Love Others
JOHN 15 : JESUS THE TRUE VINE
1I am the true vine, and my Father is the farmer. 2Every branch in me that bears not fruit he takes away:
and every branch that bears fruit, he purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit. 3Now you are clean through the word which I have spoken to you. 4Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can you, except you abide in me. 5I am the vine, you are the branches: He that stays in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit: for without me you can do nothing. 6If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. 7If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done to you. 8Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; so shall you be my disciples. 9As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you: continue you in my love. 10If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. 11These things have I spoken to you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. 12This is my commandment, That you love one another, as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 14You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you
Love that calls wrong right and right wrong is not love. Real love corrects and forgives.
There are an awful lot of things that we call love that don’t really rise to the level of what love is and what love does. Being willing to tolerate things that are wrong in the eyes of God may create a comfortable surface peace, but it isn’t what love does. Being willing to live inside of a circle of evil and not make waves may cause people to like me, but it isn’t love. Saying, “It’s okay, don’t worry about it, ” to a person who did something wrong is not really loving. Maintaining peace at any cost isn’t love. Remaining silent when I should speak up isn’t love. Being unwilling to step into tense moments with you because there is wrong between us that needs to be exposed and discussed isn’t love. Asking you to tolerate whatever I do or say because you say you love me is a fundamental misunderstanding of what love is and what love does. Much of what we think love is simply isn’t love after all.
Real, biblical, self-sacrificing, God-honoring love never compromises what God says is right and true. Truth and love are inextricably bound together. Love that compromises truth simply isn’t love. Truth without love ceases to be truth because it gets bent and twisted by other human agendas. If love wants and works for what is best for you, then love is committed to being part of what God says is best in your life. So, I am committed to being God’s tool for what he says is best in your life, even if that means we have to go through tense and difficult moments to get there. I thing often we opt for silence, willingly avoiding issues and letting wrong things go on unchecked, not because we love the other person, but because we love ourselves and just don’t want to go through the hassle of dealing with something that God says is clearly wrong. We are unwilling to make the hard personal sacrifices that are the call of real love. Now, I’m not talking about being self-righteous, judgemental , critical, and condemning. No, I’m talking about choosing not to ignore wrong, but dealing with wrong the same grace that you have been given by God. Grace never calls wrong right. If wrong were right, grace wouldn’t be necessary. If sing weren’t evil and wrong, Jesus would never have had to come.
The cross of Jesus Christ is the only model you need of what love does in the face of wrong. Love doesn’t call wrong right. Love doesn’t ignore wrong and hope it goes away. love doesn’t turn its back on you because you are wrong. Love doesn’t mock you. Love doesn’t mean I turn the talbes and work to make you hurt in the same way you have hurt me. Love doesn’t go passive and stay silent in the face of wrong. Love moves toward you because you are wrong and need to be rescued from you. In moving toward you, love is willing to make sacrifices and endure hardships so that you may be made right again and be reconciled to God and others. God graces us with this kind of love so that we may be tools of this love in the lives of others.
What LOVE is…
- PATIENT
- KIND
What love does…
- LOVE BEARS, BELIEVES, HOPES, & ENDURES ALL THINGS,
- LOVE NEVER FAILS
- LOVE REJOICES IN TRUTH
what LOVE IS NOT…
- PUFFED UP (Prideful);
- SELF-SEEKING;
What love does not do…
- BEHAVE ITSELF UNSEEMLY
- ENVY;
- PROVOKE;
- THINK EVIL
- REJOICE IN INIQUITY
This
is
not
Real Love
1 CORINTHIANS 13 : LOVE
1Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 2And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing.3And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profits me nothing.
4Love suffers long, and is kind;
love envies not;
love not itself, is not puffed up,
5Does not behave itself unseemly,
seeks not her own,
is not easily provoked,
thinks no evil;
6Rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;
7Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. 9For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.10But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. 11When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. 13And now stays faith, hope, love , these three; but the greatest of these is love .
GALATIANS 5 : FREEDOM IN CHRIST
13For, brothers, you have been called to liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. 14For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 15But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed one of another.
LIVING BY THE SPIRIT
24Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25Since we live by the Spirit, let us walk in step with the Spirit. 26Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying one another.
The serpent turned everything
UPSIDE DOWN
which is what a SNARE
does after taking the bait.
Loving and
following Christ
~has been INVERTED~
into getting people
to love and follow them…
Luke 21 : Be Watchful
35For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.
…which in this case will turn everything back right side up.
Isaiah 2 : The Day of Reckoning
11The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted in that day.
12For the day of the LORD of hosts shall be on every one that is proud and lofty, and on every one that is lifted up; and he shall be brought low:
MATTHEW 24 : SIGNS OF THE END
12And because iniquity shall abound,the love of many shall wax cold.
Social Media Platforms are just that,
platforms for people to boast
and express their opinion.
It leaves everyone in the wake of people’s feed feeling either inferior or envious.
It is provoking people to envy,
self seeking and vain glory
If your post doesn’t get enough likes your day is ruined and now you work to come up with something better to get more praise from your followers which leads to pride.
SOCIAL MEDIA (From an article on The Verge : LINK)
Sean Parker, of Napster fame and an early investor in Facebook, says the founders of the social networking site knew they were creating something people would become addicted to, reports Axios, “God only knows what it’s doing to our children’s brains,” he said at an Axiosevent in Philadelphia, noting that he has become a “conscientious objector” on social media, even though he still maintains a presence on Twitter and Facebook. (He is currently the founder and chair of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.) Parker says, the social networking site : exploits human psychological vulnerabilities through a validation feedback loop that gets people to constantly post to get even more likes and comments.
“It’s exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology,” “The inventors, creators — it’s me, it’s Mark [Zuckerberg], it’s Kevin Systrom on Instagram, it’s all of these people — understood this consciously. And we did it anyway.”
In other words, using Facebook is like junk food: you get instant gratification when you post for likes and comments.It’s quick and easy but has little substance.Parker says that the thought process when building Facebook was to figure out “how do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?”
Snapchat and Instagram filters are influencing how young people think about beauty. Alarmingly, more people are requesting plastic surgery to look better in selfies, according to the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.
And in one disturbing emerging phenomenon, dubbed “Snapchat dysmorphia,” some patients are getting plastic surgery to look more like their filtered selfies. According to Boston University researchers, digital filters are likely contributing to a rise in body dysmorphia, where people are overly anxious about their appearance
2ND TIMOTHY 3 : EVIL IN THE LAST DAYS
1This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.2For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,7Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
8Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. 9But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest to all men, as their’s also was.
Jannes and Jambres were the magicians that were matching Moses and Aaron when God told Moses to tell Pharoah “Let my people go so they can serve me”. : When God sent Moses and Aaron to tell Pharaoh to let his people go, the Magicians of Egypt could imitate the first 2 plagues through enchantments & magic. To be God’s Image Bearers, does not mean imitating His Creative Work, it means abiding in His Love, by obeying the Commandments.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
~Arthur C. Clarke
it’s all in the details”
~ Walt Disney
:
The closer
you look,
the less
you see.
It’s hard
to serve
God like this.
You cannot abide in Christ when you are covetous and envious of others or are provoking others to be jealous and envious of you, ie chasing after awards, notoriety
because God is Love
and love does not
envy or boast.
Philippians 2 : Being One in Christ
1If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, 2Fulfill you my joy, that you be like minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.
3Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.
4Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
THE ATTITUDE OF CHRIST (Isaiah 52:13-15)
5Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 6Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7But made himself of no reputation, and took on him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 8And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross.
James 3 : True Wisdom from Above
13Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. 14But if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. 15This wisdom descends not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. 16For where envying [g2205] and strife[g2052] is, there is confusion and every evil work.17But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. 18And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.
ENVY, JEALOUSY[g2205] ζῆλος zēlos
- (favorable sense) ardor;
- (unfavorable) jealousy, as of a husband;
- (figuratively, of God), or an enemy, malice:—
- emulation, envy(-ing), fervent mind, indignation, jealousy, zeal.
- An envious and contentious rivalry, jealousy
STRIFE[g2052] eritheía
- “self promotion”
- electioneering or intriguing for office;
- a desire to put one’s self forward,
- a partisan and fractious spirit which does not disdain low arts;
- to stir up, excite, stimulate, to provoke
Self promotion
creates ENVYand JEALOUSY
in others which leads to CONFUSION.
1 CORINTHIANS 1433For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace.
BABEL(I.E. BABYLON)[h894]בָּבֶל Bâbel
- “CONFUSION” (by way of mixing)