We Also Ought to Love One Another

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” (1 John 4:7-12 ESV)

So, what does that look like if we truly love one another with this love that is from God? Well, it isn’t lust, and it isn’t just feelings (emotions). How did God show his love for us? Jesus Christ (God the Son) gave himself up for us in death on a cross, putting our sins to death with him so that we can now, by God-persuaded and God-gifted faith in him, be delivered out of our lives of slavery to sin so that we can worship, serve, and obey our Lord with our lives in doing what he commands and what he has called us to do and be.

So, lying to people to make them feel good about themselves is not love. Telling lies is not kind, no matter how you dress it up. And ignoring deliberate and habitual sin in the lives of our fellow professers of faith in Jesus Christ, and/or giving approval to them and to their lifestyles, is not love, either. Diluting and altering the gospel message to make it more acceptable and less offensive to the flesh and to the ungodly is also not love. For love tells the truth that people need to hear so that they can be saved.

And salvation from sin is not forgiveness of sins so that we can go to heaven when we die, but regardless of how we live. Jesus died to deliver us out of our bondage (addiction) to sin so that we will now walk with him in purity of devotion to him, living holy lives, pleasing to him. He died to transform us and to make us more like him in character and in thinking and actions. But if we reject his salvation by continuing in deliberate and habitual sin, we will not have salvation from sin and eternal life with God (Romans 6:1-23).

So, is love doing good to each other? YES! But the good that God has planned for our lives, not what we who are flesh might call good and that gratifies our fleshly cravings. So doing good to others is not pacifying them nor joining in with them in their sinful practices. For love prefers what God prefers, which is all that is holy, righteous, godly, morally pure, upright, honest, faithful, and obedient to our Lord. So in loving others we will not sin against them but we will love them as God loves us, in the same ways.

But we will do for them what is for their good. And so we will be sharing with them the true message of the gospel as taught by Jesus and by his NT apostles. And Jesus said that if anyone would come after him, he must deny self, take up his cross daily (die daily to sin) and follow (obey) him. For if we hold on to our lives of living in sin and for self, we will lose our lives for eternity. But if for the sake of Jesus we deny self, die daily to sin, and follow him in obedience, then we have eternal life with him (Luke 9:23-26).

[Matt 7:21-23; Lu 9:23-26; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; Rom 12:1-2; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Co 10:1-22; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Gal 5:16-24; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:1-17; Titus 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6,15-17; 1 Jn 3:4-10; 1 Pet 2:24; Heb 3:1-19; Heb 4:1-13; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2]

People Need the Lord

By Greg Nelson / Phill Mchugh

Everyday they pass me by

I can see it in their eyes

Empty people filled with care

Headed who knows where

On they go through private pain

Living fear to fear

Laughter hides their silent cries

Only Jesus hears

We are called to take His light

To a world where wrong seems right

What could be too great a cost

For sharing life with one who's lost?

Through His love our hearts can feel

All the grief they bear

They must hear the words of life

Only we can share

People need the Lord, people need the Lord

At the end of broken dreams, He's the open door

People need the Lord, people need the Lord

When will we realize that we must give our lives?

For people need the Lord, people need the Lord

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uZcGaixMhg

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