteric concept or a feeling. Love is practical commitment and doing good and fairness to the others.

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✦ THIRD: How can I love my family, the true believers in Yeshua Jesus?

Yeshua Jesus is commanding us to love our own family, the true believers in Yeshua much more than our neighbors.

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● “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another." (John 13:34)

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GOD’S PATIENCE AND LOVE TO MANKIND ARE UNCONDITIONAL

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✦ All the Scriptures is a love letter describing a love story of YHWH to man and especially to his chosen elect sons who will believe in Him as the Messiah Yeshua Jesus. It describes a personal loving redemptive relationship on the part of YHWH to his beloved sinful children.

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✦ YHWH in His Eternal and Abundant Love toward us, made a way for us to have life instead of deserved death, even without merit on our part.

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✦ YHWH accomplished this redemption through the death of the Lamb of God, the Messiah, Yeshua Jesus who is YHWH. Furthermore, we received His imputed righteousness which we also do not deserve. Furthermore, we are adopted as sons of God and members of the True Israel of God. Not all Israelis are or will be sons of God, but only those who are chosen and called will believe in and accept the Messiah Yeshua Jesus Christ.

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● "Because the LORD loved you and kept the oath He swore to your ancestors that He brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery. Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; He is the faithful God, keeping His covenant of love to a thousand generations (*1) of those who love Him and keep His commandments." (Deuteronomy 7:8-9)

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(*1 Thousand generations equals roughly 4000 years which is about the year AD 2020 counting from the time of Exodus.)

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✦ YHWH Yeshua Jesus loves the wicked people also unconditionally, but they continue to reject Him, hence they have no part in the Book of Life.

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✦ God loves the wicked and the righteous. Both wake up in the morning healthy and the sun shines on both. However, there will be a day of judgement on the evil doers.

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● “And you, Caphar Naum, who are exalted to heaven, will be brought down to Hades; for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.” (Matthew 11:23)

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● “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Luke 13:34)

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DOES GOD LOVE US UNCONDITIONALLY?

Yes, even before we knew Him, He willingly sacrificed Himself, in the flesh, to save us if we accept His sufferings and death for us.

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● “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” (John 3:16-18)

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● “The way of the wicked is an abomination unto YHWH the LORD: but he loves him that follows after righteousness.” (Proverbs 15:9)

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● “For YHWH the LORD knows the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.” (Psalm 1:6)

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● “But He (Jesus Yeshua) was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5)

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DOES ANYONE DESERVE TO BE LOVED BY GOD?

By God's righteous standard, even the most moral person is looked upon by God as a desperate sinner on his way to the judgment of Hell. The Bible teaches that no one is good enough in himself to go to Heaven. On the contrary, we are all sinners, and we are all guilty before God. With this condition in mind, YHWH came as Yeshua Jesus to save and redeem us.

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● “There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeks after God.” (Romans 3:10-11)

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● “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)

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● “There is a way which seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” (Proverbs 14:12)

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● “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)

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SHALL EVERYONE BE SAVED SINCE GOD’S LOVE IS UNCONDITIONAL?

No, because God's unconditional love leads us to repentance, but if we reject God's love, then Christ's atonement cannot be applied on us and we shall perish in God's judgment in the Last Day.

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● “For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. I will heap mischiefs upon them; I will spend mine arrows upon them. They shall be wasted (burnt) with hunger, and devoured with pestilence (burning heat), and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.” (Deuteronomy 32:22-24)

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● “Whoso keeps the commandment shall fear no evil thing: and a wise man's heart discerns both time and judgment. Because to every purpose there is time and judgment, therefore the misery of man is great upon him.” (Ecclesiastes 8:5-6)

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YHWH WHO LOVES US WILL DESTROY THE EARTH AT HIS SECOND COMING?

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✦ YHWH offered Himself (in the flesh as Yeshua Jesus Christ) as a sacrifice in our place. When we reject Jesus, there is no more sacrifice to replace ours. If we reject God's love and atonement, then we have no cover to protect us from the claims of the Law which demands rightly our death as we are sinners.

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● “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” (2 Peter 3:10)

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● “And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.” (Revelation 20:15)

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● “So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just (*2), And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 13:49-50)

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● “Jesus said unto them, An enemy has done this (plant the tares among the wheat). The servants said unto him, “Do you want us to go and gather the tares up?” Jesus said, No; lest while you gather up the tares, you root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather together FIRST (*2) the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: THEN gather the wheat into my barn.” (Matthew 13:28-30)

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(*2 The rapture of the non-believers will be first then the rapture of the believers, see also Mt. 13:49-50.)

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● “The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.” (2 Thessalonians 1:7-9)

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● “For the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23)

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God is Just and Justice shall abide. God's patience for six thousand years is an expression of His unconditional love. But, at His Second Coming, Justice shall be applied. Let us repent and accept our Savior Yeshua Jesus today.

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HOW CAN WE ESCAPE SUCH A TERRIBLE JUDGEMENT AND DESTRUCTION?

✦ The only way to escape the death wages of sin and have eternal life in the Kingdom of God is through the Lamb of God, the Messiah, who is the very person of YHWH God, came in the flesh as Yeshua Jesus. There is no other Savior except Yeshua Jesus the Messiah YHWH.

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● “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him (Yeshua Jesus the Messiah) the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6)

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● “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5)

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● “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4)

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● “For he has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

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● “For there is One God, and One Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” (1Timothy 2:5)

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● “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)

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● “Jesus said unto him, 1 am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes unto the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6)

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Conclusion: God loves us all unconditionally. However, God's atonement and redemption are given only to those who truly repent and believe (accept) the sacrificial work of YHWH who came in the flesh as Yeshua Jesus our Messiah.

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Feel free to contact us about your thoughts.