Questions:
If God makes no mistakes, what does it speak to the world when we treat a person as if they are not good enough? Does that say that this person that God created is a mistake?
If God makes no mistakes, what does it speak to the world when we treat a person as if they are not good enough? Does that say that this person that God created is a mistake?
If I can’t love the person that I can see, how can I love God that I can not see? Even as Christians, we sometimes try to convince ourselves and others that we are in a right relationship with God (our daddy) all the while we can’t or won’t be LOVE to someone. How is it that we can have the life changing experience of salvation and not love others, even the others that take a little more effort to love? I think that the next question must be, do we understand what it means to experience the redeeming power and love of God’s forgiveness and receive the free gift of salvation?
1 John 4:17-21 The Message
17-18. God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we're free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ's. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.
19. We, though, are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first.
20-21. If anyone boasts, "I love God," and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won't love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can't see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You've got to love both.
Gather, Grow, & Go
Pastor Tim