FRIDAY, MAY 17, 2024 - LOVE WINS???

FRIDAY, MAY 17, 2024 - LOVE WINS

Love wins - what a concept.

On Friday, I generally write about spiritual things.

Love is a spiritual, emotional, rational, and utterly appropriate item.

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A little review:

Scientists have estimated over 8 trillion galaxies (8,000,000,000,000) - and each galaxy can have millions of stars. “The Milky Way galaxy contains between 100 billion and 400 billion stars”.  “In physical extent, the Milky Way’s stars span a diameter of about 130,000 light-years.”  A light year is the distance light travels in one Earth year.  So, if we could travel at the speed of light, it would take us 130,000 years to get from side to side in the Milky Way. Just imagine the vastness of this cosmic expanse, a testament to the limitless power and creativity of our Creator. 

IC 1101, a giant elliptical galaxy in the Virgo constellation, is estimated to contain over 100 trillion stars. (100,000,000.000,000) This makes it the largest known galaxy in the observable universe and 250–500 times larger than the Milky Way, which has an estimated 200–400 billion stars. IC 1101 is about a billion light-years away and is 5.5–6.0 million light-years across, with a mass of nearly a quadrillion suns.

With a 6,000,000 light-year diameter, no galaxy’s stars cover more extraordinary lengths than the Alcyoneus galaxy. 

Hey, the university is huge, and these numbers are what we know now with our current telescopes and Technologies.

Some people like to say that life was an amoeba that split and became two and that split and became four. If we put this in the context of stars, there must have been more amoebas than one could ever count!  

I think of this as “intelligent design”—that some super-intelligent beings, like gods (lowercase “g”), have created it.  I also think of this as not being accidental - but with ONE GOD putting it all together.  (C’mon Karen - one God to do this?  What have you been smoking? Karen answers - how many cooks do you have in your kitchen?  Somebody has to be the “boss"- that is human thought).

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So, there (at least to me) is some divine being - and I’ll call it GOD.  

Okay, Karen, get to the point.

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God." "Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love."  I John 4:7-9

Time out

God is LOVE?  

Yup - that is what I believe.

Love one another, love your enemies, love the Chinese, the Russians, the Mafia, the gang members, the drug dealers, the criminals.  

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Time out again.

Am I to love everyone?  Yup.

“Above all, love each other deeply because love covers over a multitude of sins.”

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But, I don’t want to love <some person>.  

Too bad—God is love, and if I don’t love a person, then I’m violating my first priority, which is to LOVE GOD.

We love God because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19

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Time Out (a third time)

A good friend said, “I don’t know why God is letting my mother suffer so much.”

I don’t know why God isn’t intervening and healing her.  

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.  “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.  Isaiah 55:8-9

It doesn’t make sense - God spoke the world into being (or somehow created trillions of galaxies and stars.  One thought from God would heal my friend (and my friend's mother).  One tiny thought - much less than creating a galaxy or two, much less than keeping the Earth circling the Sun.  

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Okay, Karen - so God’s ways are not our ways.  

The traditional thought is that this planet is outside of the average reach of God - from when Adam and Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil - and basically, Adam and Eve gave control of the planet to Satan.  I’m not sure that is quite right - but it seems like ALL of us have struggles - ALL of us have to die - ALL of us. 

John 2:24 - But Jesus himself did not trust the people. He knew what all people are really like.

For one day, people are all standing on the streets cheering as Jesus rides into town, and by the end of that week, the people are all yelling “Crucify Him” 

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For now, we see only a reflection in a mirror; then, we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.   And now, these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is LOVE.

Okay, I don’t understand.  So, I’m out here saying, “Love always wins” - and it sure doesn’t seem that way.  

Oh well, 

LOVE WINS

LOVE TRANSFORMS

I can only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.  (So, I HAVE TO LOVE - AGAPE LOVE)

Karen Anne White, © May 17, 2024