Brothers and Sisters,
Love is the Law. Further, this truth is written in all of our hearts to be found by all who seek the truth with integrity and diligence.
Let me first address my brothers and Sisters who are Christian and embrace the Bible as the divinely inspired word of God:
The Bible says many things that are difficult, but much of its message is clear and easy to understand. And the Bible makes the importance and priority of Love so clear that to call ones self a Christian and to call the Bible Truth, requires one to put Love before
God, when he was Jesus, said:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.
Love is patient, love is kind {and} is not jealous; love does not brag {and} is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong {suffered,} does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
I can add nothing to this. It is very clear. Any thing that I do that is contrary to these qualities is not Love.
Paul goes on to reiterate just where love fits in God’s list of priorities:
Love never fails; but if {there are gifts of} prophecy, they will be done away; if {there are} tongues, they will cease; if {there is} knowledge, it will be done away.
Love comes before any other message spoken in the name of God. Love comes before any other truth God gives us. Love comes before anything else we can possibly know.
So to my fellow Christians and believers in the Bible, I say “Look. The message of the Gospel is ‘Love’, not ‘Love but…’ Refuse to compromise when it comes to love.”
To my Brothers and Sisters who are not “Christians” and who do not embrace the Bible as the divinely inspired word of God, I have this to share:
What I say above is the true message of the Bible. It is the message anyone reading the whole Bible, believing it is true and seeking truth with integrity, will find. Any message, claiming to be “Christian”, that is contrary to or diminishes the Law of Love, is counterfeit, born of deceit or self-deceit.
By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.
While all “Christians” should be my brothers and sisters, my true brothers and sisters are Christ’s disciples. And I know these true brothers and sisters, not by what they say about who Jesus is, but by their love for one another.
Paul writes:
For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them
And:
[…] that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.
The Law of God is written on all of our hearts.
So to all my Brothers and Sisters, “Christian” and non-Christian alike, I say seek the truth with diligence and integrity and you will find love, and when you do, join with me as a fellow disciple of Christ and let us show the world the power of the Law; that is the power of Love.
3 comments:
Yup, that really does sum up the Gospels and the message of Christ.
Ever counted how many times the word love appears in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? I haven't myself, but if my impression from memory is correct, I am betting it's going to be a big tally.
Ironically I was reading this book about how religious language had been hijacked and distorted, held hostage by fundamentalist rhetoric, and I was thinking also about how if you had to boil the Gospel and the life and message of Jesus down to a single word, it would be LOVE.
So I was visualizing this like a an advertisement - just a big billboard or television spot that says LOVE, and it occurred to me that a good analogy of how this message is distorted is how in some commercials they have this fine print at the bottom of the screen. You know, where if you could freeze the image and get out a magnifying glass you might have a chance to read it. That's the way the message has been changed.
Instead of LOVE... it's LOVE*, where the asterisk directs you to the fine print "Not applicable in all faiths. Offer invalid for those with the wrong sexual orientation. Must comply with the rules and interpretations of...blah blah blah."
Well, anyway, nice to see people not afraid to challenge that kind of evangelism.
:^)
Thanks for writing this.
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