Christian Love

Christian Love
IT speaks in Galatians about love, the fruit of the Spirit being love, joy, peace, gentleness, long suffering, meekness and temperance. The way this writer has put it -- and I think it is very beautiful -- is that joy is love exultant, peace is love in repose, and long suffering is love enduring. It is all love, you see, a gentleness is love in society, and goodness is love in action, and faith is love on the battle-field, and meekness is love at school, and temperance is love in training.Now there are a great many that have got love and they hold the truth. I should have said they have got truth, but they don't hold it in love, and they are very unsuccessful in working for God. They are very harsh, and God cannot use them. Now let us hold the truth, but let us hold it in love. People will stand almost any kind of plain talk if you only do it in love. If you do it in harshness it bounds back and they won't receive it. So what we want is to have the truth and at the same time hold it in love.Then there is another class of people in the world that have got the truth, but they love so much that they give up the truth because they are afraid it will hurt some one's feelings. That is wrong. We want the whole truth anyway. We don't want to give it up, but hold it in love, and I believe one reason why people think God don't love them is because they have not this love. Now God is just what He says He is, and He wants His children to be sincere in love; not to love just merely in word and in tongue, but to love in earnest. -That is what God does. You ask me why God loves. You might as well ask me why the sun shines. It can't help shining, and neither can He help loving, because He is love Himself; and any one that says He is not love does not know anything about love. If we have got the true love of God shed abroad in our hearts we will show it in our lives. We will not have to go up and down the earth proclaiming it. We will show it in everything we say or do.

~truncated and expunged from "Christian Love" by D.L. Moody

A Place to Worship

What is the Church?

Church is not the building nor an ecclesiastical hierarchy.

The Church is a local called out body of baptized believers in Jesus Christ that assemble together to worship. We come together weekly to praise Him, worship Him, teach of Him, to inspire or move one another to a closer walk with Him, to win the lost and to nourish our souls.

So many in this day and age, neglect the church! They believe that they can just as easily worship God in their homes or in the mountains or any other such place as their hearts desire. How sadly mistaken these folks are.

I don't know about you; but if my beloved told me that he loved me and then chose to only dedicate one hour a week to me or one weekend a month, I would not believe his to be "true love."

How can someone say they love the Lord and neglect His home? How can they neglect the nourishing of their souls, minds, & hearts and the sweet fellowship with the "saints?"

You take time everyday to care for your God give temple; you wash it, groom it, feed it and indulge it. Yet in all this where is your time given to God.

Knowing "of" God and "having" God in your life are two very distinct concepts.

Having God as a part of your daily life means nourishing and attending to that relationship just as you would any other. It is a daily walk.

You don't expect your kids or your spouse to just wave to you in the morning and then not hear from them till the next, do you?

Why do so many treat their relationship with God as such. God to many is a God of "need." They feel that if their is something beyond their control, then they "call" on God to meet that need. If everything in their lives is otherwise honky dory, they neglect him.

God and Church have become secondary if at that. You would not neglect your beloved or your children or a relationship with a great friend, would you? Why then neglect God?

We were and are created to serve His purpose and pleasure.

May this year find everyone wanton ... wanton of a new and real relationship with Christ our Lord. May this year find "real-men" leading their homes in all things righteous. May wives be in submission to their husbands not "taking" the reigns of charge and belittling his God given role.

May this year find kids who look to their parents for influence, example and favor and not to their "peers."

I know that these are not popular beliefs. I know that most will "believe" that it is my right to my opinion; but my earnest desire is that someone would find truth in it for their lives.

Serving the Savior,

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