Just prior to Jesus’ crucifixion he told his disciples, “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:19). Now while we Christians should not worry about the fact that the world may hate us, we should make sure it is not for all the wrong reasons.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that Christians can often be one-sided when it comes to controversial issues. We are not necessarily any better than others when it comes to ignoring important information when it may seem to weaken the arguments for our own conclusions.
There is a very popular passage in the Gospel of Matthew about judging others. It’s one of those passages that is so well known that even non-Christians will sometimes quote it. The passage is Matthew 7:1-5.
When you look back through history, particularly in America, you tend to see a correlation between faith and tragedy. Almost every time there is a major catastrophe, people come running to God. It happened with Katrina. It happened on 9/11/01. It’s a recurring theme that we continue to see. When difficulties arise, we look to God for help, for deliverance, for strength and peace.
Let’s face it – it’s hard to live and act like a Christian all the time. Personally, I’m at my worst when I am driving. I came across these neat test you can take to see how often you react in a “un-Christianly” manner over at Stuff Christians Like. Take this quiz to find out how ‘Not Very Christian’ you might really be in certain scenarios.
We have finally arrived at the last part of this particular series. We’ve talked about how to love God with all our hearts. We’ve talked bout loving Him with all our soul. Last week, we went over how to love Him with our minds. Today, we get to what is perhaps the most challenging one for me to describe.
Man, this holiday week has really thrown me off. Here it is, Thursday, and I’m just finally getting going on writing this next part of what originally was supposed to be a single-shot post. Though, when one takes into consideration my propensity for being verbose, this should not be a surprise.
Last week, I began to break down these concepts from Luke 10:27 and I got as far as talking about what it would me (to me, anyway) to love the Lord our God with all your heart. But that was only one of four ways Jesus told us we should love Him. So, let’s continue where we left off and see if we can wrap this up.
For about seven months now, I’ve been working on my own blog in addition to writing for the Jesus Site. The title of my blog is “Heart, Soul, Mind & Strength.” This blog is focused on what Christ referred to as “the greatest commandment” in response to a question from the Pharisees. This reference can be found at Luke 10:27.
Recently, I was listening to some teaching by Chuck Smith on the work of the Holy Spirit. The teaching was excellent with lots of great stuff. But I wanted to specifically focus on something he pointed out within the first few moments of the audio.
