I have no special skills or accreditation's, just the Word of God and the Holy Spirit living in me. I pray the words here will challenge all to dialogue, learn and grow in our relationship with Jesus. This is NOT about religion, rather it is about RELATIONSHIP. I welcome comments, challenges, and questions.

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Acceptance Vs Love

To often we find ourselves in a position of being told that, "we are Christians who are supposed to unconditionally love everyone, therefore we are to accept everyone."  This is totally not biblical. We are told in the bible to have the love of Christ.  His love is so deep for us that He sent His only Son to die in our place.  Nothing we can ever do is good enough to pay the price that He paid for us.  This is God's unconditional love.  A love without any limitations or conditions.  I know many who say they love unconditionally but very few who really model it as Christ modeled it for us.  I strive daily to love more like Christ and to get my self out of the way, and I struggle daily loving like Christ and getting myself out of the way!  

Take for instance a story I heard just last night.  A small three year old boy and his parents were visited by a Muslim extremist.  Upon refusing to relinquish their faith or their child's faith, the extremist slit the throat of the small child in front of the parents.  Now we can all see God's love for that poor little boy.  And we have compassion and love for that little boys parents.  Where we fall short (at least I do) is having that same love and compassion for the extremist who just slit that small boys throat.  Now here is where acceptance versus unconditional love comes in.  God LOVES the extremist, a midst all their hate, lies, and terrible acts.  God does not accept the behavior of the extremist.  In fact, God says very clearly murder is against His laws (10 commandments...Though Shall Not Murder).  God's love is unconditional, unchanging, and all consuming.  He wishes nothing more than to see salvation come to that lost soul.    He wishes that we see the world through His eyes of love.  Always striving to show the lost world the light of His grace and glory.  But He cautions us not to become like the world (not to accept those things that are acceptable to the world).  We are to stand apart! {I John 2:15-17, Romans 12:2, Matt. 6:24...} 

Challenge and prayer focus for this week...Do you have the eyes and heart of Christ?  If not, pray that God breaks you and develops in you an unconditional love for the lost.

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