LOVE IS NOT REAL LOVE IF IT IS FORCED
God wants us to respond to Him willing. If we do only what we are forced to do, it’s not love. It means, we are not different from created objects or animals or machines. 2nd Timothy 2:7-8 says, Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into all this. See also 1st John 4:10–13, This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us. We know that we live in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit.
Eugene Kennedy says "Our tears tell us that we are alive, that we have roots in the lives of others, and that we have been touched by the warmest of suns – human love. We should resolve that nobody we love ever has to cry alone"
A robot would make a very uninteresting roommate, coworker, marriage partner, or substitute for a person in any other human relationship. Although robots can even have computerized brains, they have no emotions, or feelings. Although a robot cannot become angry or jealous, neither can it appreciate you or show you affection.
With God’s help, we can choose to love, to worship, and to obey God. True love, worship and obedience come from willing hearts. See Exodus 25:2, Tell the Israelites to bring me an offering. You are to receive the offering for me from each man whose heart prompts him to give. See also Ephesians 5:19–20, it says, Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Why does God not simply force us to follow Him? Because God wants us to respond to Him willing. That is why God gives us the gift of will or choice, so that our relationship with Him can be real.
People who can choose right can also choose wrong. As creator, God gives us ability to choose. As Judge, He holds each person accountable for his or her choices. See Ezekiel 18: 1–4, The word of the Lord came to me: What do you people mean by quoting this proverb about the land of Israel: The fathers eat sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge? As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, you will no longer quote this proverb in Israel. For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son – both alike belong to me. The soul who sins is the one who will die. Read Ezekiel 33:11 –19, Say to them, As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel? Therefore, son of man, say to your countrymen, The righteousness of the righteous man will not save him when he disobeys, and the wickedness of the wicked man will not cause him to fall when he turns from it. The righteous man, if he sins, will not be allowed to live because of his former righteousness. If I tell the righteous man that he will surely live, but then he trusts in his righteousness and does evil, none of the righteous things he has done will be remembered; he will die for the evil he has done. And if I say to the wicked man, You will surely die, but he then turns away from his sin and does what is just and right – if he gives back what he took in pledge for a loan, returns what he has stolen, follows the decrees that give life, and does no evil, he will surely live; he will not die. None of the sins he has committed will be remembered against him. He has done what is just and
right; he will surely live. Yet your countrymen say, The way of the Lord is not just. But it is their way that is not just. If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and does evil, he will die for it. And if a wicked man turns away from his wickedness and does what is just and right, he will live by doing so.
The Lord is good to all. He has compassion on all He has made. Psalm 145:8–9, The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. The Lord is good to all; He has compassion on all He has made.
Isaiah 53: 1–6 says, Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of a dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
Who were the «we» and the «us» in that prophecy? Everyone was included, since Jesus died for all. John 3: 16 – 19 says, 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. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. See also 1st Peter 2:24–25, it says, He himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by His wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
John 13:17 says, Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.
HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEK.