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Author
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Topic: "LOVE WITHOUT HYPOCRISY"
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Eden
unregistered
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posted
Hi, Carol Swenson, you said quote:
A love desire to please Christ is not something extra for the Christian. It is basic to Christian sanctity. It is not a dessert, but the main course—not a sideshow, but the main tent. It is not a motive to which we can resort to when convenient; it is a controlling force to which we have committed our lives.
The love to please Christ and to please the Father and to please our brothers and sisters in Christ is something that grows on us after we believed, provided that the believer begins to read or listen to the Word of God, then the love grows.
This love becomes a controlling force in our life if we have committed our lives to learning more about God and about His Son and about His Spirit through the Word of God. I agree that love in the family of God is both in the main tent and is the main tent.
God the Father and God the Son do not tolerate a lot of nonsense from His sons and daughters inside the gates of the family camp of God. But love for God and the love of God is a developed trait, but only if someone reads the Word regularly.
It seems to me that if someone who is newly bornagain does NOT read the Word of God regularly, such a love will NOT develop, because how can this love develops without knowledge of who God is and what God has done for us?
John 6:63
It is the spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing: the words that I speak to you, they are spirit, and they are life.
Even the Holy Spirit cannot do much for a believer if the believer does not read the Word of God to "activate the spirit".
The words of the Bible are spirit and when those spirit words enter a person through reading or hearing the spirit words, the Holy Spirit responds to those words because both are spirit.
Both are needed to activate love, eventhough at the new birth, God seems to give us a free first batch of "love of God":
Romans 5:5
And hope makes not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given to us.
But indeed, God is love, and love is the main characteristic in the main tent of God.
Carol Swenson continued quote:
We have abandoned everything else. In time, applause and pleas of the world have a hollow ring. We are marching to a different drumbeat. His smile is singularly our greatest delight! This is the lifestyle of love.
We must learn how to love by reading His Word and also by asking Him, "Lord, please baptize my heart (my mind and emotions) in love because I only have natural love."
But there is a price to pay for having divine love. It can generate envy and anger in disgruntled people.
Chapter)
Matthew 27:18
For he knew that for envy they had delivered him.
Acts 13:45
But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy, and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul ...
love, eden
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Carol Swenson
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Member # 6929
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posted
A love desire to please Christ is not something extra for the Christian. It is basic to Christian sanctity. It is not a dessert, but the main course—not a sideshow, but the main tent. It is not a motive to which we can resort to when convenient; it is a controlling force to which we have committed our lives. We have abandoned everything else. In time, applause and pleas of the world have a hollow ring. We are marching to a different drumbeat. His smile is singularly our greatest delight! This is the lifestyle of love.
Posts: 6787 | From: Colorado | Registered: Dec 2007
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Michael Harrison
Advanced Member
Member # 6801
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posted
Not to take away from their being in error, but do you know that Jesus even loves the New Ager's? Somehow "Christians" get the notion that HE despises them??? In that case, they have it more wrong than the New Agers!
"They will know they are Christians by their love." Hum! I know the Bible is not wrong. What gives. Donnie Swaggeart (I watch em all) just got through saying the other day that religious persecution is the worst kind. He turned right around and named a church, and in the same breath said don't go there. He criticized them. Well! Maybe he was just giving folks some instruction. I don't think that he meant any viciousness towards them. But they will not hear it that way.
I thimk I am going to discuss some backbiting that is going on. How will people be won to Christ with all the backbiting? There will not be as many. For this is exactly why some people leave church: Hypocrisy; Backbiting;Gossip! How will those who have never been to church know that we are Christians by our love?
Yesterday I found an article that had the names of Rick Joyner and Chip Brodgen in the same article. I am going to post a couple of paragraphs. (Not now.) I mean, in another article a man is lambasting people of similar denominational conviction, which I could expect of differing denominational groups, but these are not so different.
I mean, we know Ophra is on Hailbop, the comet, but what benefit is it to rail against her. Who will benefit by slandering her? (I mean, she is not a 'fair game' polititian.) I mean, we don't have to sound alarmed and go militant! We should simply point out the differences between what we believe. People can choose on their own.
Posts: 3273 | From: Charlotte N.C. | Registered: Sep 2007
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Carol Swenson
Admin
Member # 6929
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posted
1 Timothy 1:5
The purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith. (NKJV)
The noun commandment ( paraggelias , “charge or instruction”), which Paul used here, can also be found as a verb in verse 3 (“instruct”). Paul expanded his directions to Timothy by reminding him and anyone else who would read the letter that the correction of the false teachers would do them good, not harm.
Past, Present, and Future
Our present, past, and future are all intimately affected by God’s Word. When we have a right relationship with God, we will experience him, and we will want to please him. As for the past, our conscience will be clear, cleansed by confession and forgiveness. As for the future, we will face life with the confidence that faith provides. When we live under God’s instructions, we not only avoid the pitfalls of error, we also make progress in love.
The false teachers were motivated by a desire to gain prestige as intellectuals. In contrast, genuine Christian teachers are motivated by love, that is, love in its purest form. There are three sources of real love:
(1) In Matthew 5:8, Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart.” A pure heart is devoted to God and free from guilt and corruption. We must keep ourselves morally straight. God purifies us, but there is action we must take to keep morally fit. Daily application of God’s Word has a purifying effect on our heart and mind. It enables us to love freely.
(2) In order to love properly, our conscience must be clear. First, it must be clean from unconfessed sin so that guilt doesn’t hinder us. Second, our motives must be free from pride and personal gain. Then we can love openly.
(3) When we attempt to love others without our faith sincerely based in Christ, our efforts to minister become hollow and self-serving. Sincere faith enables us to love genuinely.
The commands and instructions in this letter to Timothy reveal Paul’s desire to maintain the purest truth in all the church’s teachings. As a mother nourishes her child with pure foods, so Paul nourished the infant church with only pure teaching—the truth of God’s Word. He focused on the truth and love of the gospel (see 1 Corinthians 13).
Posts: 6787 | From: Colorado | Registered: Dec 2007
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WildB
Moderator
Member # 2917
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posted
by Russell S. Miller
"Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good" (Rom.12:9).
The Pauline epistles have much to say about "Love Without Hypocrisy". The meaning of hypocrisy is simple enough -- playing a part rather than actually living the part. The television is clearly an instrument of hypocrisy. The world is full of actors, all pretending to be somebody they're not, whereas believers in Christ ought to be living a true life for our Saviour. The love with which Timothy's mother and grandmother cherished him, however, was most assuredly not produced by Hollywood. What a testimony his life and character was to the truth of God's Word. See II Timothy 1:5:
"When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also."
The word "unfeigned" is translated "without dissimulation" in Romans 12:9 and "without hypocrisy" in James 3:17. It is also found in II Corinthians 6:6; I Timothy 1:5; and I Peter l:22.
The word "love", of Romans 12:9, was not produced in Hollywood either. It is that "love of God" (Rom. 5:5,8; 8:35) that eternally secures believers in Christ with "all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies" (Eph. 1:3). But our local assemblies would do well in "denying ungodliness and worldly lusts" (Tit. 2:12). This would produce so much more for the cause of Christ through "His constraining love" (II Cor. 5:14). If believers of all walks of life would only "be filled with the Spirit" (Eph.5:18) they would not "fulfil the lust of the flesh" (Gal.5:16). This is why Paul writes Timothy:
"Now the end of the commandment is charity [agape] out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned [without hypocrisy]" (I Tim. 1:5).
Peter wrote to the Jewish remnant, "scattered throughout" Asia Minor, "Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently" (I Pet. 1:22).
"A pure heart, a good conscience, and unfeigned faith" produces the kind of true love, that balance in the Christian life, that brings forth fruit, unto God.
"This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh" (Gal.5:16).
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That is all.....
Posts: 8775 | From: USA, MICHIGAN | Registered: Mar 2004
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