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-======  ... ======
+====== Love Is Everywhere - Is It? ... ======
-Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020.
+Tuesday, Jan 28, 2020. Love is modern topic. It is a core topic of music. It is in the charts.
+It is popular. It is everywhere. Advertising uses beautiful bodies - of women and also of
+men - to attract people to its message. Products are linked to beautiful things which you
+love to have. Social media such as Instagram are full of pictures which want to generate love
+and admiration.
+Love is an important topic for all ages. Humans search love. We want to be loved as we are -
+or as we want to be or choose to be. The rainbow flag has become a symbol of homosexual love
+and liberation. To find love is also part of many divorces. We got to know each other
+including all our strange character features, have given up in the light of severe problems,
+ - and now search new hope and love and admiration beyond the old vows.
+Let us dig deeper into this topic. What is love?
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-**  ... **
+** Love - What is it? ... **
+What is love? Usually, love is said to be a feeling. And indeed, feelings and the whole
+body chemistry of humans is linked to love. How would you describe love? We all know love. We
+know when we felt stunned by some person. We all know this strange attraction. We know
+how it is when you think that company of this person is the most desirable thing in the world.
+We can describe the effects of love. We think about the other person all the time. We
+feel good, full of energy, full of hope, full of motivation. When you are in love, no problem
+can be severe. You seem to have reached your target. You reached a place where you can
+stay. Peace comes with love.
+When you love someone, you identify with him or her. That means all what is yours, is also his
+or hers. All your time, your money, your talent, your energy. All belongs to both of you. This
+is an important feature of love: identification. It can also cause many problems when separation
+comes. Some law knows the community of acquisitions, meaning that every partner owns his or her
+own possessions, and only what was acquired during the partnership will be shared between the
+two partners when it comes to separation.
+Some evolutionary biologists see in love a tool of evolution to support community. Here,
+love does not have a meaning beyond its purpose. In this view love is a tool of evolution
+to bind people into a community, which gave them some evolutionary advantage over other
+evolutionary developments, which did not know this type of binding.
+What is the role and meaning of love in this world? Is it just another way to live out my
+egocentric world view? *I* love and *I* want to be loved? Is it a mechanism imposed to us to stay
+friendly and supportive to at least some individuals? Is it made for us to be able to protect
+our children and let the species grow?
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-**  ... **
+** The Biblical View on Love ... **
+The bible has a different view on what love is, where love comes from and why love is the
+most important thing in the world.
+Love is coming from God himself. He IS love. He lives love. Love is defined to be the
+type of relationship which is in God, who is in himself father and son and holy spirit. Only
+with a triune God, with what the church has called the holy trinity, true love becomes possible
+and has an eternal source and foundation.
- <color #aa0000>
+The biblical view on creation is that God has created the human as man and woman. He has
-.15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
+created two genders, to give them a basis for love. All our bodies are made for a community of
-.16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life[3]—is not from the Father but is from the world.
+a man and a woman. Two genders as complementary types made to love each other. Also, God has
+created the family to be a relationship of love. Children need to be nurtured, protected
+and supported. The whole circle of life is made to be filled with love, trust and truth.
+And God has created man to love him. He has created man such that God could love man, and man
+could love God. We are made in the image of God. We are made as something alike him, reflecting
+his splendor, his love, his freedom, his majesty.
+We are made to fall in love with him - as we are made to fall in love with a partner.
+Love is an important topic throughout all biblical books, Old Testament and New Testament
+alike. The apostle John talks about it in his letters, here some important remarks, which need
+to be taken together to show their full meaning:
+<color #aa0000>
+.15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world,
+the love of the Father is not in him.
+.16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes
+and pride of life — is not from the Father but is from the world.
 [...]
-.11 For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.[...]
+.11 For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning,
+that we should love one another.[...]
 .14 Whoever does not love abides in death.
 </color> (1 John 2, 15-16 + 3, 11+14)
+If desire for or love to particular goods or recognition or people becomes our main target
+and the center of our life, we experience a destruction of the life, love, freedom and
+majesty which God made us for. This is what "do not love the world" means. The world is
+still wonderful. It is made by God, and what he made was good. It is fantastic to see,
+amazing and full of wonder! Yet, it is not there to be the center of our life. It is not
+there to take the role of God as the center of our love. And the love of God is more than
+desire.
+God himself so loved the world that he gave his only son, to save it. We are invited
+to enter this community of love, where forgiveness has been established by the cross of Christ
+Jesus. This love means a wide freedom, but not the freedom to become slaves again of
+love to the world in a worldly way, but to love the way Jesus does. His way! It is a
+fantastic path to explore his way, each and every day ...
 (Roland Potthast)