Love like Christ

[Chad]

GOD couldn't possibly have emphasized the importance of love more than He did when His Son Jesus Christ died on the Cross to pay for OUR sins, rose on the third day.

Jesus Christ's Love: Immeasurable

John 3:16
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Love Your Enemies

Matthew 5:43-44
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you

Forgiveness = Christ like Love

Ephesians 4:32
And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you

Forgive & Forget

Hebrews 8:12
"For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”

As you can see above what GOD tells us, He forgets our sins so we must forget the sins of others (even our own when we learn to forgive ourselves). If you forgive but don't forget, you have not forgiven at all.

Luke 17:3-4
"Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you,rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. 4 And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.”

What if we don't forgive each other?

Matthew 6:14
"For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you"

Matthew 18:35
“So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.”

GOD will not forgive us if we refuse to forgive others and extend the grace to them as GOD did towards us. If you think about how graceful our GOD is (Jesus Christ on Calvary) then you'll remember that we too should be forgiving towards others. If we refuse to forgive, we have sinned against GOD (again).

Hate = Murder

1 John 3:15
Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

 

[Mik0_7]

Hi chad, I just registered for this site. After reading this first thread, I think it will be very encouraging to visit here frequently and to converse with everyone here. Im glad that I found this site. I just typed Jesus talk on google haha and here I am! Thank you. Mike

 

[Dreamer]

Hatred is offensive to God. Hatred = Murder, as Chad stated above. Hatred is so acceptable in our world that we neither notice it or take heed to it. As Christians we are supposed to be different. The difference is: His love and forgiveness in our hearts.

Because I have had alot of bad things done to me, and have been in abusive marriages, this in no way gives me the right to be an angry person and lash out at others. Many times when the Lord would have protected me, I pursued vengeance on my own and blew it. The Lord wants me to mature and act like a gentle christian lady. It is not "cute" for me to blow up, and it's not funny to say, "I can't help it, it's my Irish temper."

I can't use the excuse that my father was always angry, either. As a matter of fact, he was always angry, but it hurt me alot and I should rely on Jesus enough to be different than that. It seems like I can be gentle and perky until I come to a certain point and all the sudden, I've blown a gasket!

He calls me to be different than that. From this day forward, I repent of that behavior and turn away from it, because hatred does = murder. I know, because Saturday night, the Lord gave me a horrible dream in the night that showed me that when I hate, it is the same as murdering someone! And every time I fell back asleep, the dream just continued! It was enough to make me sick, and it did. It literally made me so sick I needed to go to the doctor, except it was now Sunday morning and I was too sick to even go to church. Then the next day was Martin Luther King day so I couldn't go to the doctor either. Every time I tried to breathe all the way in, I had pain, like asthma. I rarely get asthma except in the spring.

I believe the Lord gave me that dream to show me that I needed to repent and turn completely away from hateful behaviors.

I have always had a hard time staying calm when I am angry. Anger in itself is not sin, but it becomes sin when I let it take over. We must forgive before the sun goes down, and forgive, forgive, forgive again the next day.

Only as I learn to fully trust on the Lord Jesus can I defeat this problem with my temper. You see, I have not really trusted him with everything. When it came to me being hurt or offended, I jumped out of his Spirit and into my flesh so that I could take care of the vengeance on my own, without his patience and help. Vengeance is the Lord's, He says, and He means it. Now I will learn to trust Him daily so that I can be calm and peaceful and sow peaceful seeds and bear fruits of peace for Him.

In His Presence,
Dreamer

 

[Dreamer]

test: trying to see why I can't post in journal or anywhere else

 

[Dreamer]

You know....there are some things that make God, very, very angry.

But...it is not up to we humans still, to get vengeance against people that have done bad things.

Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.

I don't know about you, but I hate what child abusers do. But it is not right for me to hate child abusers. I can only pray that they are caught so that they will stop and the children can heal. That is all I will say.