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I Wanna Know What Love Is [Part II]

I wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
And I wanna feel, I want to feel what love is
And I know, I know you can show me
excerpted lyrics: Mick Jones, Foreigner 1984
 
 It has been that kind of week with madmen shooting people for NO reason and other madmen insinuating that more weapons is one solution.  A celebrated playwright declares that “love is love is love is love is love”  and a Facebook friend of mine declares that there cannot be a God or else we would not have had this tragedy.  
 
All of these seemingly non-related details seem related because we’ve all been made with a yearning for real love, the kind no man or woman is able to give.  We are much like another popular song ‘Looking For Love in All the Wrong Places’.  We however get confused and accept erotic love as love.  Sometimes we give all we have and that phileo* love looks like love. It’s selfless but frequently, there is a string attached –  a condition.  I’m giving and at least you can acknowledge that I am giving to you.  
But there is one love, that treats enemies to an everlasting inheritance. The cost was astoundingly high and its acceptance requires devotion but it is described like this “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  [Romans 5:6,7 NIV]
 
Who would you die for?  We say we would die for our loved ones, our children, our spouses.  Would you die for your enemy?  For someone who mocked you, ignored you, spited you, betrayed you?  Killed you?  For someone who really didn’t know love, who violently abused others without remorse?   
 
It happened.   And this love is love.

Some say there is no God because of all the evil in the world.  Some say however, that there must be a God in order for there to be love, the most irrational of constructs.  No, I do not intend a straight forward ontological argument for this entry.  My point is that we desperately seek love, the entire world longs for it, but we are so tarnished by the world that we don’t recognize it.  

 
 
 
But it is the Agape love, that is UNCONDITIONAL.  PERIOD.   
 

phileo is the root from which was derived the city name Philadelphia.  “Brotherly love” used here to denote brotherly philanthropic donation for other among other definitions. 

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A Heaping Portion of Soul Food

I wanted to find an easy and quick definition for soul from the Bible but there is none and the difficulty of translating into English from Hebrew and Latin [Greek] subtexts comes fully to the fore.  I have been perplexed by the differences between the King James Version and other versions that preclude them from using the word.  Doing the research I find that the definition of ‘soul’ in Vines Expository Dictionary of  New Testament Words is literally 500 words revealing a very complex word that has several meanings and shades of meaning.  A visit to the link is worth the effort, you are also afforded other examples of where the word soul is used. https://www.blueletterbible.org/search/Dictionary/viewTopic.cfm?topic=VT0002707 
 
A mention of the soul of man has been visited briefly in these pages (see “Waiting with Stones” or “A Quick Pass through Romans 15:4” and “Complete Deliverance Parts I & II”)  but there has not been a through discussion of the journey and transition of salvation.  This page will begin to remedy that lapse.  
 
Introducing three important premises:
 
  1. Human beings were formed from dust and spirit was breathed into Adam by God as described in Genesis 2:7 hence man is a spirit that has a soul and lives in a body.   II Cor. 4:7 “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us”.  The treasure spoken of is the born-again spirit, redeemed from destruction, alive, communicative and celebratory toward God. 
  2. The human is a tripart being created in the image and likeness of God.  This said with the knowledge that the soul is also tripart containing mind, will and emotions.  
  3. Salvation is both a journey and a process. The born-again spirit is saved, the soul is being saved and the body will be saved and resurrected on the Day of the Lord.
 
As it has been said for many years by Tim LaHaye and other, there is an ongoing “battle for the mind”.  I would beg to differ that there is a battle for the soul i.e. that the mind is only a part of the soul and that we must learn to open ourselves to the healing we need for the mind, [because we are vulnerable to confusion], the will [because like Christ, we must conform our will to God’s will] and the emotions [to evolve past the natural emotional state that we have inherited to the emotional stature of Christ].
 
The premises reinforce the notion that the process of salvation is dynamic and purposeful and that we have work to do to be “kingdom ready”.  What do we need to learn about managing our Mind, Will and Emotions in preparation for the kingdom.  Psalm 23 says He restores [continously] my soul (vs. 3)
 
Some other poignant ‘soulful’ verses from the KJV that bear pondering and meditation:
 
 For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?  Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?   [Mark 8:36-37]
 
 In your patience possess ye your souls.  [Luke 21:19]
 
Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.   But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.   [Hebrews 10:38-39]
 
As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.  My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?  Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.  [Psalm 42: 1,2 & 5]
 
and yet another for a friend from last night:  Isaiah 55:2
Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.