Love – The Kingdom of the Heavens

You Are Not the One to Build, Part 6B: Spiritual Gifts: God Works through us for His Purpose

Ian Johnson September 4, 2023 1 Comment

The modern emphasis on first identifying my “gift” so that I may then “help” God develop it gets the matter exactly backwards. The important thing isn’t identifying my gift, it is offering my body as a living sacrifice so that the Spirit may exercise any gift He chooses through me. Then any gift I am observed to be actually exercising can be identified as my gift, and its exercise will be genuine and have God’s power.

A God who Speaks, Desire to have our own way, Disrespecting poor believers, Divisions in the Church, God Speaks to Us, God's purpose for us, Historical Background, In the Church, Meaning of Unity, Other Gifts of the Holy Spirit, Personal Background, Personality cults, Prophecy, Through others, Through teachers, Through the church, To be his ambassadors, To bear fruit, To live in unity

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You Are Not the One to Build, Part 5: God’s Callings for All of His Children and Friends

Ian Johnson August 20, 2023 1 Comment

God “calls” all believers to love one another and to be conformed to the image of His Son–to be made, by God, to be just like Jesus. There is also a number of other things to which God “calls” all believers–almost all of them things we simply let him do to or through us, and all of them summed up by loving each other and being remade into His image.

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Of Abiding, Growth and Fruitfulness

Ian Johnson November 28, 2022 3 Comments

God wants us to bear the lasting fruit he has placed within us. But this does not require our effort to bear fruit, it requires only that we remain in Jesus, pay attention to his words, and let him work through us. His only command is that we love one another as he has loved us, so letting his love reach others through us.

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Anger

Ian Johnson October 12, 2022 0 Comments

I write this post to myself. I was once a very angry man. But I believed I now had anger under control. More recently, I’m not so sure. Manipulative people and manipulative institutions both deliberately goad the anger of those they want to control–anger is a great motivator. The media, celebrities, politicians, organizations and advertisers do the same thing. Other people, though, habitually but unconsciously manipulate by continually rehearsing their angry reveries for others to hear, wishing either to bring their hearers into their angry world or to intimidate by fear of what they might do in anger. And I am weak to all of these ploys. So I present the following study, which consists only of quotations from Scripture about human anger, its causes and antidote.

Changed treatment of each other, Conversation with others, Desire to have our own way, Divisions in the Church, Emotions, Forgive as we forgive, forgiveness and mercy, Forgiveness and Unforgiveness, Free will, God is Love, God's purpose for us, His Children, Human Rationality, Injustice and Lawsuits, Language and Speech, patience, Repentance, Restoration of God's Image, Restoration of our Relationships, Salvation, To be his ambassadors, To live in unity

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Recognized Leaders May Lapse into Incorrect Positions and Divisiveness

Ian Johnson May 27, 2021 2 Comments

“Heresy” cannot be determined by calling anything that goes in a different direction that specific leaders a heresy, because leaders are sometimes wrong. Peter is an example, though he repented when rebuked for his divisiveness in Antioch.

Denominationalism, Divisions in the Church, Ethnic Division, In the Church, Jew versus Gentile, Meaning of Unity, Personality cults

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About God, His Nature and Monotheism in the Earliest Christianity

Ian Johnson December 27, 2020 2 Comments

Though more detailed than previous indexes, this post is also an index to points later distorted that the New Testament–supplemented by other early writers–shows the earliest Church understood about God’s person. Further links will be added as new articles are written.

Church History, Islamic History and Secular History Interaction, Eternity, God is Love, God's Existence and Nature, God's Other Attributes, God's rationality, God's sovereignty, Immanence, Index, Meaning of Unity, Omnipresence, The Invisible God's Self-Existence, Topic Index, Transcendence, Trinity, Unity

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Mutual Submission is the Key

Ian Johnson November 8, 2020 2 Comments

Unity in the church arises, not from submission to a power structure, but from mutual submission to each other, seeking each other’s good above our own, in submission to Christ.

A God who Speaks, Desire to have our own way, God Speaks to Us, In the Church, Meaning of Unity, Our Oneness in Christ book revision, Reconciliation, Restoration of God's Image, Restoration of our Relationships, Through others, Through the church, To live in unity

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Leaving Our First Love to Fight Each Other as “Heretics”

Ian Johnson June 14, 2020 4 Comments

Christianity lost its true influence in the world when it pursued the power it could gain as a mass movement, stopped loving, and started fighting. One of the overlooked consequences of this was the rise of Islam.

Church purpose versus church growth, Divisions in the Church, Heresy, Islam and Christianity, Islam as a Consequence, Leaving Our First Love, Our Oneness in Christ book revision, Peril of Seeking Numbers, Peril of Seeking Power, Religious violence and persecution, Wars as consequences, What Islam borrowed from Christianity

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God’s Promises for the Church Together as One

Ian Johnson June 9, 2020 5 Comments

Many of God’s promises to us are given to the Church together, collectively. They become effective for us individually only as we are living in love, as a functioning part of the Body of Christ.

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We Are Called to Live Out the Truth of Our Oneness

Ian Johnson June 8, 2020 2 Comments

We are called to live out the unity of the Body of Christ. The Body is already one, but we have a role in making that oneness effective in the world.

In the Church, Meaning of Unity, Our Oneness in Christ book revision, Purpose of the Church, The universal Church and local churches, To live in unity, Unity

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Tag Archive: Love

You Are Not the One to Build, Part 6B: Spiritual Gifts: God Works through us for His Purpose

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You Are Not the One to Build, Part 5: God’s Callings for All of His Children and Friends

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Of Abiding, Growth and Fruitfulness

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Anger

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Recognized Leaders May Lapse into Incorrect Positions and Divisiveness

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About God, His Nature and Monotheism in the Earliest Christianity

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Mutual Submission is the Key

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Leaving Our First Love to Fight Each Other as “Heretics”

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God’s Promises for the Church Together as One

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We Are Called to Live Out the Truth of Our Oneness

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