TipsTheLess: What is Love?

Most teenage girls and boys and mostly all the people in this present age define love as a feeling of attraction or care to opposite sex. Let's face it. Love today has been given a bad name.

How many times have you said I love you to someone? It's like sugar in our ears whenever our crush tells us those three words. It sends a feeling of euphoria and chills to our spine. It's the feeling of being in love.

Love. You hear it in movies. After being said, then off to bed they go and make love with no care to the world.

Love. Teenagers this day express it with holding hands in public, kissing, and caressing with sweet moments of being alone. Eventually, it will lead to unwanted things.

Paul in his letter to the Corinthians defined love as patient and kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

When you define love as a noun, it's not love at all. Love is not a feeling of attraction. The world defined it the wrong way and confused it with something else. Lust is often disguised as love.

Love is a verb. It is doing. You can't love with feelings. How can you love if you don't feel like doing it?

Some say if you love a person, you should fight for him or her. Well, not all the time. Love is not self-seeking. Love is putting others first. It is letting go of the things you wanted most for the sake of love. When you love, you don't put your desires first. Even though it hurts to let go of the one you love for the best, it only means that your love is true. If you love someone, you should go for what is best for the one you love.

Love is patient. It waits for the best to come. When we love someone, we wait patiently for it to come. We don't search love. Love finds us.

Love does not envy. If we are not contented with what we have, we envy. Don't feel sorry if the one you love loves someone other than you. Rather, be thankful that you know what love really is.

Love is not easily angered. It doesn't keep a record of wrongs. If we love someone, it is easy for us to forgive and be merciful. No matter how many times we are wronged, love always is stronger to forgive.

There are still many definitions of the enigmatic word called love. The truth is that the greatest love that any one could ever know, is the love that overcame death for the one who is not even worth dying for.

Jesus Christ said that there is no greater love than for a man to lay down his life for his friends. It is not easy to die for a righteous person. Let's face it, it's not even easy to die for the apple of our eyes. How much harder it is to die for someone who has wronged you several times just to save his life?

Jesus Christ IS the best definition and the best expression of true love. He left his glorious throne in heaven to live like dirty humans as a subject. He took the punishment that was supposed to be ours. He laid down his life for us who are worthy of hell so that we may have life in him.

Before it stayed in our deceitful hearts, love was nailed to a humbled cross.

Love is eternal.

Where is Justice?

Perhaps one of the most elusive desires the world seems to be blindly running after, justice is being searched in the wrong places for quite a long time.


Always in every crime, accident and in every unpleasant circumstances, the victims -- usually those who remained alive-- groan for justice.

Unfortunately, not all of them has been heard. For many of them, justice has become a thing exclusive for the rich. They have been deprived from the very thing that they needed, only because they don't have the power to defend themselves. And worse, the rich is just too powerful for them to face.


Such a terrible life!


If someone has been killed in the family, vengeance is their justice; others a demand for the killer to give them the help in burial; and others is for the guilty to be put in prison to suffer an inhumane fate as a payment for what he has done. But can that kind of justice bring the dead back to life? No indeed! Instead it asked for another life to be sacrificed or perhaps to act as a wage for the grimly act.


And it leaves wounds unhealed and a loss unreplaced. But at least that is how the world made them think.


However, there lies the real question those who demand justice should ask. Not where. What.


Justice is the upholding of what is just, especially fair treatment and due reward in accordance with honor, standards, or law. Those who disobeyed the law must be punished so that justice may be observed. Without the punishment, the law is not at all being followed. Because of that, justice depends on the law. Justice and the law should therefore coexist.


There are many kinds of constitutions in different nations. Some laws in one country are not in the other. Some sound fair in one country and ridiculous  for the others. With different kinds of laws governing different places, different kinds of justice are being demanded.


For example, in the Philippine constitution, a person guilty of murder should be put to prison, while in one country, say Death country, murder is legal. Justice is observed in the Philippines if the person guilty of suce crime is put to jail, but not at all in Death country.


With imperfect laws come imperfect justice. Justice perfectly implemented in an imperfect law is still an imperfect justice.


There is, however, one perfect Law. It is the Law created not from futile minds of dust-born human. It came eternally from the Creator Himself,--the Almighty God-- the one who created everything.


The Law governs everything in the universe; from time, to space, and to matter. Nothing is above the Law except of course the one who created it. It doesn't give any favors on anyone under it. All are naturally submitted to it; rich or poor; young or old; whether they like it or not.


From this perfect Law comes the perfect and only justice. In this justice, punishment don't come easy. Since the Law is spiritual, any violation requires a very heavy punishment.


Spiritual violation is called sin. In the letter of Paul to the Romans, he said, “For the wages of sin is death”(Rom. 6:23).


A more disturbing fact is that in the same letter he said, “All have turned away from God. They have all gone wrong; no one does what is right; not even one” (Rom. 2:13). Therefore, if all have disobeyed the Law ant not even one, then all are lawfully guilty to be put to death.


Who then can impose judgment of death on another person when he himself is guilty as well? The guilty cannot judge the guilty because both are under judgment.


The good news is that the Creator doesn't want to condemn us to death because of His great love for us. He just can't cancel the Law that required punishment because the weight of sin requires a payment fot the Law to be fulfilled.


Because of the Father's great love and mercy, He did not make us pay the wages of our sins. Instead He made His own Son pay it for us. “But because of our sins he was wounded' beaten because of the evil we did” (Is. 53:59).


“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son and whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (Jn. 3:16)


Justice was and is served through the punishment and death of the Son, which in turn deemed us innocent for the crimes we committed if we believe in Him, accept him as our personal Lord and Savior, and allow him to lead us to the path of righteousness. Because of this, we ought to give mercy to others who were given the same mercy as us.


Where is justice? Justice is in the Word of God nailed to a cross.

Three Trees

There were three trees who were bragging their dreams against one another. They were Richard, Powell and Rex.

Richard: Time will come that I will be the richest wood of all. I will live in a castle because my owner will make me as the most beautiful treasure chest. In me, there will be so much gold, silver and all the riches that the two of you can imagine.

Powell: Think again, Rich. Someday, I will be the biggest ship in the entire continent. The whole forest will be so jealous of me because rich, famous and powerful people will ride in me in the vast sea. I will bring them to their destination and they will praise me for my beauty. How about that?

Richard: Hey Rex. Why are you so quiet? Don't you have a dream to brag about?

Powell: Yeah Rex. Mister Money here is right. What do you want to be?

Rex: Oh me? I just want to be a tree here, standing tall above all the trees. Nothing fancy like your dreams. I just want to be the king of all trees--the king of the forest.

Powell: Oh, I'm in the sea so I'm no subject of yours, pal.

Richard: Me too.

The Three: Cheers to our dreams!

Loggers came and cut Richard down. He was very excited of what he has to become. He could almost smell the sweet fragrance of castle perfumes and feel the tender texture of the castle carpet.

To his dismay, he was made into a manger, not a treasure chest. He was put in a barn full of stinking animals and not in a castle he always dreamed about. Oh how much he longed for that sweet smelling fragrant and shiny jewels. And now, this?

"Lord, why have you made me like this?"

One night, a weary couple came into the dark barn. It was his first time to see people coming in for quite a long time. The woman was in labor. And then the cries of a baby boy. The husband inlaid some cushions in the manger and placed the bouncing newborn baby to sleep tenderly in the humbled manger.

Later, some shepherds came in the barn and praised the baby boy saying that he indeed is the Son of the living God.

Richard was dumbstruck. All his life, he dreamed of holding the riches of the earth in his belly. He had never dreamed of being the first bed of the Master of the universe who came down from heaven to save the many. He became a treasure chest after all, but not for the treasures of the earth but for the source of them all.

 

Next, the axe came upon Powell. Like Richard, he was also excited for his fate. However, creases on the foreheads of shipbuilders. Powell is just too thin and too weak to be a ship. So instead of making him into a ship, he was made into a small boat.

Powell had always wanted to sail the seas but the people threw him to the fishermen in the lake. Only poor people were able to ride on him, most of them were fishermen. 

"Lord, why have you made me like this?"

One night, several people rode him to cross to the other side of the lake. One of them was asleep. Suddenly, fierce winds beat his sail and almost torn it apart from the boat. Huge waves were towering above them as if it were ready to devour them whole. The end has come and he will spend the rest of his life under the depths of the lake. 

Just when all hope is gone--as if it were--the men woke the sleeping man who was with them. They were crying out to him as if he could help him. Then the man stood up and gave a command to the wind and waves to be still and it did. If he could take a breath, Powell would have made a very deep sigh of relief. Who is that man that even the waves and wind obey him? And he heard the men saying that the man indeed was the Son of God.

Powell was overwhelmed by the happiness that he had never even dreamed about--to be the boat to carry the Son of God and his disciples to whom he would send to give hope and strength to the weary.

 The last of the three, standing alone tall among all the other trees, Rex couldn't help but marvel at his exaltation.  Yes, he was complacent knowing that he's the one left on top.

To his dread, loggers came to cut him down. The pain of his downfall pierces to his heart. So much for exaltation, and so much for majesty. Gone are those days. The heathen axe beasts cut down his treasured crown of glory, leaving him stripped off his bark. They left him bare, useless and beaten in the dark where no one would even care to pass by. 

He dreamed of being on the top, high above the others. Day and night, he enjoyed every moment of his reign until the tables were turned. Fear and anguish were his friends throughout the days since his fall.

When finally, he saw the glimpse of daylight and the warmth of noon as the doors finally open. Some men took him and gave him to a battered, beaten and wounded man to be carried somewhere he thought he would loathe all his life. He knew this isn't what he hoped for. The chamber felt like heaven for him compared to the shame of being carried by a man who is like a lamb ready to be slaughtered. Everyone's eyes were on the man. He knew those were on him too. And he knew those weren't looks of praise but of disgust. As if adding pain to insult, he was made to stand up on a cursed hill surrounded by angry mobs carrying the wounded man bound to him by nails on his hands and feet. The blood of the man trickled down his once glorious trunk.

"Lord, why have you made me like this?"

Not long after, after a loud cry, the man died. Then a strong earthquake shook the whole planet. He saw a Roman soldier bow down before the man and cried out that he was indeed the Son of God.

His shame was drained like the great waterfalls. His disgust and bitterness were washed away from him like a storm. The shame he thought that would end all his confidence turned out to be the greatest honor that anyone would have received, that is, to be able to carry the Son of God and clothed by his precious blood.

And so it was. The three trees did not achieve what they dreamed about.

But God made them into something that even their dreams couldn't fathom.