WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOU LOVE YOURSELF?
Greetings in the name of Jesus our Lord and Savior:
It is becoming harder all of the time for me to find real love within the Church because of the tendency to play games between people of faith. As I look around I am finding it harder to find a genuine desire for the Christian to want to connect with others of like precious faith because we are very rapidly losing a common ground to maintain a like precious faith.
There is only one way I can think of to restore our balance as followers of Christ, and that is to follow the teachings of Christ down to the very word by word detail. The message that God had sent through the life and ministry of Jesus was very straightforward; it said to believe in God with our whole heart and to trust Jesus as our Savior and as God's Son. He then asked us to love one another as He has loved us. Right from the start, we have not had a problem with saying that we love God, but we have certainly had a problem with loving one another.
I have found that anything that causes us to commit past the point of saying that we love is becoming a big problem within the church. We have tried to address this issue by developing smaller groups within the church, but many times they are seen as clicks who are on the outside of those groups. Many times it only aids in the frustration and feelings that it is an "us against them " small group war that further divides the church. What really needs to happen is for us to concentrate on getting back to the basics of our faith in Christ by acting like a family instead of a church organization. The simple truth is that we have been put here on this earth to grow Christians and to give them a safe place to grow in the truth of the Gospel. That means that first of all, we must all be on the same page with what we study and what we believe as a church body. Much like the Corinthian Church, we need to get rid of all of the unsound teachings and teachers who we have been listening to and come back to a place where we all are saying the same things instead of getting drawn off by the teachings and ideas of someone else instead of Christ Jesus.
The ideas that are thrown out there are very confusing in particular if we have a bunch of different doctrines to wade through so I suggest that we approach things by first laying aside any doctrine that does not come directly from the teachings of Christ. The reason I say that is because they are what is dividing us from one another. As I say that I already know that each one who is a part of a particular denominational group will say " We are already preaching Christ", and you may be; but what else are you preaching to go along with your teachings of Christ that is not allowing your people to love all who worship Christ as a family? Is there a part of what you teach or preach that has a particular flavor to it that separates you from other Christians in your community? Are we all teaching Christ and Him crucified or are we teaching Christ and our denominational doctrines? Which one of these things do you personally think are causing division in God's family? I will wait while those of you who are mature enough in Christ can answer that...................................For the rest of us we need to go back to the foundations of our faith and start to rebuild because what we have right now will be burnt up before our eyes when they are tested against God's truth. I want so badly for each one of us to be able to see the truth in what I am saying in God's Spirit today. We can never treat one another with the kind of personal love He is requesting of us until we can recognize who is in the family or even accept one another as family in Christ. You see friends we are supposed to be the ones to show this world what Christ meant by becoming one with Him. We all know how to love self, but how do we relate that to loving someone else who needs that kind of love desperately? That is one of the things I want to talk with you about this week. May you richly bless God through your life in Him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
It is becoming harder all of the time for me to find real love within the Church because of the tendency to play games between people of faith. As I look around I am finding it harder to find a genuine desire for the Christian to want to connect with others of like precious faith because we are very rapidly losing a common ground to maintain a like precious faith.
There is only one way I can think of to restore our balance as followers of Christ, and that is to follow the teachings of Christ down to the very word by word detail. The message that God had sent through the life and ministry of Jesus was very straightforward; it said to believe in God with our whole heart and to trust Jesus as our Savior and as God's Son. He then asked us to love one another as He has loved us. Right from the start, we have not had a problem with saying that we love God, but we have certainly had a problem with loving one another.
I have found that anything that causes us to commit past the point of saying that we love is becoming a big problem within the church. We have tried to address this issue by developing smaller groups within the church, but many times they are seen as clicks who are on the outside of those groups. Many times it only aids in the frustration and feelings that it is an "us against them " small group war that further divides the church. What really needs to happen is for us to concentrate on getting back to the basics of our faith in Christ by acting like a family instead of a church organization. The simple truth is that we have been put here on this earth to grow Christians and to give them a safe place to grow in the truth of the Gospel. That means that first of all, we must all be on the same page with what we study and what we believe as a church body. Much like the Corinthian Church, we need to get rid of all of the unsound teachings and teachers who we have been listening to and come back to a place where we all are saying the same things instead of getting drawn off by the teachings and ideas of someone else instead of Christ Jesus.
The ideas that are thrown out there are very confusing in particular if we have a bunch of different doctrines to wade through so I suggest that we approach things by first laying aside any doctrine that does not come directly from the teachings of Christ. The reason I say that is because they are what is dividing us from one another. As I say that I already know that each one who is a part of a particular denominational group will say " We are already preaching Christ", and you may be; but what else are you preaching to go along with your teachings of Christ that is not allowing your people to love all who worship Christ as a family? Is there a part of what you teach or preach that has a particular flavor to it that separates you from other Christians in your community? Are we all teaching Christ and Him crucified or are we teaching Christ and our denominational doctrines? Which one of these things do you personally think are causing division in God's family? I will wait while those of you who are mature enough in Christ can answer that...................................For the rest of us we need to go back to the foundations of our faith and start to rebuild because what we have right now will be burnt up before our eyes when they are tested against God's truth. I want so badly for each one of us to be able to see the truth in what I am saying in God's Spirit today. We can never treat one another with the kind of personal love He is requesting of us until we can recognize who is in the family or even accept one another as family in Christ. You see friends we are supposed to be the ones to show this world what Christ meant by becoming one with Him. We all know how to love self, but how do we relate that to loving someone else who needs that kind of love desperately? That is one of the things I want to talk with you about this week. May you richly bless God through your life in Him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
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