What does it mean to fall in love? How do you know it's real?

A question for the poets, the musicians, and the philosophers: what does it mean to fall in love and how do you know it's real?

If I'm at all honest I will have to admit that I am not exactly sure what it means to fall in love. I know when it "clicked" for me, when I knew that my wife was the one for me, but I'm not so sure it was like falling. It was more like God whispering in my ear what I was already shouting in my heart: "She's the one!"

More important than falling in love is growing in love. Our culture tells us that love is a feeling that you feel in the pit of your stomach that feels like butterflies and makes you all giddy. That's not love; that's twitterpation (And no, that's not an over-obsession with Twitter. Watch Bambi for the reference).

The Bible says that love is a verb. It is an action that you do, not an emotion that you feel. We see that in the great romances of the Bible: Jacob and Rachel, Boaz and Ruth, Mary and Joseph, Jesus and the Church. In each of these relationships, love was characterized by actions, not feelings.

Jacob worked 14 years for Rachel's hand in marriage (Genesis 29:20--He married her after seven years and one week, but had to work a total of 14 years). Boaz married Ruth knowing that their descendants would bear the name of her dead ex-husband (Ruth 4:10). Joseph married Mary knowing that for the rest of his life people would always be whispering about her getting pregnant before they got married (Matthew 1:18-20). Jesus died on the cross and rose again on the third day so that we, His Church, could be a pure and holy bride (Ephesians 5:25-26). Love is not only an action, it is a self-sacrificing action.

That's how we can tell if love is real. Feelings are directed toward the self (I feel...); actions are directed towards others (I do...). You know love is real when the other person acts in a way that is for your own good without expecting anything in return, when they love you in spite of all the things that you know are messed up about yourself.

So how do you get love like that? I've talked to a few couples who have been married for over 50 years, and I always ask them the same question. And they always answer the same way. Put God first. They say there's no other way that they'd be able to get through life and put up with each other for 50 years if they didn't put God first.

Falling in love? Not so sure about that one myself. Growing in love? Put God first and each other second, and God will take care of the rest.

Why did God create Satan?

Thoughtful question. The "why" questions of God ("why did God do this," "why is God this," etc.) are among the hardest to answer because you always take a great risk when you try to answer for someone else, even if they're not God. I actually think the answer as to why God created Satan is very much wrapped up in the answer to why God created us.

The Bible actually tells us very little about Satan for probably the same reasons it tells us little about angels (see "How did God get the Angels?"). It's not my desire to go deeply into a biblical discussion of Satan and the demonic at this point, but I will address what is necessary to answer the question.

One of the inferences made about Satan and the other angels is that they, like us, have the freedom to choose between right and wrong, good and evil, God's way and our own way. Revelation 12:4 says that Satan took a third of the angels with him. Now, if you take the time to look up the passage, you'll see that it says that the dragon swept away a third of the stars. Dragon? Stars? Didn't I say angels? I did, but one of the metaphors for angels in Revelation is stars. If we read ahead to verse 9, we also see that the dragon is, in fact, Satan.

Because Satan is able to take a third of the angels with him, because he is able to deceive them as well, we understand that even angels are faced with the same responsibility as we are to choose God. While some Christian traditions deny the possibility of free will, it seems to be an essential component of a loving God who creates beings to enjoy fellowship with Him.

If God creates beings who can only love him, is their love genuine? I would say not. Love is only genuine because of the possibility to not love. If there is no choice, there is no love. When God created the angels (including Satan) and us, He did it knowing that there would be those of us who would reject Him. Yet He also did it knowing that there would be those who would embrace their Creator in a true, loving relationship.

The question is not so much, "Why did God create Satan?" so much as it is, "Why did God create beings who could choose not to love and follow Him?" He created beings with the potential for evil because of their potential for good.

Think about it. Jesus left the mission of the Kingdom to, among others, a few ex-fisherman, a former tax collector, and a revolutionary. He did it knowing that they would have to overcome their own shortcomings as well as struggle against demonic forces, but He gave them the Holy Spirit so that love, peace, and restored relationship with God could be taken to all people everywhere. God will win over Satan and evil once and for all, and He will do it with those who choose to love Him, angels and humans alike.

How did God get the angels at the beginning of time?

Interesting question made all the more interesting by the fact that the Bible does not specifically talk about how and when the angels came onto the scene. It does say, however, that, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). Let's crack that shell and take out a tasty nut of truth.

First, when we see a phrase like "heaven and earth" or "good and evil" we need to understand that the writer is using a figure of speech called a merism, which is a reference to a single thing by naming several, if not all, of its parts. So when Genesis says that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, the writer is saying that God created everything, including the angels.

It's been suggested that the reason why God didn't give us the specifics on how and when the angels were created is because He knew we would develop an unhealthy obsession with them. The word "angel" means messenger, and in the Bible they deliver and reveal God's will to people. An angel told Mary about Jesus, and another angel revealed the vision of Revelation to John. When John tried to worship the angel in Revelation 22:8-9, the angel refuses worship and commands John to worship God only.

All that to say while we don't have a passage that says specifically when and how the angels were created (i.e., "and on the third day..."), we do know that God did create them sometime in the beginning of things.

How do you know that your faith is strong enough to go to heaven?

What an honest question. I wonder how many of us think this but are too afraid to voice it. Based on Ephesians 2:8, we will approach this question from two points: grace and faith (click on the link to see the verse).

First, our ticket to heaven is stamped with the word "GRACE" on it, and it's free. Well, it's not exactly free. More like, it's been paid for already. Grace is sometimes defined as God's Riches At Christ's Expense (See how the first letter of each word spells out "grace?" Pretty cool, huh?). We are allowed into heaven because Jesus paid for it by dying on the cross for our sins and rising from the dead on the third day. Grace is free; you could never earn it even if you tried.

Faith is our response to this free gift of grace that God gives us. When we believe in Jesus and accept Him as our Savior, He gives us the grace that we need to both live the life God created us for and to go to heaven when our earthly life is done.

Still, how strong must your faith be to receive grace, live fully, and go to heaven? Maybe it's not how strong must your faith be. Maybe it's about what your faith must be like. Jesus said in Matthew 17:20 that if your faith is like a mustard seed then you would be able to do the works of the Kingdom.

A mustard seed is tiny, so it is often said that all you need is a little faith to follow Jesus and go to heaven. Very true, but what else does a mustard seed (or any seed for that matter) do? It grows towards the sun! Our faith may be small today, but as we follow Jesus our faith grows towards the Son.

It's not about our faith being strong enough to go to heaven but about receiving the free gift of grace that God gives us as we follow Jesus.

How do we know if God is really with us?

That's the question of a lifetime. How do we know that God is really with us?

Let's start by answering a similar question that was asked during the same service, which was, "God like go Walls with us?" For those of you not living on Oahu and not semi-fluent in Pidgin, allow me to translate: "Do you think God, in the midst of His cosmic obligations, might be willing to join us for a lively session of surfing at the spot known as 'Walls?'"

The answer to that question is that God is already there! David writes in Psalm 139:7-8, "Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the depths, You are there." There is no place that God isn't. God is with you when you ask if He'd like to join you at Walls, and He is there at Walls with your friends who are waiting for you.

So let's bring it back to the original question: "How do we know if God is really with us?" David, the guy who wrote that God is everywhere, also wrote, "Lord, why are you so far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?" What's the deal? Is he even talking about the same God?

Yes, he is talking about the same God, and he's being very honest with his feelings towards God. In Psalm 10 (and a bunch of other psalms) David is expressing frustration over what seems like God's absence in times of trouble. However, David always comes back to trusting that God will make himself known and that He knows what He is doing.

Sometimes the reason it seems that God is absent is because there is too much noise in our lives. Try this. In the early morning when no one is up or late at night before you go to bed, sit for a moment in the silence. Don't turn any music on, remove any distractions, and open your Bible to Psalm 46:10, which says, "Be still, and know that I am God." Read the passage a few times to get it into your head, and then close your eyes and begin to "pray" it to God.

Listen for God in the silence. If your mind starts to wander, come back to the verse and pray it again. You might find that it's really hard to keep your mind from wandering, but it's okay. Just try this for a few minutes the first time, and if you find that it helps you to be more aware of God's presence try it for longer the next time.

By the way, it's perfectly alright, and spiritually honest, to express to God when it doesn't seem that He is really with you. God is big enough to handle it. Just remember that Jesus has promised that, "you can be sure that I am always with you, to the very end" (Matt. 28:20b).


All Scripture quotations taken from the New International Reader's Version.

Who created God?

Great question!

From the Judeo-Christian perspective, the answer is that God was not created; He is eternal. The Bible supports this in many places, but we will just look at two.

Genesis begins with the phrase "In the beginning, God." Before the beginning of time, God was. In fact, God's personal name, which he reveals to Moses in Exodus 3:14 and is frequently translated "I AM" reveals, among other things, His eternality. God is essentially saying that," I am always existing."

Famous author C.S. Lewis offers an interesting way of looking at the eternal nature of God. He says that if you take a piece of paper and draw a line on it to represent time, God is the paper. Kinda crazy, right? Let's unpack this a bit.

What the idea of God's eternal existence means is that God always exists. Because God is the paper in Lewis' model, He experiences all of time at the same time. God is present with you and me here in the 21st century, and at the same time for Him, He is present with Moses in the burning bush. God always is.

There are some profound implications of that last statement. Instead of laying them out, I offer that you find a quiet space and ask God what it means for Him to always be. He is always present; we just need to seek and listen.

"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." Jeremiah 29:13 NIV

What was Mary and Joseph's last name?

Here's a fun question with an unusually complex answer. In biblical times, the last name of Jewish men was the name of their fathers. My dad's name is David, so if I were living in the time of Jesus my name would be Kainoa ben David. "Ben" means "son of" in Hebrew, and sometimes you see the Aramaic equivalent "bar" in the Bible as well ("Simon Bar-Jonah," Matthew 16:17).

What makes things complicated is trying to figure out who Joseph's father was. In Matthew 1:16 it says that Joseph's father was Jacob, yet in Luke 3:23 it says that Joseph's father was Heli. What's the deal?

There are several ways in which people have approached this, but I will offer only one. It was not uncommon for the Jewish writers of the Old Testament to leave out names in genealogies. In fact, what our English Bibles usually translate as "begat" or "son/father of" really means male descendent/ancestor of. Since my grandpa's name is Edward, if a biblical writer was writing my genealogy they would be correct if they wrote, "Edward was the father of Kainoa" or "Kainoa the son of Edward" because the importance is not on providing a detailed pedigree but on drawing a line between certain related individuals.

This is why Matthew's geneaology has fewer names then Luke, even if you only count the names from Abraham. Matthew appears to have selected the names that he did as a poetic device (Matthew 1:17) whereas Luke the physician might be more interested in Jesus' actual lineage.

To answer the question, Joseph was probably called either "Joseph ben Jacob" or "Joseph ben Heli."