NEW
The book THE GOD WHO LOVES YOU, by Peter Kreeft is a revised and update version of the author's book Knowing the Truth of God's Love.
This book contains about 20 pages a chapter (based upon the first chapter) and it contains only twelve chapters. However, what will be written on this site will include only a few pages highlighting reasons
to obtain and read this book. You can look up the author's background on google.com or find it in a library as many
of his books are located.
This section will begin with the conclusion of the book by the author.
Conclusion
[Saint]Augustine tells us of a vision of seeing a little boy at a beach scooping up the ocean thimbleful by thimbleful
and emptying it out on the sand. Then he sees an angel who tells him that this boy will have emptied out the entire
ocean long before Augustine has exhausted what can be said about God.
This book's words about the ocean of God's love has been only a few thimblefuls. No - less. For God's love is literally
infinite. It is the shoreless sea we are destined to swim in, surf in, and grow in forever.
The only thing I want to add in this conclusion is the most important thing of all: I want to say, "Please". I want
to ask you the individual reader for whom I write (for I do not write for "the public" but for individuals) to please
do one thing: the most helpful thing, the most heavenly thing, the most joyful thing you could possibly do. The moment
you lay down this book, please love God with your whole heart and keep doing it for the rest of your life. Give your
whole self to God and to His images, your brothers and sister. Risk. Be crazy. Hold nothing back. Don't be reasonable.
Don't be an investor. Be a lover.
Tell God right now this is the one thing you want above all: the gift of loving Him completely. Tell Him that even
in eternity you will not let Him never want to let him go.
But at this point you must go to those who see much farther than I because they love far more: Paul and Augustine and
Teresa of Avila and Therese of Lisieux and John of the Cross and Bernard of Clairvaux and John Paul II and Mother
Teresa. They are facets of the diamond of Christ. You understand them by understanding Him, and you understand Him
by understanding them. They will send you to Him and He will send you to them. It is a journey well worth the loving.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Before listing the Contents Page of the book, but not everything in each chapter, but only a smattering in each, which will be posted gradually,
only the author's words will be quoted after the Table of Content. The author quotes below. [one of my favorite spiritual writers].
"In the twilight of our lives, we will be judged on how we have loved." - St. John of the Cross.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Contents
Introduction
1 The Twelve Most Profound Ideas I Have Ever Had
2 The Point of It All
3 Defining the Most Important Thing
4 Deeper into the Definition of Love: Scripture’s Classic on Agape,
1 Corinthians 13
5 The Theology of Agape: God Is Love
6 The History of God’s Love: Scripture as Love Story
7 God’s Love in Systematic Theology: How God’s Love Solves Theological Problems
8 God’s Love in Moral Theology: How God’s Love Solves Ethical Problems
9 God’s Love in Practical Theology: How God’s Love Solves Spiritual Problems
10 God’s Love in Political Theology: Why God’s Love Is neither Right nor Left
Conclusion
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Introduction
[The author gives six reasons why he wrote this book but listed is only one]
Fourth reason: I have written almost fifty books, and everything in every one of them might be mistaken, but this one thing has to be true: that God is love.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1 The Twelve Most Profound Ideas I Have Ever Had
The twelve most profound ideas I have ever discovered all concern the love of God.
None of them is original. But every one is revolutionary. None of them came from me. But all of them came to me with sudden force and fire: the "aha!", the "eureka!" experience. They were all realizations, not just beliefs.
[Only one of the twelve ideas will be listed Chapter 1 as a sample.]
3 "In everything God works for good with those who love him." A third shattering realization was that Romans 8:28 was literally true: “In everything God works for good with those who love him.” This is surely the most astonishing verse in the Bible, for it certainly does not look as if all things work for good. What awful things our lives contain! But if God, the all-powerful Creator and Designer and Provider of our lives, is 100 percent love, then it necessarily follows, as the night the day, that everything in His world, from birth to life, from kisses to slaps, from candy to cancer, comes to us out of God’s active or permissive love.
It is incredibly simple and perfectly reasonable. It is only our complexity that makes it look murky. As G.K. Chesterton says, life is always complicated for someone without principles. Here is the shining simplicity: if God is total love, then everything He wills for me must come from his love and be for my good. For that is what love is, the willing of the beloved’s good. And if this God of sheer love is omnipotent and can do anything He wills, then it follows that all things must work together for my ultimate good.
Not necessarily for my immediate good, for short-range harm may be the necessary road to long-range good. And not necessary for my apparent good, for appearances may be deceiving. Thus suffering does not seem good. Even the bad things I do and others do, though they do not come from God, are allowed by God because they are included in His plan. You cannot checkmate, corner, surprise or beat Him. “He’s got the whole world in his hands.” And He’s got my whole life in His hands too. He could take away any evil – natural, human, or demonic – like swatting a fly. He allows it only because it works out for our greater good in the end, just as it did with Job.
In fact, every atom in the universe moves exactly as it does only because omnipotent Love designed it so. Dante was right: it is “the love that moves the sun and all the stars”. This is not poetic fancy but sober, logical fact. Therefore, the most profoundest thing you can say really is this simple children’s grace for meals: “God is great and God is good; let us thank Him for our food. Amen!”
I had always believed in God’s love and God’s omnipotence. But once I put the two ideas together, saw the unavoidable logical conclusion (Rom 8:28) and applied this truth to my life, I could never again see the world the same way. If God is great (omnipotent) and God is good (loving), then everything that happens is our spiritual food, and we should thank Him for it.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2 The Point of It All
The point of Christianity cannot be contained in words because the point of Christianity is the living Christ. He is not ancient ideal but a real person here and now, ready to barge in and transform our lives. [with love] Being a Christian is more like having your soul possessed by a spirit than having your mind clothed with new beliefs. It is more like being well-possessed than well-dressed. It is like being haunted by the Holy Spirit. We are haunted temples.
What to Believe, How to Live, and What to Pray For
Thomas Aquinas said that there are only three things we absolutely need to know… these three
things [are] the Creed, the Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer…Therefore if we fully understand just these three things…we will know everything needful.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3 Defining the Most Important Thing
God’s Love Is More Than a Feeling
We need to focus on exactly what agape is…
Feelings come to us; agape comes from us. Feeling are passive and receptive. Agape is active and creative. Feelings are instinctive, agape is chosen. We are not responsible for our feelings, for we cannot help how we feel. But we are responsible for our agape or lack of it because our choice to love comes not from wind, weather, digestion, good vibrations, heredity, or environment, but from our own heart, the center of our being. [soul]...
We fall in love, but we do not fall in agape. We rise in agape....
Agape is self-forgetful…
Agape and the Other Two Great Things in the World
Agape is closely tied to faith and hope, the other two greatest things in the world…
Agape Is Never Second, Always First…
Agape Is the Foundation of Civilization
The practical importance of this point, that agape does not follow reason and justice but is prior to it, concerns the very survival of civilization…
Agape Moves Us toward Heaven…
When We Really Love, We Give Ourselves Away…
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
4 Deep into the Definition of Love: Scripture’s Classic on Agape, 1 Corinthians 13.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
5 The Theology of Agape: God Is Love
1 Love is God’s essence.
2 Love is one with God’s personhood and being.
3 Love requires a lover, a beloved, and the act of loving.
4 God is three persons in one essence.
5 The three persons know and love each other.
6 The processes of love in God are without beginning.
7 The Son is with the Father as our thoughts are with us.
8 The Father loves the Son in knowing and generating Him.
9 The Son loves the Father in eternity and in time.
10 The Holy Spirit is the love between Father and Son.
11 Having babies is a remote but real human analogy to this mystery.
12 This is the ultimate origin of the holiness of sex, reproduction, and the family.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
6 The History of God’s Love: Scripture as Love Story
The Three Parts to Every Story…
A. Creation manifest love…
B. The fall [of man and woman as described in Genesis] manifests love…
C. Redemption manifests love…
The Chapters in the Story of Redemption [are eight, and a conclusion and a moral to the story that is fascinating, but they will not be disclosed. Neither will chapters 7-10 that were the best for me, as when someone said Jesus created the best wine at the end of the wedding feast of Cana, when he worked his first public, non healing miracle, after the original wine was consumed, similar to when Jesus finished his life with “It is consummated.” (John 19:30), followed by his last words saved for his Father immediately before he died on earth with: “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” (Luke 23:46)]
Spiritual reading is vital for spiritual growth for therein God talks with you. Praying is when you talk to God but both are indispensable at times. THE END
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Publisher: Ignatius Press: 1-800-651-1531. The God Who Loves You
The
background music is Andrea Bocelli's "Ave Maria".