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Love

Webster’s Dictionary defines “LOVE” as: (1) strong affection or liking for someone or something (2) a passionate affection of one person for another (3) the object of such affection; a sweetheart or lover.

Ever since I was old enough to remember I have been taught about “Love”. As a Christian I was taught that God is love, and I heard and read all the scriptures that pertained to love such as “Love thy neighbor as thy self” Lev.19:18, Mark 12:31, “Love your enemies and pray for those who despitefully use you” Mat.5:44, and then there are the two greatest commandments of all “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matt 22: 37-40.

Well as I got older I always wondered about “Love”. If I truly believe that the Bible is the infallible word of God and there are NO mistakes in the word of God then why do there seem to be such a conflict in all of these scriptures to me. I could not understand how I was supposed to “Love” my enemies? How was I suppose to “Love” thy neighbor as thy self, I didn’t know these people how am I suppose to feel “Love” for them? To me there was something about these scriptures that just did not fit. I had always prayed about this and asked God to show me what He was really saying in these scriptures. One day He gave me the answer and that answer would clear up all of the questions that I have had for so long. My definition or conception of “LOVE” was the problem all along. You see “LOVE” is an action not an emotion! Let me say that again….”LOVE” is and action NOT an emotion! The emotion felt inside toward someone else is a by-product of a continuing action toward that other person and vice versa.

When you look at these scriptures now with the right definition of love it all becomes very clear as to what God is telling us. There are over 250 scriptures in the New Testament alone that speaks on love. Most of these are commandments. Commandments are actions, things that we as Christians are to be doing. Now that we have determined the true definition of love let’s look at some of these scriptures and compare what we have learned. “Love thy neighbor as thyself”. Well if you do not really know your neighbor, how can you feel any emotional ties to that person or how can you love them the way you love yourself emotionally? If in fact that love is an emotion? But if you believe that love is an action well it becomes easy to love your neighbor. You just act toward and treat them with the kindness and respect that you would give yourself. And that is how God is putting it to us in this scripture. He tells us exactly how to treat our neighbor in the latter part of this scripture.

Let’s take another one. “But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;”. If we look at the first line of this scripture we will find that it’s a commandment as well. It says to “love your enemies”. Then it tells us how to love our enemies by telling us what we should be doing by praying for them, blessing them and doing good to them. These are all actions not emotions.

You can even take the scripture John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”. When I look at this passage I see the action (love) that God has done for us. God so loved, when I look at this part and I look a little farther I see what action that God took, He “GAVE” His only Son. Now to me that is LOVE!

You know the word says that we as Christians should treat each other with love and bear one another’s burdens. How can we expect the world to look at us and want to become like us, if we can not even show LOVE to each other? We fight and bicker among ourselves and point fingers at each other and even condemn each other, when all the while we should be treating each other with kindness and humility and longsuffering. But not just to each other, we should be treating the world this way. This is the way you win souls for the Lord. There is an old saying that states “You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar”. How does this relate to love you may ask? Well I know that the world has enough trouble of it’s own with out taking on more trouble from the “church”, and if we really want to win the world over we better start acting with more love and kindness toward each other if we intend to win them over for Christ.

There are so many scriptures in the word of God about love that there is no way I can cover them all. I do know that Love conquers all and if we as Christians start to treat the rest of the world with “LOVE” that we could see a lot of people coming to know the Lord.

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JUDGE NOT LEST YE BE JUDGED!

John 3:16 & 17

Everyone is familiar with the bible verse of “John 3:16….."God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever shall believe in Him should not perish but have everlasting life”. Now I have seen a few different versions of this scripture written in different versions of the Bible, but I like the King James Version the best. Why do I like this version the best you may ask? Well I have seen it written in other versions that say “that who ever believes on Him might not perish but may have eternal life”! Well I believe “in” Him not “on” Him, and if I do believe in Jesus I know that I “am” saved not that I “might” be saved, and finally I know I “will” have eternal life not I “may” have eternal life. As a Christian I believe that God is a God of absolutes! meaning that God is a God of authority not a God of might’s, could be’s, possibly’s, should’ves and would’ves. LOL….I know that’s not proper English but you get the point. God said that “He is the great I am”, “He is the Alpha and Omega” and “He is the way the truth and the life”. That little word “is” to me represents possessive power and authority. Therefore the version that uses the words “in”, “am” and “will” represents possessive power and authority as well. The other versions use the words “on”, “might” and “may”. These words to me are not power possessive and do not speak authority and are just unsure of what is going to happen as a result of believing in God. If I believe that God is the one true God, with all power and all knowing I have to believe that He is capable of giving confidence to me in through His words and the assurance that he is GOD!

Now let us talk about the real reason I am writing about these passages of scripture John 3:17.... “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved”. The Christian people as a whole are, to be quite honest and blunt, are known for killing their young. What I mean by this is that when a new convert comes into the fold or another way of putting it is when a person gives their life to Christ and starts attending church, all of the other “seasoned Christians” the supposed leaders of the church start telling that new convert how they should act, dress, talk, look, who they should and should not associate with, where they should and should not go, who they can and cannot be friends with and then telling them that if they do not conform to this way of thinking and acting that they are wrong and are dying and going to Hell. This is plain and simple condemnation, judgment with sentencing. That is not what our jobs as Christians are suppose to be. If you believe in the word of God then you have to see that even Jesus did not come to judge us, therefore what gives any man or woman the right to judge with condemnation? This is why I like John 3:17 so much and also John 8:15. According to the scripture there are two types of judgment: one is a righteous judgment, which means to judge a tree by the fruit it bares, the other is a judgment with condemnation. Judgment with condemnation simply put means that you are passing down a sentence on a person! I believe that Jesus came to set us free, not to weigh us down and burden us with more rules and laws. Our job as Christians is as follows: To be the light of the world: Matthew 5:14-16. To fulfill the great commission: Go ye into the world and spread the good news. Matthew 28:18-20, Mark 16:15, Luke 24:46-47.

All my life I have seen Christians condemning other people for what they wear, their hair style, the places they may go, the friends that they may have and the standard by the way they live their life. I believe it is a Christian’s job to be a fish catcher not a fish cleaner. Jesus said “follow Me and I will make you fishers of men” this never said anything about cleaning the fish! That is God’s job to clean them. I know that there are things in the word that God has very plainly said “to do” and there are things in the word that God has plainly said “do not do” but there are other areas where God has said to us as individuals to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. The things that God has convicted you on, does not mean that it is wrong for everyone else. Let’s stop putting our conviction on others and worry about making our own selves better Christians. If we spend our time looking at our own faults and correcting them we would not have any time to find fault in others. Let us always remember the scripture Mathew 7:1-5.... “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye”. This subject of judging leads me into so many areas of the word of God and how we are to live our lives as Christians. We as Christians can not continue to condemn people and expect to win them to Christ. Isn’t it enough that we share the gospel with them and encourage them and reveal God to them through our own lives? If we do not start to show “love” to the world without condemning them we will lose the fight against winning souls for Christ.

In Christ's Service

Scott Callihan

Scott's Stew

An Inspirational Recipe For Life

Love

Ever since I was old enough to remember I have been taught about “Love”. As a Christian I was taught that God is love, and I heard and read all the scriptures that pertained to love such as “Love thy neighbor as thy self” Lev.19:18, Mark 12:31, “Love your enemies and pray for those who despitefully use you” Mat.5:44, and then there are the two greatest commandments of all “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matt 22: 37-40.

Well as I got older I always wondered about “Love”. If I truly believe that the Bible is the infallible word of God and there are NO mistakes in the word of God then why do there seem to be such a conflict in all of these scriptures to me. I could not understand how I was supposed to “Love” my enemies? How was I suppose to “Love” thy neighbor as thy self, I didn’t know these people how am I suppose to feel “Love” for them? To me there was something about these scriptures that just did not fit. I had always prayed about this and asked God to show me what He was really saying in these scriptures. One day He gave me the answer and that answer would clear up all of the questions that I have had for so long. My definition or conception of “LOVE” was the problem all along. You see “LOVE” is an action not an emotion! Let me say that again….”LOVE” is and action NOT an emotion! The emotion felt inside toward someone else is a by-product of a continuing action toward that other person and vice versa.

When you look at these scriptures now with the right definition of love it all becomes very clear as to what God is telling us. There are over 250 scriptures in the New Testament alone that speaks on love. Most of these are commandments. Commandments are actions, things that we as Christians are to be doing. Now that we have determined the true definition of love let’s look at some of these scriptures and compare what we have learned. “Love thy neighbor as thyself”. Well if you do not really know your neighbor, how can you feel any emotional ties to that person or how can you love them the way you love yourself emotionally? If in fact that love is an emotion? But if you believe that love is an action well it becomes easy to love your neighbor. You just act toward and treat them with the kindness and respect that you would give yourself. And that is how God is putting it to us in this scripture. He tells us exactly how to treat our neighbor in the latter part of this scripture.

Let’s take another one. “But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;”. If we look at the first line of this scripture we will find that it’s a commandment as well. It says to “love your enemies”. Then it tells us how to love our enemies by telling us what we should be doing by praying for them, blessing them and doing good to them. These are all actions not emotions.

You can even take the scripture John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”. When I look at this passage I see the action (love) that God has done for us. God so loved, when I look at this part and I look a little farther I see what action that God took, He “GAVE” His only Son. Now to me that is LOVE!

You know the word says that we as Christians should treat each other with love and bear one another’s burdens. How can we expect the world to look at us and want to become like us, if we can not even show LOVE to each other? We fight and bicker among ourselves and point fingers at each other and even condemn each other, when all the while we should be treating each other with kindness and humility and longsuffering. But not just to each other, we should be treating the world this way. This is the way you win souls for the Lord. There is an old saying that states “You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar”. How does this relate to love you may ask? Well I know that the world has enough trouble of it’s own with out taking on more trouble from the “church”, and if we really want to win the world over we better start acting with more love and kindness toward each other if we intend to win them over for Christ.

There are so many scriptures in the word of God about love that there is no way I can cover them all. I do know that Love conquers all and if we as Christians start to treat the rest of the world with “LOVE” that we could see a lot of people coming to know the Lord.

In Christ's Service

Scott Callihan