Love is the message

How could love be the message of the Bible? With all of the killings and the wars that are fought in its pages, how could the Bible be considered a book based upon love? We will see that very soon.

Love is the message which shines through every book in the Bible. Yet, some people can’t or won’t see it because of the words in the message. God loves each one of us and the people around us, regardless of their race or religion. Of course in the Old Testament, He told the Israelites to purge the Promised land of their enemies, why? Because God knew that if they were left in the land, soon they would become a stumbling block to Israel as a whole. The people would inter-marry with them and begin to worship their gods and their ways and pretty soon, Israel would be just like them. They would no longer be God’s chosen people because they had mixed with the “world” around them to the point that you couldn’t tell them apart.

The love that God has for everyone is the kind that we don’t understand, agape love or unconditional love. It is hard for us to understand it because for us, there has always been a give and take approach to affection and love. But, that is not how God’s love works.

The Church that began with the disciples after Jesus went to Heaven started out with the love of God in their hearts and toward all of the believers. Not only that, but that love is turned outward toward the world itself because we are to take it to the furthest reaches of the world so that others who haven’t heard of Jesus can come to know Him. That is the expression of God’s love. We do not seek riches or power for ourselves, just the continuation of Jesus’ work and His Grace to all who will receive it.

Your witness to them, no matter who they are or where they live, can be expressed through your life or your words or even something that you do for them. It doesn’t have to be done because of your love for them, but because Jesus loved them first and we should too. Many people seem to look at this as loving others like we love each other, but the love that we must spread abroad to others is from God and not ourselves.

Could I love someone who has killed my children or my wife? No, not with my own strength or my love but through Jesus and the love that He has given to me in my heart, yes I can love them through Him. I can also forgive them for what they have done to me or my family through Him as well. It does sound as if I am crazy and to some people I may be, talking of forgiving someone for killing my family. Only through Jesus could I do this, not on my own.

Can anyone feel or express God’s love if they don’t know Him? Feel it, yes, express it..not a chance. God can love and does love everyone. He does not condone the sinful life that they lead apart from Him, but if they repent and turn to Him when they feel His Spirit touch their heart then He will forgive them and take them into His family. It really is just that simple.

Jesus died to atone for ALL of humanity’s sins. The only thing that is left for each of us to do is to believe in Jesus and that sacrifice which happened on the cross for us. Humble yourself to ask Him to come into your heart and change you into the person that you can be, then your life will be forever changed and you will be a new person. The thief on the cross believed in Jesus enough to ask Him to remember him and was saved, that was all that was necessary. Belief, heartfelt and true as a child.

How can we make it better?

Many people today don’t seem to want to make anything better, have you noticed that? It seems that everyone wants things given to them but nobody wants to make life better and give back. What a waste. I know that the world in general is getting worse because that is all that you hear on the news and on radio and television these days, even though I would question the truthfulness of the reporting from both of those outlets sometimes.

Does anybody even care about each other any more? It seems that we are more worried about being politically correct and being non-offensive to everyone, except Christians of course. We also can’t bring ourselves to put any part of natural habitat in danger or even a fish or a bird, and yet people are being killed by the hundreds every day!

The thing is, people are trying to ban guns but the places where they are banned is usually where the most violence WITH guns is! Huh??

Giving back to your community is what we were commanded to do, yet when that is brought up people tend to laugh about it as if it is a joke. What has happened to our world and the society that we should be developing? It seems that we are more barbaric now than we were hundreds of years ago. We couldn’t do as much damage back then because our weapons were more limited than they are today, so maybe that is why it is so bad now.

In many ways, there really is no way for us to make this world a better place to live and work and go to school, because no matter how hard we try our efforts aren’t good enough. Why is that? Because we are living in the closing years of the age, that is why. Oh, yes there are people who don’t believe this because the Bible has been saying that we are living in the “end times” for hundreds of years. Why should today be any different or even ten years from now?

Because, if you really take a close look at the prophecies in God’s Word, you will notice that all of the players from Asia to the Middle East are coming into play just as God’s Word said that they would. It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe it or if you don’t want to believe it, it is happening. Like it or not, we are coming to the end of the road in a way that is going to get the attention of the world in a very immediate way, one which can’t be denied or explained with “natural phenomena” as its cause.

The only real way to make things better is to commit to give your life and your heart to Jesus because He is the Hope of the World! No person or “savior” or man can make this world any better, only Jesus can bring peace to your soul and to the world. There is nothing else which will fill that void in your life and no drug or amount of money can fill the empty feelings that you feel at the end of the day. Jesus is the One which is able to fill your empty life and make you whole for the first time and forever! Giving your life to Him is the only way to make your life feel the way that it was meant to feel.

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was in the beginning with God. ³All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. ⁴In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. ⁵And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend^[a] it. (John 1:1-5)

These words testify to the fact of Who Jesus really was and Who He is today. He did not die on that cross permanently, He rose again on the third day just as He told His disciples that He would. The world and those in it don’t want Christianity to be true, they never have, but God intends for the world to hear the message of Jesus whether the world wants to or not and it will.

Jesus is the answer for the world’s problems and for yours too. No, He may not fix things immediately, but He will be with you in the storm and through the storm and give you strength enough to get through it! Seek Him out, learn about Him from the Word of God, pray that He would show you the things that will help you to know the Truth and He will do that and so much more.

Differences…

There are so many divisions in our world today. Between people and countries and religions, and even those can be broken down into many categories which I really don’t want to address here. We divide our churches and our schools by popularity and wealth and we divide the towns and cities that we live in along those same lines as well. Then there are the racial and cultural divisions and a host of other problems which follow those lines. What is the reason for all of the divisive feelings and issues which crops up along all of these lines? Who or what started it?

The answer can be found in Genesis. Satan came along and divided the first couple from their idea of Who God is and what their portion should be in the world. Once that was done, it broke the relationship between Creator and creation and from that point on there has been a dividing line in every area of life on Earth. Why?

The reason for the divisions between religions and people and all of the other areas in life is specifically to keep us from unity. Unity of mind and purpose as well as between cultures, but especially keeping us from being united in our fellowship of believers and in worship of God. Think about all of the denominations which were created simply because one group in a church didn’t agree on the way to worship or how.

Divisions between cultures and individuals caused many problems for Jesus and His disciples as well as the problems which we see today. The message that He was teaching was not popular and today, He would be put out of the church because of the hard teaching which He said in His day. What happens when these things happen to your family, whether it is your family or the church family that you belong to?

The dividing lines are sometimes easy to see and sometimes they are invisible, until you see it happening in your life and in your church. Why do we allow these divisions to happen when we are supposed to be united in Christ? The reason? Because we are human and we don’t consider the One that we serve or should serve! Our lives are taken up in minutes and seconds every day and we let little things creep in and steal what little time that we have to give to each other and to God.

Today, I went to see a movie about an American hero, Chris Kyle, and I just finished reading his memoir too. He was an incredible human being, but most of all, he was genuine and totally committed to everything that he did. As his wife said in part of the book, “when he loved you, he jumped in with both feet”. That is how we are supposed to love each other and Jesus as well!

Think about it this way: God cares about us all and He jumped in with both arms and His feet when He went to the cross to redeem us! He didn’t consider it below Him to bring us into a true relationship with Him, that is just what Jesus did..He was all in when He loved us and showed it by going to the cross for us so that we could be redeemed by His blood.

There isn’t supposed to be any half-way Christians because being half-way doesn’t count. You either are or you’re not…you are either all in with both feet or you turn away and say “Let someone else do it, not me.”

Christians are not supposed to be trying to walk a thin line between being a sinner or a Christian and truthfully it can’t be done! It is simple…you either are or you’re not. Yes, I am repeating myself, but the point is important and it is so simple even a child can understand it. Consider your soul and your eternal home while you have time. Chris didn’t know that his time was up that day, and we don’t know when our time will be up either.