response to my friend's post

Here is my friend's post Faith in Love.

I wanted to respond on her blog but I think I have too much to say, so I'll do a response post.

Dear dovecliff,

Faith and love are my favorite spiritual topics. I agree with you so much that I had to write about it myself.

I John 4:7,8 says the one who doesn't love, has not known God.---We say we do love. We think loving our family is enough, or loving a few friends is enough. But it isn't. 1 John 4:11-13 shows that we should love one another, our brothers. And then, going further, like you showed in Matt 5:43-48, we also have to love our enemies, who may or may not be our brothers.

How do we love our brothers and our enemies? I think we have concern for them. It may seen cliche but what would Jesus do? Would he be mean to them? Maybe insult them? Maybe belittle them? Maybe he'd show them how smart he is to prove how stupid they are. No, I don't think he would. Sure, he got angry and hurt that people were buying and selling in the temple and he drove the animals out with a whip, and told the people to take the doves out and not to turn his Father's house into a market. And in doing that, he wasn't doing anything to pride himself or to be mean. There are times when we are allowed, I believe, to get stern with people if they're doing something against God. But never for our own satisfaction. Never thinking "Yep, I told them that they were pathetic....." We do these things out of love for our Father and for those who we speak with, ALWAYS out of the desire to help them. Not to prove anything.

We have to look at our enemies as God's possible children. Not as a lost cause. Treat them with love. Jesus never was unloving to those who were ordering his death or the ones who drove the nails into his skin. If anyone had the right, it was him. If he didn't, who are we to think we have the right to be mean?

What we HAVE to do, is forgive people. Again, Jesus did. He forgave people who did not deserve it. There is no other answer. We MUST forgive our enemies. And of course, we must forgive our brothers, the ones we love. We do not have the right to make them pay for what they put us through. And, if God forgave them, who are we to continue punishing them? No one at all. Forgiveness isn't just saying you forgive a person. It is in your heart. You feel for them, you care about their relationship with Jesus and our Father. You want them to have that too. You don't just want them to have a good life. You want them to have LIFE. If you don't forgive them, like Matt 6:15 says, your Father will not forgive you. How can you get stronger in your faith if you aren't forgiven? Forgive. Forgive and love the person you forgave. Love them by wanting to show them God through Jesus. Be Jesus for them. BE Jesus for them. Perfect love.

Now for fear...sometimes we think we don't have fear. We might believe that nothing will ever scare us. Nothing will break us. Nothing will get through our hardheadedness (hardheartedness). And that's what it is sometimes. We are so prideful, so afraid (fear) of looking foolish, so afraid of being hurt after we let out guard down, that we just don't let it down. And we think that makes us strong. But that is a LIE. That "strength" comes from flesh, not from God. If we aren't getting our strength from God, it will only hurt us. Fear is very bad. We are told to not be anxious over anything. Don't worry about tomorrow. Don't worry about your provisions. God will provide for you. Yet, what do we do? We store up treasures on earth. We have 401K's and stocks. We have storehouses with food, just in case. That is anxiety. Where is our faith that God will provide? Why are we worrying about the future? Why are we putting faith in ourselves, and in what we can do? Why do we put out faith in God NOT providing for us? Are we not more important than the birds and lilies? Don't be anxious. Ever.

Fear keeps us from wonderful, spirit-filled relationships. Again, we are afraid to look stupid. What if we try something, like say we try to have faith that God will heal our broken leg, without having to go to the hospital. So you pray, but you don't want to get up and walk on it. There are two fears. One, that it will hurt, and two that it won't work, then you feel foolish. But conquering that fear makes our faith stronger. Or maybe our fear is that we don't want to open up to people. We're afraid because we have been so terribly hurt before when we trusted people. So we choose not to let that happen again. That IS fear. Like it or not, it is fear. We have to be willing to hurt. I promise that if we let ourselves trust each other, yes, it will hurt, but we will heal quickly and our Father will make us soooo much stronger for it. It will be so much better once we do. We will grow in faith and love and be able then to help other people out of pure Godly love, rather that our fleshly love. It will come from God.

OK, now I was thinking of crazy things while reading your post. I'm sure I'm way off, but it's still a pretty awesome idea.

You quoted 1 Cor 13:2-8. We can do good things but if we aren't doing them out of love, it is pointless. It means nothing. It isn't what we do, it's why we do it. We may even suffer for another person and we think we must love them if we suffered for them. No, it isn't enough. It has to be pure, without pride, without self-glorifying. It can't be selfish.

Then it goes on about what love is and is not. But then, THEN, at the end, people end it with 'Love never fails'. But it doesn't end there. It goes on with 'But if [there be] prophecies, they will become useless; if tongues, they will cease by themselves; if knowledge, it will become useless.'

Why does it say this after talking about love? Love never fails. And then this? I thought maybe it was saying that love will never go away, but at some point prophesying, tongues, and knowledge will go away. And I think that is true. One day, there will be no need for those things. When Jesus comes and makes the Kingdom complete, there will be no need for these things. But there will still be a need for love.

It made me think of it like this though. If you don't have love, eventually you will stop prophesying, you will stop with tongues, and your knowledge will be useless.

Eh, I don't know why it came across that way to me while I was reading your post. It sounded good then.

I have heard of people who speak in tongues and they have a form of godly devotion, but I can see that their love isn't pure. I know people who are knowledgeable in "spiritual" things, but it isn't pure. I don't know about the prophesying.

So, yeah. Those are my thoughts on your post.