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| Love, Child -- Goose Bumps Are Not Enough! |
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3:11 For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, Love, child of God! Love!
So simple. Love one another.
He didn't say for us to talk about love and explain the three Greek words translated love in the New Testament. He didn't say for us to sing about love. We are not told to listen to sermons about love. We are not even told to tell people that we love them.
The message is "love one another." Love is a verb.
What good are mere words about love. Oh, sure, they may give us goose bumps. Big deal. Even geese get those. As humans God expects more from us. His messages to us is to start showing love.
Love is not a feeling. How can you feel all lovey toward your enemies? Can't do it. Those enemies are too mean to provoke loving from us. They provoke other stuff. We want to get even. Yeah! But God says, "Hey, I love those folks and I've told you to love them."
What? But I feel like taking them and . . .
It doesn't matter. His way or the highway? We can either show our enemies love or be a hypocrite.
Christianity is tough -- so very tough. It takes so much guts to follow Jesus and love. That's why real men love Jesus. Anybody can live for the flesh. But it talkes a real man or woman to have the courage to get up close to God and obey Him on the tough and narrow road.
Love one another. Love now. Think of someone you don't like and go show her/her some love. Call her and say a prayer to encourage her. Send him a check. Go mow her yard. Take him a pie.
Don't just read the message. Do it!
(How tough is Christianity? Check this out: http://www.examiner.com/x-19568-Nashville-Evangelical-Examiner~y2009m8d17-Is-Christianity-categorical-or-cataclysmic) |
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| To add a comment to "Love, Child -- Goose Bumps Are Not Enough!" |
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| August 25, 2009 |
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LOL...I love your blogs Steve they are soooo on point (smile)....Love indeed is an action word...Well I'm not sure about my enemies bringing me pies and stuff...they might sprinkle something in it to do me some bodily harm...LOL...LOL or pray fire and brimstone on me...LOL....But seriously though....Good blog....Love *is* an action word, and we should put our money where our mouth is ;o) |
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| August 25, 2009 |
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GOD BLESS YOU STEVE, ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS, HOWEVER BELIEVE THESE WORDS WHE I SAY "I LOVE YOU", STU |
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| August 25, 2009 |
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| [star!] |
Gee whiz, Steve. A message like this should have about a thousand comments and stars. You must be right, Christianity is tough. |
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| August 25, 2009 |
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Oh but we CAN feel love towards them, but only through the power of the Holy Ghost in us. Been there. I kept praying fervently to love someone i couldn't stand and was shocked when 2 weeks later, I felt love for him deep within and he must have sensed it b/c he stopped treating me like a piece of meat and started being more respectful. That was God, not me. I couldn't love that obnoxious man who looked at women like slabs of meat. As per everything else, amen! Love's an action word! |
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| August 25, 2009 |
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Amen, MarJay. Let's act out some of God's love. |
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| August 25, 2009 |
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| Very poetic, Minister of Poetry. Thanks. |
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| August 25, 2009 |
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| 1,000 stars. Wow. But this has been posted all day and I've only had 20 readers. Mike, something seems to have happened that my posts aren't being seen. Or maybe I spoken out so strongly I've run everybody away. |
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| August 25, 2009 |
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| Lara: Good point. If we act in love long enough, we will begin to feel it, even for a bad dude who is mistreating us, aka an enemy. |
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| August 25, 2009 |
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| [star!] |
Good word Steve.. love must be shown and Christianity is definitely not for wimps. |
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| August 25, 2009 |
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| I didn't act in love! In fact I couldn't even look at the guy, I was so discusted with him! lol God done it! If we pray fervently for Him to enable us to love the unloveable He shall surely do it. Ain't that great? |
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| August 25, 2009 |
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| Brother Steve, I like what Paul said, without love, I'm a tinkling brass or a sounding cymbel. Not much.... |
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| August 25, 2009 |
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| Amen, CraftsReen. |
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| August 26, 2009 |
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| As I've often said, Christianity is not a fashion parade, its get there if you can. And as for your "What? I feel like taking them and..." I'll complete the sentence, and...throttling them round the neck! |
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| August 26, 2009 |
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| Food for thought. Nehemiah 13:20-21 [NIV]. In the context of "love", was that man a Christian when he said that? Think about why he was there in the first place, then think about Christianity being a tough walk - as they are some things people have to do to protect it. By the way. I'm not advocating violence, but its an example what they did, that we (generally speaking) have taken for granted. |
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| August 26, 2009 |
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Corrie Ten Boom said if you pray for your enemy you can't dislike them because in no time at all the love just takes over...so I really made that my choice when I wasn't feeling it. She got tested on loving the unlovely many times over. I look back and I have too. Great message brother, outstanding |
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| August 26, 2009 |
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| Good points, Stevie. |
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| August 26, 2009 |
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| higherground: I love Corrie Ten Boom. I got to hear her speak several times. Her books are awesome. And so is the movie The Hiding Place. |
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| August 26, 2009 |
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| [star!] |
------------------------- JUST DO IT ------------------------- |
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| August 26, 2009 |
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| Thanks, Sis. |
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| August 26, 2009 |
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| Thanks Pastoral Ministry. |
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| August 26, 2009 |
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| THE DEATH OF SELF That is Godly love – that was the love Jesus demonstrated. Italics Mine ARP I cannot express to you how deeply I sympathise with you in your time of suffering. I suffer right along with you, but still it cheers me up to know that God loves you. And the very proof that God loves you is that He does not spare you, but lays upon you the cross of Jesus Christ, his Son. Whatever spiritual knowledge or feelings we may have, they are all a delusion if they do not lead us to the real and constant practice of dying to self. And it is true that we do not die without suffering. Nor is it possible to be considered truly dead while there is any part of us which is yet alive. This spiritual death (which is really a blessing in disguise) is undeniably painful. It cuts “swift and deep” into our innermost thoughts and desires with all their parts, exposing us for what we really are.” The great Physician who sees in us what we cannot see, knows exactly where to place the knife. He cuts away that which we are most reluctant to give up. And how it hurts! But we must remember that pain is only felt where there is life, and where there is life is just the place where death is needed. Our Father wastes no time by cutting into parts which are already dead. Do not misunderstand me; He wants you to live abundantly, but this can only be accomplished by allowing Him to cut into that fleshy part of you which is still stubbornly clinging to life. Don’t expect God to deal with those vulgar, wicked desires that you renounced forever when you gave yourself away to Him. That part of you is already dead. But He will deal with the parts of you that are still alive. He might even test your faith with restrictions and trials of all kinds. Should you resist? Certainly not! You must learn to suffer all things! The death of self must be voluntary, and can only be accomplished as far as you allow. Anyone who resists death and repels its advances shows that he is not willing to die. You must be willing to yield to the will of God whenever He decides to remove from you all of the props on which you have leaned. Sometimes you must give up even your most spiritual friends, if they are props. “What fearest thou, oh thou of little faith?” Do you fear that He may not be able to supply to you from Himself that help which He may have taken away on the human level? And why does He take human help away, except to supply you from Himself, and to purify you, by the painful lesson? I know how confined you are, but I am convinced that God means to accomplish his work in you by cutting away every human resource. He is a jealous God, and He wants you to understand that what He is about to perform in you has been done by HIMSELF alone, and by no other. So give yourself up to His plans. Allow yourself to be led wherever HE wants to lead you. And be careful not to seek help from your friends if God is forbidding it. Your friends can only give you what He gives them for you. Why be so concerned about the dried-up streams when the rivers of living water are so available? Source Let Go/Letter 4 By Fenelon Banner Publishing 1973 ISBN 0-88368-010-6 Original author Francois de Salignac de La Mothe Fenelon, the Archbishop of Cambrai, France, during the seventeenth century. |
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