In her 1985 song, "Greatest Love Of All," Whitney Houston claimed that the greatest love of all was to love yourself: "Learning to love yourself. It is the greatest love of all."
However, the Bible has a different idea about what is the greatest love -- Rich Deem
Greatest Love of All by Whitney Houston
I believe the children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside.
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside.
Give them a sense of pride to make it easier
Let the children's laughter remind us how we used to be.
Everybody's searching for a hero
people need someone to look up to
I never found anyone who fulfilled my needs.
A lonely place to be
and so I leamed to depend on me.
I decided long ago never to walk in anyone's shadow
If I fell
if I succeed
at least I lived as I believe.
No matter what they take from me
they can't take away my dignity.
Because the greatest love of all is happening to me
I found the greatest love of all inside of me.
The greatest love of all is easy to achieve
Learning to love yourself
it is the greatest love of all.
I believe the children are our future
. . .
I decided long ago never to walk in anyone's shadow
. . .
And if by chance that special place that you've be dreaming of
Leads you to a lonely place
find your strenght in love.
Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13)
Jesus Himself fulfilled this greatest love by dying for us so that we could be forgiven of all our sins and have fellowship with God:
But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
This example of the extreme love of God is to apply to those who follow Jesus Christ.
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. (1 John 3:16)
Laying down one's own life is not the message of the world, and would be considered from an evolutionary paradigm to be stupid. Even in other religions, the giving of one's life is not encouraged. As an employee of a Jewish hospital (Cedars-Sinai Medical Center), I have had many opportunities to go to seminars about medical ethics and Judaism. For example, here is an example from Orthodox Judaism:
Two men are stranded in the desert. One man has water, while the other has none. There is enough water for one man to make it to safety. However, if they share the water, they will both die before they could get to safety. What does the man with the water do?
The rabbinical answer is that the man with the water should take the water to save his own life. Of course, the Christian answer is that the man with the water should give it to the other man and give up his own life. I discussed this specific example with my Jewish supervisor, who is married to a rabbinical scholar. Apparently, it made quite an impression, since the topic was discussed by the husband and wife, who reported their conversation back to me. When confronted with the differences between Judaism and Christianity, both thought that Christianity took the higher moral ground.
It is the love of God in Christ that allows His disciples to voluntarily give up their own lives for others. You, too, can experience this love and pass it on to others.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)
No comments:
Post a Comment