Trusting in God we are Trusting in Truth and Love

Mere Christianity  C.S. Lewis Excerpt - 'Some writers use the word charity to describe not only Christian love between human beings, but also God's love for man and man's love for God. About the second of these two, people are often worried. They are told they ought to love God. They cannot find any such feeling in themselves. What are they to do? The answer is the same as before. Act as if you did. Do not sit trying to manufacture feelings. Ask yourself, 'If I were sure that I loved God, what would I do?' When you have found the answer, go and do it.'
You are told you OUGHT to LOVE GOD.
We OUGHT to love God, there is no doubt about it.
But do we love God?
We say we love God all the time. People love to say they love God. Yet as we've studied many times the following will happened.
Mat 7:22  Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
These people believe they LOVE GOD!
They are casting out devils, they are doing many wonderful works, they are prophesizing all in God's name.  Do they love God? They say they do. They might even believe they do. They feel like they do. Yet there are others who aren't sure that they FEEL this love they are supposed to feel. They are going by feelings, the sentimentality, and love is so much more than all that.
C.S. Lewis tells us to 'ACT as if you did.'  Act as if you love God even if you don't have any special feelings for Him, feelings we call love. We really can't sit around making up pretend feelings any way. We feel what we feel. I had someone once tell me, or I read somewhere, that feelings aren't right or wrong, they just are. And that is so true. They exist. Situations manufacture our feelings, our reactions to situations manufacture our feelings.  If someone does something that makes me happy, I react happy. Likewise if someone does something to anger me the feeling of anger will arise and so on.  We cannot relate all this to feelings for God though. We cannot love Him when we believe He is doing things that make us happy.  It's the same for our partners, our families, our loved ones. We DON'T just love them when they are making us happy, if that were the case we'd stop loving them all the time because being happy isn't something that is constant.  Feeling love, we really shouldn't concern ourselves with FEELING love, but KNOWING love.  And in our knowing we must LIVE as if we know we LOVE God, and that living is our 'acting as if we did' whether we feeling anything or not.
'On the whole, God's love for us is a much safer subject to think about than our love for Him.' -C.S. Lewis
God's love for us. God's amazing love.
'Nobody can always have devout feelings: and even if we could, feelings are not what God principally cares about. Christian Love, either towards God or towards man, is an affair of the will. ' -C.S. Lewis
I absolutely love this- 'Christian love… is an affair of the will.'
WE CHOOSE! We choose constantly. Nothing 'just' happens. Situations occur constantly and in those situations we choose our reactions. Every action you make is born out of a choice.
'If we are trying to do His will we are obeying the commandment, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.' He will give us feelings of love if He pleases. We cannot create them for ourselves, and we must not demand them as a right. But the great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him.' -C.S. Lewis
Amazing!
And… TRUE!
Our feelings come and go all the time, constantly. We could be happy one second and depressed the next. Angry one moment and laughing the next. We cannot count on our feelings as a gauge towards our LOVE for God.
If and when we are given those amazing feelings they really are something to cherish, but we must remember they can be very fleeting and to NOT have those feelings does not mean we've grown further from God. Satan loves for us to use our feelings to get us to judge our relationship with God. He wants us to be discouraged and believe we have no real hope. Satan will do EVERYTHING towards that end. Satan does not want us to truly comprehend the LOVE of God, because in that comprehension we realize so little actually depends upon our FEELINGS, and much more depends upon our act of will- our choices made regardless of how we feel at any given moment. The LOVE of God is NOT this sublime feeling of ecstasy that people want to believe it is.  No, I'm not saying it can't be that kind of feeling, but to believe it HAS to be that kind of feeling is a trap.
We can KNOW, we don't have to FEEL in order to KNOW.
1Jn_5:13  These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
Ye may know.
KNOW.
Not, you may feel you have eternal life, but rather you may know.
We can know. We truly can know. We do not have to trust our feelings, they are terribly unreliable and subject to too many variables. We cannot trust our feelings, we can trust GOD and KNOW, HE KNOWS. If we trust in GOD we are trusting to TRUTH, to true LOVE.
All by HIS GRACE.
ALL By HIS MERCY!
ALL IN HIM!
OUR SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST!
OUR LORD!

It won't come naturally so don't waste time thinking it will.

Continuing with C.S. Lewis - Mere Christianity

'This same spiritual law works terribly in the opposite direction. The Germans, perhaps, at first ill-treated the Jews because they hated them: afterwards they hated them much more because they had ill-treated them. The more cruel you are, the more you will hate; and the more you hate, the more cruel you will become-and so on in a vicious circle for ever.'

True?

When you treat someone badly once and there is no reprimand, no regret it gets easier to treat them badly again. When others are treating someone badly and you DO NOT want to put yourself on the spot for fear they'll treat you badly, it's easy to go along with their behavior. How many people go along with something that is wrong just because of that kind of fear? We like to believe we would be among those who would stand up for the person being abused regardless of what happens to us, but that isn't always the case. I'm not saying there are not exceptions to this, but the fact remains that 'the more cruel you are the more you will hate, the more you hate the more cruel you will become'. These are facts that we'd rather overlook if we can. We want to dispute them and cite all the contrary goings on, but in the end we know it's true.

Continuing on...

'Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance.

The smallest good act to-day is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or, anger to-day is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.'

Compound interest, not there's something we really need to think about a bit.  We question how we are to become more like our Savior, more like how we know He wants us to be. He preached the sermon on the mount, He preached over and over giving us instructions in CHRISTIAN LOVE. His Apostles, His Disciples went on to be moved by the Holy Spirit and continue that instruction to us and we KNOW HOW our SAVIOR wants us to treat one another. We are NOT left in any doubt. We are not left floundering and wondering about how we should behave, there is really no question about it.

When we do NOT live as we are told we should live the consequence is a continued spiral further and further away from that mark. When we do live as we are told to live, the consequence is our growing ever closer towards the mark set before us.

The problem we face is that it's NOT easy to live as we are told to live, it does NOT come natural to us. If it did come natural to us we wouldn't have to be told to do these things, we would do them automatically. We are told to LOVE ONE ANOTHER, to LOVE OUR NEIGHBORS, to LOVE OTHERS- why are we being told to do this if it was something we do all the time? It's NOT automatic, it's NOT natural to us. We are told to STRIVE to enter in at the STRAIT GATE.

Luk_13:24  Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.

We do we have to strive if it's something we do without striving?

We are TOLD how to behave because we do NOT behave that way.

Do you tell a child to behave when he's already behaving?  Maybe as a way of warning you might, but you're doing it because you KNOW there is a very real possibility that the child will misbehave and you want to ward off that happening. If you know for a fact someone is always behaving, and hasn't misbehaved then the chances of your telling them to behave would be very slim, you'd have no reason. If you know someone has misbehaved in the past then you would instruct them to behave because you have good reason to believe they would misbehave.

We have misbehaved…terribly, and we are told to behave.
We are told to behave in certain ways.
We don't find it natural to behave in those ways.
We need help in order to behave.
We need to strive to behave.
We need our SAVIOR to forgive us when we misbehave and we MUST continue to STRIVE to enter in at the STRAIT GATE, not the WIDE gate which is very easy to find and walk through.

Admonished, we must LISTEN.

We must strive to do good, NOT to gain salvation, but to do as our SAVIOR would have us do. He will save us, we must strive to live as He wants us to live!

C.S. Lewis--

'Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance.

The smallest good act to-day is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or, anger to-day is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.'

The little decision you and I make EVERY DAY are of such INFINITE IMPORTANCE.

Do you believe that? We should believe it because it is TRUE.

How true it is that the smallest good today will have a ripple effect of good for later.

The opposite of course is true as well.

Any TRIVIAL INDULGENCE in lust or anger today IS the LOSS of something important later on.

Our spiritual enemies know our weaknesses and build upon them. They use us and our actions as building blocks getting them higher and higher in order to knock us down and the higher and higher they build upon our little evil acts the greater our fall will be later.

We MUST let GOD work IN US, only through HIS power can we live. He will give us the victories we need, every little victory that He gives us builds upon something that we can only imagine later, all to HIS GLORY!

May God bless us and keep us IN HIM. May we LIVE in HIM. May we make choices that will have us living the life that HE commands that we live. It WON'T come naturally so don't waste time hoping it will. I fear we spend way too much time wanting it all to be natural to us. CHRIST IN US is our HOPE our SALVATION.


All in HIS LOVE!

Treat EVERYONE Kindly

C.S. LEWIS Excerpt from Mere Christianity-

'Consequently, though Christian charity sounds a very cold thing to people whose heads are full of sentimentality, and though it is quite distinct from affection, yet it leads to affection. The difference between a Christian and a worldly man is NOT that the worldly man has only affections or 'likings' and the Christian has only `charity'.

The worldly man treats certain people kindly because he 'likes' them: the Christian, trying to treat every one kindly, finds himself liking more and more people as he goes on -- including people he could not even have imagined himself liking at the beginning.'


Christian Love- TREATING EVERYONE KINDLY.

Luk 6:27  But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you,
Luk 6:28  Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.
Luk 6:29  And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloke forbid not to take thy coat also.
Luk 6:30  Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.
Luk 6:31  And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.
Luk 6:32  For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.
Luk 6:33  And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same.
Luk 6:34  And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.
Luk 6:35  But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.


We are not being told to love our friends.
We are not being told to love our family.
We are not being told to bless those who bless us.
We are not being told to do good to those who do good to us.
We are not being told to pray for those who are praying for us and treating us kindly.
We are not being told to give to those who are giving to us.
We are not being told to give to those who have lots.
We are not being told to love all those who love us.
We are not being told to only lend to those who can give back to us.

Why aren't we being told these things? Because a lot of them are what we call- 'a given'.  It's rather easy to love friends and to love - loving family members. We have no trouble at all wanting to bless those who are good to us. And giving to those who give to us, that's easy, right? Love those who love us, easy!

We are being told that Christian love is far more than what people want to be love is.

LOVE your ENEMIES.
Do good to those who HATE you.
Bless those who CURSE you.
PRAY for those who are despitefully using you.
To those who hit one side of your face, OFFER the other side.
To those who steal from you, OFFER them more!
Give to EVERYONE that asks!
Do NOT ask for others to return your things.

Did you just read what I wrote?

Read it again, please.

Do we grow up learning to respond in this way to others?

Does our society endorse this sort of behavior?

Where have we learned to Hate those who Hate us?
To do bad things to those who hate us?
To curse those who curse us?
To despise those who are using us despitefully?
To hit back when we are hit?
To be angry at someone who steals from us and demand they give our things back?
To NOT give, but rather keep your own possessions- hoarding them, they are YOURS, you bought them or were given them?
To be mad at anyone who borrows your things and does not return them?

Where have we learned that all that is proper behavior?
Where have we learned that we are justified in responding this way?

FROM THE WORLD and the PRINCE of THIS WORLD.

Satan has taught mankind well to think of self first and foremost and the world has learned so well his awful lessons.

We love believing we are JUSTIFIED when we act against others badly.  Our anger is justified, our hate is justified. We tell ourselves that we are only acting in a normal and acceptable manner, so it's fine to behave 'normally'.  Only normally means SATAN'S NORMAL, not GOD'S!

'The worldly man treats certain people kindly because he 'likes' them: the Christian, trying to treat every one kindly, finds himself liking more and more people as he goes on -- including people he could not even have imagined himself liking at the beginning.'

C.S. LEWIS Excerpt from Mere Christianity

The CHRISTIAN tries to TREAT EVERYONE KINDLY.

EVERYONE meaning- EVERYONE, NO EXCEPTIONS!

We love our exceptions. We love to put a limit on our kindness.  We do!  When someone is evil to us, we love being able to tell ourselves it perfectly fine for us to return that same evil back a them- they started it!  Be kind to someone who was nasty to us? NEVER! They really can't expect us to be kind to them when they are not kind to us, right?

CHRISTIAN LOVE- TREATS EVERYONE KINDLY- NO EXCEPTIONS!

NO EXCEPTIONS!

When you try to make exceptions for reasons that you can justify perfectly to the world and all who will listen,  you have to realize that YOU CAN NEVER JUSTIFY THEM TO GOD! God tells us there are NO EXCEPTIONS to our treating EVERYONE KINDLY, NOT ONE!

Please LORD help us!

We've been conditioned by the world to behave as Satan would have us behave- telling us that is NORMAL behavior, acceptable behavior. YOUR TRUTH says otherwise! Please LORD bless us, TEACH us, work in  us! Let YOUR LOVE be OUR LOVE!  We would TREAT EVERYONE KINDLY, and it's only through YOUR GRACE and MERCY, YOUR POWER, YOUR AMAZING LOVE that this is at all possible!

Please LORD forgive us!

Help us to see under the skin and past all that would keep us from truly loving others

'But whenever we do good to another self, just because it is a self, made (like us) by God, and desiring its own happiness as we desire ours, we shall have learned to love it a little more or, at least, to dislike it less.'  Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis

Doing good to another SELF.
Another self.
We truly are all cut from the same cloth. Or if you'd rather, we are all cookies cut out of the same dough. There are any number of analogies you could use and while some will be quick- very quick- to point out that we can't be from the same cloth or same dough because we are invariably very different- that is ONLY on the outside. Inside we are all the same. The STUFF that keeps us alive that is ALL the same stuff.  Strip off our outer shells and guess what? WE ARE THE SAME. Ask any medical examiner about how much alike we are on the inside. Sure there are variations of the same stuff but in minor ways. Your brain might weigh 3.5 lbs mine might weigh 3.4 lbs, but you can bet our brains look mostly the same. Maybe there is a slight discoloration difference but over all we look the same.  Put two, three, four, five brains on a table and try to tell which one of those came from what color people.  Put the same amount of hearts on the table and choose the one that came from Caucasian persuasion. You CAN'T DO IT! Take blood from two people and tell me which came from a Caucasian and which from an Latino.  YOU CAN'T DO IT!

We might be dressed up in different skin but we are all MADE BY GOD and a SELF unto itself.

The brain in your head might not think my same thoughts but the base needs will be the exact. You'll hunger and desire food, you'll thirst and desire drink, you'll be cold and desire warmth, you'll long for happiness, contentment and you'll strive for such things.  You won't want to be in pain, no one without emotional, mental defects wants to be in pain.  These are basic to all of us human beings.

C.S. Lewis says- 'Whenever we do good to another self- JUST because it is a self, made (like us) by God desiring its own happiness as we desire ours…'

Doing good to another self JUST BECAUSE IT IS A SELF.
Doing good to one another because we are part of one another.
Doing good to a fellow human being simply because they are fellow human being.

NOT doing good to others because we have some ulterior motive, some selfish desire, something to gain out of it, but doing that good because we recognize that WE would want that good done to us if we were in the same position as the other human being, this is good, this is CHRISTIAN LOVE.

'But whenever we do good to another self, just because it is a self, made (like us) by God, and desiring its own happiness as we desire ours, we shall have learned to love it a little more or, at least, to dislike it less.'  Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis

We shall have learned to love others a little more every time we do for it as we would want done to us- or maybe if we aren't learning to LOVE them, we are at least (as he said) learning to dislike it less.

Do you suppose you could take someone you've a natural dislike for and vow to treat them good in some small way EVERYTIME you see them, and continue to dislike them?  Probably. But there again we are NOT supposed to be looking for ways to LIKE people, to have affection for them. We are supposed to be revealing CHRISTIAN LOVE.  A LOVE that genuinely cares for them because GOD cares for them.

We need to tell ourselves as we are out and about our daily lives interacting with others however briefly or lengthy that GOD LOVES THIS PERSON, THESE PEOPLE.  GOD LOVES them sooooo much He sent His Only Son to DIE for them!  God did that! He never asked us to judge a person's eternal life, never! He doesn't want us looking at others and writing them off as being lost to Him simply because they are committing atrocities we can't even comprehend. God wants us to LOVE them and leave all the eternal life judging to HIM.

So when we are experiencing first hand abuse at the hands of one God Loves, how are we to react?

Mat 5:39  ... whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Do we do this?!

How many of you just said, 'Heck no!'?

It's not natural to us. We haven't cultivated this reaction in ourselves. We haven't let God work in us in this way just yet. Satan wants us to never react this way and he will do all he can to make it so we never do. It's a striving, it's an ACT OF WILL, a deliberate choice we must make, not give in to knee jerk reactions.

God would have us love others because we are basically all the same in His eyes.  The ugliest person in the entire world is still offered salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord. The most beautiful person is offered salvation as well. The nicest, the worst, the greediest, the most selfless, the shyest, the most outgoing- it doesn't matter to God, salvation is a GIFT offered to all.

 IF you are a follower of Christ then you have to believe that we are all offered salvation. If you believe we are all offered salvation then you have to realize that there isn't a single other person in existence who is different in matters of eternity. 

Under our skin the real truth exists.

Every Jew, every Protestant, every Catholic, every Moslem, every Hindu, every follower of the many, many different religions, every Pagan, every Atheist is ultimately the same under their skin.

We are the same flesh and blood.
We are the same bone and muscle.
We are the same.

My thoughts, my choices define who I am. My beliefs shape my views about life.  But laying ALL those thoughts, choices, beliefs aside and just lay me skinned on a slab of metal next to another skinned on a slab of metal and you would never know what I believe, you would never know what I looked like with flesh.  We are the same and GOD knows this!

God also knows that it is our choices, our beliefs, our views that enable us to choose to believe in HIM and HIS love, or not. We've been given this wonderful ability to make choices so we are not automatons acting under the control of another.  We have to allow everyone to make the choice to believe how they are convicted to believe. If we try and force anyone to believe the way we do, then we are taking away their ability to choose freely.

God would NEVER take away the choice we have to freely make.

God is love.

And love ONLY can come from GOD, without God there is NO real love, but rather a substitute love of a worldly kind that believes it is real when it is not.

God is love and all else, all false love is not of God but rather of the one who would put himself in God's place, setting up his own counterfeit love- very realistic so much so it will fool MANY, in fact MOST.

God is love and He would have us believe in HIM, but He will not force that belief.

He has outlined the entire conflict between good and evil in His Holy Word and people will make a choice either for Him and His love, or against Him and His love.

He would have all choose to love HIM, every single human being.

We can desire nothing less if we choose to be His.
In choosing to be God's we are choosing to desire the salvation of every single human being, letting NOTHING cloud that.

Please LORD, help us to LOVE as YOU love!

Help us to see under the skin, past all that makes it hard for us to truly love one another with Christian love, and to do as YOU command.

All through YOUR LOVE, YOUR amazing, wonderful LOVE.

In Christ Jesus Always! By His grace and mercy, in His righteousness, by YOUR WILL.

Christian Love- God's Will Being Done, Not Ours

"The Proof Of Your Love"
by For King and Country

If I sing but don't have love
I waste my breath with every song
I bring an empty voice, a hollow noise
If I speak with a silver tongue
Convince a crowd but don't have love
I leave a bitter taste with every word I say

So let my life be the proof,
The proof of Your love
Let my love look like You and what You're made of
How You lived, how You died
Love is sacrifice
So let my life be the proof,
The proof of Your love

If I give
To a needy soul but don't have love then who is poor?
It seems all the poverty is found in me

So let my life be the proof,
The proof of Your love
Let my love look like You and what You're made of
How You lived, how You died
Love is sacrifice
Oh, let my life be the proof,
The proof of Your love

When it's all said and done
When we sing our final song
Only love remains
Only love remains

Let my life be the proof,
The proof of Your love
Let my love look like You and what You're made of
How You lived, how You died
Love is sacrifice
So let my life be the proof,
The proof of Your love

Pasted from

*******

Love is sacrifice.

True or untrue?

Do we really equate love with sacrifice?  If I tell you that loving someone really means sacrificing your own selfishness for their good, would that sound pleasant to you? 

We really want love to mean that selfishly we are made to feel good by being with another. This is why when another comes along that is a little bit better at making us feel good it is so easy to choose to be with them and not someone who doesn't make us feel quite so good anymore.  We reason with ourselves that we'd much rather be with someone who strokes our egos and builds up our pride than another who reminds us we are not all that and we are in need of becoming selfless. Our selfishness wars against our becoming selfless, sometimes at great cost.

The song lyrics above talk of our loving being like Christ's love- love being a sacrifice as Christ's life revealed. He lived sacrificing of Himself and He died sacrificing Himself.

It is very true that if we do all manner of good and don't do it with LOVE - CHRIST'S LOVE- it means nothing.

1Co 13:3  And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

Imagine- giving up everything you own to help the poor and it PROFITS NOTHING because the giving was done selfishly, the giving was done in order to obtain something in return. The giving was done begrudingly. The giving was done without any of CHRIST'S LOVE.

Imagine- sacrificing your own life, giving up your life to be burned alive and you do it selfishly hoping that act will gain you salvation, it is done in VAIN without CHRIST'S LOVE. Even giving up your own life will mean NOTHING without CHRISTIAN LOVE.

Psa_51:17  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

Rom_12:1  I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

1Pe_2:5  Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

Love is truly sacrifice and sacrifice is surrender. 

There isn't a single thing we can do to warrant salvation.
Salvation is found in Christ alone because HE alone is LOVE and all love truly means.
We can only hope and pray that in our choice we choose to surrender to CHRIST to allow HIM to work in us, to live in us, to reveal His love through us. That every act of kindness, every act we commit towards others is an act that will reveal HIS LOVE, HIS POWER alive in US. CHRIST IN US.

Col 1:27  To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:
Col 1:28  Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus

Christian love.
A love of purpose.
An act of our will.
A conscious choice we make.

Christ prayed for the cup to be passed from Him.

Mat_26:39  And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.

He did NOT want to suffer!
He made a conscious act of will choosing to do whatever His Father willed of Him. Not as HE WILLED but as HIS FATHER WILLED. 
Not as WE WILL, but AS GOD WILLS.
NOT OUR WILL BUT GOD'S WILL.

Christian Love.
Love revealing Christ.

All by the grace and mercy, the LOVE of CHRIST!
IN HIM ALWAYS!

Loved by Christian Love- 4 Strangers

Mat 19:19  Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

Lev 19:18  Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.

Rom 13:9  For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Rom 13:10  Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Gal 5:14  For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself

Jas 2:8  If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well

CHRISTIAN LOVE.

I experienced this notably THREE times today. I say notably three times because in all actuality it was probably a lot more but these three times really stand out.

1st-  At the theme park today a woman worker there came up to my family out of the blue and asked if we wanted her to take our picture. Now before you say, 'That's not unusual'  it was unusual because the woman wasn't one of those theme park employees who get paid to take your picture and get you to buy those pictures before you leave the park. She held her hands out to take our camera and took two pictures of all four of us. She was overly nice, overly because we passed well over a hundred employees over the last 3 days and she was the only one who offered to do this and it just seemed very nice, very kind. (CHRISTIAN LOVE)

2nd- In the theme park restroom my daughter (using her electric scooter) went inside and I went to watch the scooter which carried quite a few of our belongings. Sitting on the scooter waiting for her I decided to maneuver it a bit to have it pointing towards the door. A woman walked in and with great concern asked if I needed any help. She didn't know me, I didn't know her and yet she offered her assistance to me. I politely thanked her and told her no, I was just waiting for my daughter who uses the scooter and she smiled.  There was NO REASON for that stranger to offer help to me and yet she did.  KINDNESS! (CHRISTIAN LOVE)

3rd-  Our car had the hiccups on the way home, no seriously, it had the hiccups and they kept causing the engine to stall. This is NOT conducive to moving along an interstate highway at 75mph. So we pulled off the road several times burped out car (opened the gas cap) and finally we made it off the highway to the nearest gas station- well almost. We were in the gas station entrance stalled and two people came rushing over to help us, offering to push us to the gas pumps. TWO TOTAL STRANGERS offering instant help to us! (CHRISTIAN LOVE)

Now, do I know for a fact this is Christian love? No, I don't because for all I know they could have been believers of no God at all. What I do know is they exhibited the kind of love my SAVIOR wants us as HIS followers to display. So while they might not have even known Christ as their Savior they were showing kindness to a stranger and that IS CHRISTIAN LOVE.  Does that mean they're saved even if they don't believe in Christ? No, of course not. It means that CHRISTIAN LOVE exists in a very real way and those who are displaying it are doing so naturally and our God will offer HIS love to them as to all and God alone knows whether or not they will accept HIS LOVE.

CHRISTIAN LOVE.

Have you experienced this lately?

Think about it for a little bit, go back through your day, through your week and see if you can't recall some unexpected kindnesses done to you.

CHRISTIAN LOVE.

A love that acts.
A love that gains nothing selfishly from the acts is commits.
A love that is a deliberate offering- a choice made.

We have the opportunity all the time to reveal Christian love, don't we? Yet how often do we pass up those opportunities for one reason or another? Does self get in the way of being selfless?

CHRISTIAN LOVE.

We must truly LOVE our neighbors.

I have been LOVED by my neighbors today, three notable times by four strangers.

Please God, help me to love others as you have shown me others love with YOUR love.

Thank you Lord for blessing me so richly today by letting my life be touched with such an outpouring of YOUR LOVE.

All in YOU my LORD and SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST!

Our liking doesn't matter, we must love

 Continuing our study on the passages from Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

We're discussing CHRISTIAN LOVE. How amazing it is to have CHRISTIAN LOVE. It sounds strange even as I write it because I'm used to just saying love in the generic sense that included love being a Christian. I've found as I've studied this a bit that IT IS relevant, truly it is. At least in my estimation it's relevant because otherwise it is soooo incredibly easy to get caught up in the idea that we are supposed to equate love with feelings, with emotions.

We are very emotional people, even those who are cold hearted are emotional in their cold heartedness.  Men are equated with be less emotionally charged as women, but the truth is, men are using more somber emotions- it's not being emotionless very few people are truly emotionless and usually those who are emotionless end up as pyschopaths because we are not meant to be emotionless beings. People also confuse burying emotions with being emotionless, or controlling their emotions makes them emotionless, both are lies. The fact they have to control or bury any emotion means they have those emotions to control and bury.

Love has been called an emotion for so incredibly long that we scarcely imagine it to be anything else. If we don't FEEL a certain way that tells us something, that's what we've been taught. If we don't feel an emotional sensation of love for someone or something then it is so easy to believe we aren't loving that someone or something.

WHY would God tell us, command us, to LOVE ANOTHER if He meant feel that loving feeling towards everyone? He wouldn't! He doesn't mean LIKE everyone, He doesn't mean FEEL happy about everyone.  God is talking about an ACTION we are to portray towards others and that action is for us treat others- ALL OTHERS- in a fair way, the way YOU WANT to be treated- NOT the way you necessarily are treated.

Let's read more of the excerpt…

Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis  (EXCERPT)

'On the other hand, it is also necessary to keep a very sharp lookout for fear our liking for some one person makes us uncharitable, or even unfair, to someone else.'

When we LIKE someone we truly do have to be very careful we do NOT love that person we LIKE or even love emotionally- more than any others!

Crazy, you say? You have to LOVE those you like or love emotionally more than others it's only natural, and that's true it's of our flesh nature natural.  God would have us love ALL others and HE means with a CHRISTIAN love. 

Continuing...

'There are even cases where our liking conflicts with our charity towards the person we like. For example, a doting mother may -be tempted by natural affection to 'spoil' her child; that is, to gratify her own affectionate impulses at the expense of the child's real happiness later on. But though natural likings should normally be encouraged, it would be quite wrong to think that the way to become charitable is to sit trying to manufacture affectionate feelings.'

How true is this! In treating our own children with a SPECIAL love we are perpetuating the belief that they are MORE worthy of love than others. We are not only spoiling our children we are passing on the misconception of LOVE.

This part-- '… it would be quite wrong to think that the way to become charitable IS TO SIT TRYING to MANUFACTURE AFFECTIONATE FEELINGS.'

We really have to STOP equating love dare I say, especially CHRISTIAN love with feelings!

 Continuing…

'Some people are 'cold' by temperament; that may be a misfortune for them, but it is no more a sin than having a bad digestion is a sin; and it does not cut them out from the chance, or excuse them from the duty, of learning charity.'

'Cold by temperament'  Do you know anyone you'd consider cold by temperament? Perhaps you are cold by temperament. This is a reality and I love how C.S. Lewis says, ' IT IS NO MORE A SIN THAN HAVING A BAD DIGESTION IS A SIN.'

No one would ever say it's a sin to have heart problems, a sin to have bad sugar, a sin to be born with a weak bladder, a sin to be unhealthy beyond your control in any way. It's only a sin if you are purposely causing yourself to be unhealthy. Being cold by temperament is no more sin than being born with a seasicky stomach, and NO ONE whether with or without a cold temperament is exempt from LOVING OTHERS with CHRISTIAN LOVE.

Continuing...

'The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbour; act as if you did.'

We cannot, and truly should not waste any of our time trying to FEEL an emotional sensation towards anyone! Our LIKING DOES NOT MATTER! We MUST LOVE THEM.  And if we are going to wait to feel something emotional before we allow ourselves to show CHRISTIAN LOVE, then we are NOT obeying God's Command!

We really do need to ACT as if we love that person if that means truly showing Christian love to them. We need to treat even our enemies, and maybe especially our enemies, as if we love them very, very much. 

THIS IS CHRISTIAN LOVE.

This is how we are LOVED.

We do not deserve any LOVE from God, not a bit of it.  Yet HE LOVES us and it's not because He has this overwhelming emotion for certain people and not others. 

Jesus died to offer ALL people a chance for salvation, not just a select few.
A few will accept that salvation, but it won't be because all were not offered it.

Mat 22:37  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.
Mat 22:38  This is the first and great commandment.
Mat 22:39  And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Mat 22:40  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.


LOVE - CHRISTIAN LOVE!

More tomorrow by the GRACE of GOD!

All in HIS LOVE ALWAYS!

Praise, glory, honor and thanksgiving to our KING Jesus CHRIST!