Post Pandemic Preaching - Love in A Loveless World
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, so also you must love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
-Jesus of Nazareth, 1st centuryJohn 13:34-35 in the Tree of Life Version
[This is the 16th lesson of this series]
Legacy of Love
Jesus didn't leave behind a religion. Jesus left a legacy. It is His love. It is the same selfless love He left His disciples. And this love is the evidence that they were His followers.
This is how they are different than everyone else, from those who do not believe in God and from those who do, particularly distinguishing them from those whose relationship with God is all based on head knowledge, on showmanship, on rituals and traditions, from legalists and the religious.
The main issue we see with Christ followers today is that as long as they identify or worse lift up their pastor, minister, church leader, their congregation, their church name, their denomination, their church founder, or other people over Christ then they aren't Christians.
Christ said there is One God, One faith, One baptism. There is one Holy Spirit, and that all will know that those who believe in Christ are His followers is by their love (not their arrogance or eloquence or charisma or riches or anything else).
Disunity & Hate
If Christians continue to divide the Church, the Body of Christ, sow seeds of disunity and strife, have an attitude of we know more than you, our beliefs are better than yours, and we constantly look at other's faults and trying to correct them rather than looking at ourselves and focusing on how we can be more like Christ each new day, then I am not even sure if we want to call ourselves followers of Christ.
Love, if we cannot love other Christians how can we even love non-Christians? How can we even love those who want to slit our throats, hang us or crucify us for what we believe in? Although we do the same with (or abhor) Christians belonging to other churches and denominations -- that cliquey mentality.
If we must correct, then we must do so with love.
Legacy of Love
Jesus didn't leave behind a religion. Jesus left a legacy. It is His love. It is the same selfless love He left His disciples. And this love is the evidence that they were His followers.
This is how they are different than everyone else, from those who do not believe in God and from those who do, particularly distinguishing them from those whose relationship with God is all based on head knowledge, on showmanship, on rituals and traditions, from legalists and the religious.
The main issue we see with Christ followers today is that as long as they identify or worse lift up their pastor, minister, church leader, their congregation, their church name, their denomination, their church founder, or other people over Christ then they aren't Christians.
Christ said there is One God, One faith, One baptism. There is one Holy Spirit, and that all will know that those who believe in Christ are His followers is by their love (not their arrogance or eloquence or charisma or riches or anything else).
Disunity & Hate
If Christians continue to divide the Church, the Body of Christ, sow seeds of disunity and strife, have an attitude of we know more than you, our beliefs are better than yours, and we constantly look at other's faults and trying to correct them rather than looking at ourselves and focusing on how we can be more like Christ each new day, then I am not even sure if we want to call ourselves followers of Christ.
Love, if we cannot love other Christians how can we even love non-Christians? How can we even love those who want to slit our throats, hang us or crucify us for what we believe in? Although we do the same with (or abhor) Christians belonging to other churches and denominations -- that cliquey mentality.
If we must correct, then we must do so with love.
Image Credit:dailyverses.net
Everything Christians do and say reflects the love of Christ. How? Through the power of His Spirit. Not our own strength or power or skill. It will not be any better than those of the religious leaders that Christ had to deal with during His time. Sometimes we do not even realize it but we are those religious leaders.
Let us be the love in this loveless world and be the evidence of Christ.
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