The Ultimate Love

GOD IS LOVE

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HUMAN HORIZONTAL LOVE

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Jean Swartz

Copyright © 2016 by Jean Swartz.

Library of Congress Control Number:      2016905410

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5144-4787-1

                Softcover        978-1-5144-4786-4

                eBook              978-1-5144-4785-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorised Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright 1983 by the Zondervan Corporation.

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 05/13/2016

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Contents

Dedication and Acknowledgements

Preface

Chapter 1 God Is Love

Chapter 2 God's Faithful Love Endures Forever

Chapter 3 The Vertical Love of God Named Agape

Chapter 4 What This Human Jesus Means to Us

Chapter 5 Earthly Horizontal Love Relationships

Chapter 6 Storge Love

Chapter 7 Phileo Love

Chapter 8 Love for the Enemy

Chapter 9 The Sinisterness of Taxis on our Roads

Chapter 10 Bitterness and Unforgiveness

Chapter 11 Faith versus Fear

Chapter 12 The Human Makeup

Chapter 13 Three-Part Connection of Humanity, Godhead, and Church

Chapter 14 The Life of Jesus

Chapter 15 The Fruits of the Spirit

Chapter 16 The Church of Jesus Christ

Chapter 17 Why Jesus Had to Become Human

Chapter 18 The Cross of Calvary

Chapter 19 The Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus

Chapter 20 The Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ

Chapter 21 The Covenants

Chapter 22 The Cold Hand of Death

Chapter 23 Our Prayerful Life

Chapter 24 God's Angelical Beings

Chapter 25 Lucifer: And the Fallen Angels

Conclusion

Dedication and Acknowledgements

This book is my human masterpiece with all of my infirmities that are within my body and the sinner that I am. I just want to give back to God, what He has given me, all of the revelations of knowledge and wisdom that I have received from God. I am only giving back to Him what belongs to Him in the first place.

I dedicate this book in memory of my late son Charlton, who was so passionately excited about this book and showed such great enthusiasm and interest in it. Thank you for all the deep discussions and conversations that we shared together about the Word of God. They have become my most treasured memories of you, and I will always treasure them in my heart forever. May your soul rest in peace until we meet again.

I also want to dedicate this book to every man and woman of God, who may be a preacher, pastor, and teacher that has ever preached a sermon to me. To the elders in my family who have planted and instilled in me since my childhood years the seed of God's Word. You have all laid the foundation in my life upon which I could build upon my faith in Christ. God bless you all, and I love you all.

Thanks to all who have assisted in the publishing of this book, to the publishers, and to everyone else, for all the help, assistance, and guidance, small and big. A very special thanks to Chris Wymers for his input, guidance, and assistance. I am so humbly grateful to you all. Last but not least, a very big thank-you to my husband, Chris, who had all the patience in the world for me while I was busy writing this book. I know that I have robbed him of so much valuable time that we were supposed to spend together. May God's blessings be upon you all always, and I love you all.

Preface

This book is not about my story, but instead, it's all about God's story. I am hoping and praying that this book will open the spiritual eyes of the reader into a whole new understanding about the Word of God, His love and His order of things for us and our human families, and about our human love relationships with others.

The paradox is that this is God's story and not mine, the believer that I am in the Christian faith and yet the sinner that I am in the flesh.

I am publishing these messages because I am deeply convinced that we as the human race---Christians and non-Christians, believers and unbelievers, in general---can never know too much about the truths of our human horizontal love relationships on the various levels and dimensions without first understanding God's vertical love for humanity. The great passion of His love for humanity as displayed through the cross of Calvary.

There is always the danger, when one attempts to explain divine mysteries in human words, of leading people astray from the one thing that can bring blessings to them. We must wait upon God for His Spirit to grant us a revelation of His truths. Knowledge is power as God declares that my people are dying because of a lack of knowledge.

The main objectives of this book are to make us understand and realise who we are in Christ and to give a holistic form of the human race and how much we are loved and to bring the Holy Bible, which is the Word of God, together for the ordinary man and woman in the street that is battling to lay a hold upon the truths of God and those that are struggling to grasp and understand and make human sense of the scriptures in the Bible. Also how we as humanity are interlink and entwined into our Maker. I hope that you will read this book with an open mind.

It is my prayer that each reader will be led to have a deeper and more meaningful fellowship with their loved ones and in their love relationship towards God and with their fellow human beings. The chapters that follow seek to illuminate and apply all this in a variety of different connections and to help in forming godly attitudes, focusing our values, and re-evaluating our relationship with God. This is what matters most because He loves us unconditionally, and He does not want any of us to be lost but that we should all inherit eternal life through His salvaging rescue plan for us. His love knows no boundaries of merit. It's not boxed in and fenced off for only a few selected ones, but it expands and reaches out to all human race across our globe.

CHAPTER 1

God Is Love

Dear friends let us continue to love one another, For love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a Child of God and knows God. But anyone who does Not love, does not know God, for God is love

1 Jn. 4:7--8

The Bible, which is the Holy Word of God, tells us that 'God is love'. We were created in the image and likeliness of our Creator YHWH (Yahweh), Jehovah Elohim because He loves us. This love of God is ingrained within the fibre of our being. It's because of this that we as human beings crave and long to be loved and to give love. When there is no love in our lives, we will inevitably always feel the void, the emptiness, and the deep longing for someone to love us and to be able to share our love with another human being. God created us as social beings to interact with one another.

Some of us will search for this true love and companionship our entire lives, which we like to call our soulmates. Our world has been rapidly modernised with new-age technologies, such as different internet websites where we can search for our love matches. We have access to many different online dating websites from different service providers. We all desire a lifelong marriage commitment, a happy family with offspring of our own and grandchildren. It gives us a sense of purpose and fulfilment because family is one of the most important factors to us as humans, but it's also one of the most important factors to God.

Do not let anyone ever convince you that you are not loved or that you are not good enough to be loved. We can rely on God's Word; He is not man that He should be lying to us. In fact, if anybody asks me if there is anything that God cannot do, then I would say yes! The one thing that He cannot do is to tell a lie. God loves you unconditionally, no matter who you are or what you've done in your life. His Word is true and will remain true even through all of eternity. Always remember that the enemy would rather want you to doubt the Word of God. The enemy does not want you to know this truth, and as long as you remain in the dark about this, he will keep you there. God's Word also declares that my people are dying because of a lack of knowledge.

A very popular American personality, entertainer, artist, performer, songwriter, and singer is known by her stage name Tina Turner. She made an impact on the music charts as a solo artist in the early 1980s. She launched a string of hits as a solo artist, such as 'Let's Stay Together' and 'Private Dancer'. But the one song of Tina Turner's that I don't agree with is her song that's titled 'What's Love Got to Do with It'. This song was the most successful single from her album; it made the top ten on the charts in so many countries around the world. She has probably made millions, if not billions, from this song. The world out there completely embraced the single and went bizarre over this song. It just goes to show how we misinterpret love because we are searching for the answers from a human perspective and not from God's perspective.

Don't get me wrong. I love Tina Turner, and I think that she is a very gifted and brilliant world entertainer. She's a class of her own with no match. She has a vibrant energy that she brings with her onstage. She is one of the world's most popular entertainers, and she has also been referred to as the Queen of Rock and Roll. The world has termed her as the most successful female rock artist. She has won eight Grammy Awards. She has sold more concert tickets than any other solo performer in the history of the musical world. Her combined album and single sales sold approximately 100 million copies worldwide. In 1991, she was inducted in to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Besides her fame in the music industry, she also has a lot of success in the film industry.

Her birth name is Anna Mae Bullock. She was born on 26 November 1939 in Nutbush, Tennessee. She's in the genre of pop rock, soul, and R&B. Her occupations are singer, dancer, author, choreographer, actress, and vocalist. She is indeed a woman with many brilliant talents. I want to outline the lyrics of her song 'What's Love Got to Do with It':

What's Love Got to Do with It?

Chorus

What's love got to do, got to do with it?

What's love but a second-hand emotion?

What's love got to do, got to do with it?

Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?

The world went crazy over this song. They embraced it, identified with it, and made it their own. I think, once again, that she is a great performer and entertainer of her era, if not one of the best within her time; but this is the biggest lie ever, and that's the truth. Love has got everything to do with all of our being and our life's journey here on earth. Our entire lives are based on our love relationships with others. Love is what completes us as human beings.

It's obvious to me that the world has no idea how uniquely special and loved they are by God. If they did know this truth, they would have never been able to identify with the lie the song is trying to communicate to them. If we knew what our self-worth is in Christ Jesus and how special we are to Him, we would not buy into anything that the world wants us to believe---that is, anything contrary to what God's Word tells us. Instead, we would look to the author of our life source that has made us to bear His Image and His likeliness.

We can't brush love off as just a second-hand emotion. Love is so real. The emotion of loving is real, and that is precisely the reason why love can hurt so much sometimes when our love is betrayed by our loved ones. Yes, love can break hearts because the emotion is real, but God is in the business of mending broken hearts. He is the expert in putting our broken pieces together again. It doesn't mean that we must write love off as irrelevant because of one or more disappointments.

Don't Worry, Be Happy

This is another song that has inspired so many people around the world. A very talented artist named Bobby McFerrin became a household name as he garnered the Grammy honours for Song of the Year and Record of the Year. He also won the Best Pop Vocal Male. Everyone across the globe could identify with this song penned down by Bobby McFerrin, as the words brought some measure of comfort to millions during financial difficulties. Yet the irony of this song is that as much as it inspired all of us, the artist himself, the man that had composed and sung this song, failed to heed his own advice and killed himself instead. It is such a pity as this was really a great song from a very creative, talented vocalist, performer, and artist.

He suffered from a clinical depression, and it's sad that he committed suicide. This once again just proves that we should be looking to Jesus and not to celebrity icons as they too remain human. We all need God for our sustenance, but because of a lack of knowledge about how great God is and how much He loves us, we might as well all become don't worry, be dead. Let us look at the Bobby McFerrin lyrics of this song:

Don't Worry, Be Happy

Chorus

Ooh, ooh ooh oo-ooh ooh oo-ooh ooh ooh oo-ooh

(Don't worry)

Ooh oo-ooh ooh oo-ooh

(Be happy) x 3

What an inspiring and motivating words in his song; and yet, ultimately, Bobby could not stomach his own prescribed medicine he had been spooning and feeding out to the whole world. It's actually so sad.

Most people out there have a picture of God as a rigid, stern, and angry Father that cannot wait for us to stumble so that He can lash out His anger upon His children. But this is because of the fact that God's love is not being preached enough in our church sermons. Instead, people are being scared away from church by the harsh preaching of God's wrath. And yet, God is this loving Father in heaven that is patiently waiting to embrace you as He seeks to have a close fellowship and a love relationship with you. All of God's anger was taken out on Jesus at the cross of Calvary. And when we stumble, which we always will, it is a matter of getting up and running straight towards the cross again and not away from Jesus. But the choice remains our own free will.

CHAPTER 2

God's Faithful Love Endures Forever

We need to look at love from God's perspective as He is the one that has made us in His image and in His likeliness. Now, when we look in a mirror, we get an image of what we look like. Sometimes people will refer to the familiarity among family members and comment that you are the splitting image of your dad or your mom or your siblings. And we know that God Himself is love based upon His Word. Love is the very foundation of the human race. This is the reason why it hurts us so much when we are betrayed by a loved one that we trusted with our love. Our image in God is the actual love portrayed within us. It's impossible for us not to love. Love is the actual driving force that motivates us in every aspect of our lives.

We build all of our relationships on love and trust. Our emotions are real feelings of despair, loneliness, brokenness, sorrow, mourning, heartaches, disappointments, fears---the list goes on and on. We are emotional beings, and our emotions can't be dismissed as untrue---they are real. Our love is like the cement that holds all of the bricks within the walls of the buildings against all the elements of the different seasons.

We will never be able to get our earthly love relationships right until we realise and accept God's love for us. We will call our love relationships on earth the HORIZONTAL LOVE RELATIONSHIPS as we do interact with one another on a horizontal level and dimension. From where God's throne and dwelling place is, He looks down on us on horizontal levels of the earth's planes. We will call God's love for us the VERTICAL LOVE RELATIONSHIP as this is God's love for us flowing downwardly from God's heavenly dwelling place to us humans.

We will never be able to fully grasp or begin to understand the love that God has for us. God's love for us is so much bigger than what we can ever begin to imagine. We were made out of love by God. It was love that has motivated our Creator to form us. We are to love Him in return. God should be our first love. We are to love the Lord our God with all of our strength, our minds, and our hearts; and we must love our neighbours the same as we love ourselves. As all of the commandments in the Law of Moses are based on, we can see that love is such a vital and integral part of our every being.

Let Us Explore the Meaning of the Word Love

In the vocabulary of our English language, there is only one word to describe love, and that is the word in itself: love. But the meaning of love can be described as follows:

1. To hold dear

2. To feel passion, devotion, or tenderness for something or someone

3. To feel affection and to experience desire

4. To like or desire actively

5. A great interest and pleasure in something or to take great care of whatever it is

We will now turn to the Word of God, which is our owner's manual given unto us from our Creator, giving us instruction and information, teaching us about love and how to love: 1 Jn. 4:7--12.

This scripture tells us that we must always love one another because love comes from God and anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God; but anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much He loved us by sending His one and only begotten Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through Him. This is real love---not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, then God lives in us, and His love is brought to full expression in us.

Love should become right in the middle, the centre of our day-to-day living. We are compelled to love one another because of the love that our Creator first displayed to us, showing us how much He loves us even before we loved Him.

We Explore the 'Vertical Love' from God First

1. Heaven, God's dwelling place at His holy throne

2. God's vertical unconditional love flowing in abundance downwards to us

3. Planet earth, where we dwell and live as humans

4. Horizontal human love, reaching out from us one towards another

We need to know about this amazing love of God, grasp it, and accept it. God made each one of us so unique, at the perfect timeline, born in the right race, the right gender, and the right place on earth. Every human being that ever walked this planet has their own special and different skill as well as talent. These are all gifts that God has blessed us with.

CHAPTER 3

The Vertical Love of God Named Agape

This vertical love of God is called agape in the Greek language, which is the love that God loves us with. This love is unlike any other love. It is a love that is so deep, so wide, so high, and so broad that we can't even begin to imagine. It is a love that is unconditional, it is a selfless love and not a selfish love, and it extends to all of us. Even though we are undeserving and unworthy of this love, God still loves us anyway.

Agape is much more than just a warm feeling of emotion or the impulsiveness of an act of kindness shown to someone at that moment they might need our love. It is to make a conscious act to put the other person above ourselves. To love where it is impossible to love, in the darkest places where the most unlovable persons find themselves in. To love so much and not expecting anything in return but to continue to love anyway because we want to reach out and love the person unconditionally.

Thus the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made. This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and heavens; before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth and there was no man to till the ground; but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. (Gen. 2:1-- 7)

God first took all the time to create a completed universe. So it was only when the creation of the heavens and the earth and everything in them was completed on the fifth day. And on the sixth day only did God form the first man, Adam. On the seventh day, God had finished His work of creation, so He rested from all His work. God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy because it was the day when He rested from all His work of creation.

God first prepared and created everything that we could ever need in order to sustain us. Everything was ready and available for our convenience, our pleasure, our enjoyment, our well-being, and our sustenance. Then only did God made human beings. That is how much our God loves us.

Let's take the element of water as an example. No human being on planet earth can survive without water. It is no wonder the authorities and human rights activists call it 'basic human right to service delivery'. Water quenches our thirst. We wash our clothing, do our cooking, and cleanse our bodies. It houses all of our seafood, and it feeds our crops and sustains animals. We also enjoy water for our leisure and pleasure. We sail the oceans and go canoeing, water rafting, swimming---the list is just endless.

God created and placed every herb, spice, fruit, vegetable, and plantation of all kinds for the nourishment and well-being of our bodies. Our protein comes from the animals that roam the earth, the birds that fly in our skies, and the fish that swim in our rivers, dams, and oceans. Be it eggs, milk, nuts---you name it. God has made it.

Just think about it for a moment. Everything that you have ever had on your plate of food---whether it was breakfast, lunch, brunch, or supper---every single thing was created by our Creator God. Everything that you will ever consume in the future comes from God as His gifts to us. Then how much more of importance must it be that we need to thank Him in prayer for our food as this is His substance of nourishment unto our earthly bodies to sustain us with health and with strength?

No men had ever created anything on this earth. As humans, we can't create. Even though we might be creative, that does not mean that we can create. We must understand how God the Creator created our universe and everything in it. God had no matter of any substance to use or to work with, there was nothing and from nothing He brought everything into existence, but by purely speaking a spoken Word from His mouth, all things came into existence. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. All things were spoken into existence by Him.

As human beings, we can only explore, design, plant, research, produce, and invent; but we can't even create one single blade of grass. Scientists may even clone, but they can only clone from what God has originally created. Scientists can't clone another human being, and it's because they have to breathe the 'breath of life' into the nostrils of their subject, which is the human body, in order for the human to become a living soul. They don't possess the breath of life because it belongs to GOD only.

Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man's nostrils, and the man became a living person. (Gen. 2:7) (Some other translations say Man became living being or Man became a living soul.)

Well, there you have it. The reason why they can't interfere with God's human race is they can't breathe the breath of God's life into their human clones.

Men had invented so many things on earth. They invented motor vehicles, aeroplanes, ships, boats, cruisers, computers---and the list is once more endless as to how far the human race has evolved. We have access to modern high-tech gadgets of all sorts. They bring together from all sorts of matter that already exist on earth, created by God; to form, to make and invent whatever equipment, solutions or aerodynamics it might be. I want to applaud every inventor, explorer, researcher, farmer, producer, and designer for their outstanding brilliance that has made our lives so much more convenient. Their contribution, dedication, and hard work to society are immeasurable and will always be greatly valued.

Once men have invented, they have their inventions patented, ensuring that no one else ever copies them, that they alone own the sole rights of the invention. This will ensure and secure that future proceeds and sales from the product will only benefit the inventor. This procedure confirms a government licence to conferring a right or title, especially the sole right to make, use, or sell the invention. This makes complete business sense in our world and is the right thing to do, but it is an act of looking out for oneself, a human nature that is almost always self-centred and selfish.

But Watch What God Does: Agape

Then God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves on the earth. And God said, see I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. (Gen. 1:28--29)

Then God blessed them and said, Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.

Then God said, Look! I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food. (Other translations say subdues the earth and has dominion over everything.)

God basically blessed them and (the human race) told them to multiply, subdue the earth, and have dominion over His creation. This means to have sovereignty and control over all of what God has created.

Oh, wow! What a God! What a love!

God was saying, It's all yours, everything that I've created. Rule over everything of My creation. Eat from it. Enjoy it. It is all under your rule, your control, and your care! No patented rights were kept by God. What an awesome agape. He gives His sunlight to both the evil and the good, and He sends rain to the just and the unjust alike. Unlike our human selfishness, God entrusted all of His creation to humanity. He did not patent His creation. Instead, He gave it all to the human race free of charge.

That you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (Matt. 5:45)

But all of His creation given freely unto us was not good enough. Sin crept in on human race and separated us from our Creator. Sin separated us from God.

It's your sins that have cut you off from God because of your sins He has turned away and will not listen anymore. (Isa. 59:2)

Animals were sacrificed, and their blood was offered up as a cover-up for sins, but the blood of an animal could never take away the sin. It only covered the sin up. The very first animal was sacrificed, which was an act of killing an animal as an offering to a deity for the atonement of sin. Now the very first sacrificed animal was performed by God Himself right there in the Garden of Eden. The Bible does not state this, but it must have been that God killed an animal to atone for Adam and Eve's sin, because it stipulates that God made clothing from animal skins for Adam and Eve to cover up their nakedness. And in order for God to get the animal skin, He must have killed an animal.

And the Lord God made clothing from animal skins for Adam and his wife. (Gen. 3:21)

Throughout the Bible's history of the Israelites, all different kinds of animals were sacrificed and offered as atonement for the sins of the people. There was even the scapegoat, which carried all of the sins from the people, as they would lay their hands upon the scapegoat, symbolising the transferring of their own sins upon the innocent goat. The goat would then be sent into the wilderness of Azazel to escape with all of the sins from the people that were now transferred upon this goat. This is where we got Don't make me your scapegoat, which is said when someone refuses to take responsibility for their actions and shifts the blame onto another person.

But the ultimate sacrifice for the entire sins of the world came once for all and forever through Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God. It is the ultimate 'agape'---unconditional and persistent.

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that were made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. (Jn. 1:1--4)

Now if only you would be able to latch on to and grasp this scripture, it would open up a whole new world of understanding the mysteries of God for you. I will try my utmost to rephrase the prologue of this scripture, which is the introduction of Jesus Christ and the Eternal Word of God, in layman's terms.

Jesus Christ existed right from the beginning with God; He was present and involved with all of creation from