Tag Archive: Love

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

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.

Of Abiding, Growth and Fruitfulness

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.

Anger

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.

Recognized Leaders May Lapse into Incorrect Positions and Divisiveness

“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.

About God, His Nature and Monotheism in the Earliest Christianity

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.

Mutual Submission is the Key

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.

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

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.

God’s Promises for the Church Together as One

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.

We Are Called to Live Out the Truth of Our Oneness

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.

Is God Waiting to See our Oneness before Jesus Returns?

This post will draw no conclusions, but will simply briefly raise a question: is the Church acting in oneness one of the conditions that must be met before the Lord returns?             This question arises from two independent lines of scriptures. First, in Matthew 24:14 (NASB), Jesus stated that “this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole…
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