Tag: Loving one another

Love Flows Out

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Yesterday morning in our journey through 1 John we finally got to the point of defining love.  What is love and what are the five implications for getting it right in our lives that John outlines?  Keep reading to find out.

 

Love Flows Out

Near the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus looked at the crowd gathered around Him and said this: “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.  And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.  And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.  And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: 2 Corinthians 6:3-10

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“We put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: by great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, the Holy Spirit, genuine love; by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; through honor and dishonor, through slander and praise.  We are treated as imposters, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

When it comes to sharing the Gospel with the world around us, our goal should be to make certain that the only offensive thing about us is our message, the Gospel itself.  Everything else about us should be a gigantic yes to the world.  Or, as Paul puts it here, we commend ourselves in every way. Read the rest…

Morning Musings: 2 Corinthians 1:4

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“…who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Why does God comfort us?  Why does He extend any grace to us?  Well, the first answer is that He does it because He is gracious.  It is in His nature to do this for us.  The fuller answer and the one to which Paul is pointing here is that He does it so that we can pass along the blessing to other people.

God always acts in the best interest of the other.  His love always moves outward to find an object.  When that love is poured out on us regardless of the form it happens to take, it is intended not to stay with us, but to be poured out on still others.   Read the rest…

A Call to Action

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As we continue in our series, A Word on Reality, this past Sunday morning we looked at John’s call to make loving one another something that goes beyond being merely a slogan we claim, to an essential part of our identity in Christ.  Read on for more…

A Call to Action

Have you ever seen or worn a t-shirt with a slogan on it?  I suspect you have.  I had one in high school that my folks recently dug up in one of their closets and mailed to me that read: “The football team will be performing before and after tonight’s featured performance of the marching band halftime show.”  It featured a picture of a trombone slide piercing a football.  Now, if you’re a football fan or player you may be rolling your eyes, but I’m comfortable admitting that I was a huge band nerd in high school.  Also, our football team was awful.  And with over 200 kids in the marching band, for most home games our parents easily made up the biggest percentage of the crowd.  So yes, the crowd really was mostly coming to the game just to see the band.  Read the rest…

Digging in Deeper: 1 Corinthians 8:9

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“But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

When it came to the issue of eating or not eating meat that had been offered as a sacrifice to an idol, Paul’s position was that because idols were nothing, eating the meat was not in any way morally problematic in and of itself.  In other words, the act was not sinful.

But…for some folks in the church, the idea of eating such meat was really problematic for them and for their conscience.  Some Gentile background folks who had grown up as pagans and who were really into idolatry before following Jesus could not eat the meat without being tempted back into their old life.  Similarly, many of the Jewish background believers couldn’t eat it without feeling like they were sinning against God by participating even indirectly in an act of idolatry.   Read the rest…