Love 2

I wrote last week on the subject of love.  This is such an important matter that it seems appropriate to spend this session on some further thoughts.  This is not a complicated subject, but one that we all can contemplate and seek for a higher level.

1 Peter 1:22,23 gives us some ideas to ponder:  "Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever..."

The first part, "..in sincere love of the brethren.." uses love with the Greek word "phileo." This is a brotherly love kind of thing, a love like you would feel for your siblings.  This is a noble love...and one that we should feel toward our brothers and sisters in Christ, members of the family of Christ.

The second part of this passage is in 1 Peter, "..love one another fervently with a pure heart...." uses love with the Greek word "Agape."  Agape love goes further in our relationship to one another.  In agape love we want the best for the other person.  We may not know the other person, at least not well; we may not like the other person.  The other person may even be our enemy, remembering that Jesus taught us to love our enemies.  This of course, is hard teaching.  But we can agape even the worst.

And this brings us to the thought that we might have to love the unlovable.  Romans 5:5-8 shows us that we aren't the first to face this situation.  "..the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.  For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.  For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.  But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."  Christ died for us....sinners....ungodly.  Thus, it isn't too much for us to love those who aren't lovable.

And Philippians 2:4,5 instructs:  "Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.  Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus..."  We can do this! 

Thank you for reading.  I hope your week is great!

Love

I love this passage from 1 Peter 4:  "But the end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers.  And above all things have fervent love for one another, for 'love will cover a multitude of sins.' "  Love is a great subject because it is at the base of what the Christian is, at the very core.  There are many other things that go into making up the Christian such as faith, practice, worship and more, but love is at our core....and must be at our core.  The early part of 1 John talks about the importance of the Christian keeping "His commandments," and "test the spirits."  But love must still be at the core and of prime importance.

And note this passage in 1 John 4:  "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.  In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.  In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."

And no discussion of love would be complete without the reference to the love chapter of 1 Corinthians 13.  It begins: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become as sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.  And it concludes with "And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

Love reigns above all.  That is what we are, what we are to be.  As mentioned in 1 John 4, "God is love."   And He expects us to be love.  It manifests itself in us when we love Him, but even more when we love each other.  God knew that it would not always be easy for us to love each other.  But He expects that, demands that.

So, beloved.....I love you.  Let us strive to complete this teaching by loving each other.  Thanks for reading.  Have a great week!    And feel the love........

Tolerance

I will have to work at not becoming political in this blog entry because of the nature of the title; and I have promised to keep this discussion strictly Biblical.....certainly not political. 

Tolerance is a major practice in America today, perhaps more than ever before.  You will notice that most other countries, for what it is worth, do not tolerate what we do in our society.  And tolerance sounds like a good thing, like a great thing.  I would suggest that the Bible does not teach that. 

We see in the Old Testament that God was very specific in what He wanted from His people.  The examples would be too numerous to even mention.  But we can mention that even in His first people, Adam and Eve, He was very demanding in what He expected from them.  And in the case of Cain and Abel, the first children, we see that Cain did not do what God expected of him.  Even that early in history, God was intolerant of bad behavior. 

Then there was Jesus.  Jesus taught a less exact type of religion, wanting people to give their heart to the Lord, not just outward sacrifice.  But even here, Jesus was specific about many things.  For example, He was quite critical of the Jewish leaders in Matthew 23....and in many other places.  He taught His followers to do certain things in their worship in the future days, like: remember Him by taking the communion (He taught them this in Matthew 26, Mark 14, and Luke 22).  In Matthew 28:19, He told His apostles to "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you...."  In John 14:6, He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me."  And in Matthew 7:21, He said, "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven."

I get the idea from these teachings and many more that Jesus was serious about this.  It wasn't "Do what you want to do", but rather "Do what I say!"  He didn't stress tolerance in matters of morality.  And we should not be so quick to accept every thing that comes our way, that comes into our society.  There still is right and wrong.....and there is plenty wrong in our society today, in our movies, our tv, our language, our behavior.  Let's stand up for right.  Jesus certainly did.

Thanks for reading.  Have a great week!

Jesus in Capernaum

In looking closely at the New Testament teaching about Jesus, specifically in the gospels, the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, we see that the town of Capernaum played a key role in the life of Jesus.  We know that Jesus grew up in Nazareth, a town in Galilee.  But when He began His ministry He moved over to Capernaum and made this His new home base, His new home town (Matthew 4).  And the reason for moving was the rejection of the people of Nazareth; they couldn't accept that this son of a carpenter could be the Son of God. 

We read more about Capernaum in a number of places in the NT.  But I like the events that we find in Mark 1 and 2.  In chapter 1 we read that Jesus went into the home of  Peter and Andrew and healed their mother of a bad fever.  She was apparently quite sick, but immediately recovered and proceeded to serve the others.  He also healed others at this time and drove evil spirits out of some.  We read that the crowds were so great that He had to get out of town, move around some.  But in Mark 2, He returns home to Capernaum and is teaching a large crowd of people who have gathered.  This is where four men carrying a paraplegic cannot get to Him, go up on the roof and cut a hole, lowering the crippled man down to Jesus. 

This is an amazing miracle considering how much trouble these men went to in order to get this man to Jesus, the Healer.  Jesus, upon seeing how this was accomplished, remarked that He was impressed with their faith and proceeded to say first that the man's sins were forgiven.  Some in the crowd challenged Jesus about His forgiving sins, so He then healed the man.

We aren't told who repaired the roof.  Oh, but I know a good carpenter!  Jesus would be the perfect one for that.  But, of course, the roof isn't the point.  We cannot help but be amazed at the miracles that our Lord performed....and at the compassion that He exhibited. 

All of this builds our faith, reminding us that Jesus is Lord.  And just as He took care of this crippled man, He will take care of us, too. 

Thanks for reading.  Have a great week!