The power of love and boldness

What is love? How do we know when we find it? Most spend their whole lives searching for meaning, longing for answers, hungering to fill the void of their soul. Friendships and romance are often seen as the rescue to the emptiness inside. "Live for yourself! Live for no one! Judge no one! You have no one to please!" These thoughts and actions end in despair, because the people who entertain them and follow them through to their actions soon learn that they can only keep themselves entertained with the debauchery for lustful pleasures of the self for so long. At some point, they must lie down to sleep, and then they realize how truly alone they are. Perhaps their romance of the night lie there as well, but inside, they are alone. The pleasures of that night at an end. The lusts of the flesh lead to no where. They are the path to destruction, yet they are too stubborn to admit that they are in need of something more powerful and more fulfilling than one night stands and drunken escapades. Because most were raised to care only for themselves, they are unable to understand true love when they stumble across its path. They think love revolves around pleasing them. They desire complete subservience to their needs; perhaps this is why 50% of all marriages end in divorce. No one understand the true meaning of love.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast. It is not proud, it is not rude. It is not self seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrong. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. Love never fails.

With a definition like this, many will never find true love in lustful, selfish humans. This definition requires complete and utter selflessness. Oh that we should find such people in our world today. It seems these people are few and far between. Not simply in the world, but within churches as well. The very place that selflessness should be at its height - among the body of believers and followings - it barely exists. Churches become like high schools with back-biting, gossip, hatred, pride, lies, deceit, and even fornication. God help us all! If the Church cannot contain itself and its selfish lusts, how can it expect the world to? No! We as a Church, as the body of Jesus Christ, should stand together in faith, hope, and love. We should walk in the true meaning of it! We should not be imitating the world! For what gain is there in this? They will never understand the gospel if we do not set ourselves apart. The Bible commands the Christians to doers of the Word! The word teaches strictly against the sins of drunkenness, of sexual promiscuity and homosexuality, of lying, of gossip, of keeping bad company. The Word even describes the consequences of such actions! Yet in Churches toady, we welcome these people and allow them to live their perverted ways - all the while saying that they are OK the way they are! How dare we! How dare we condemn them! By allowing them to continue with their sins and not correcting them, we allow them to continue down a life of destruction. When you appease their flesh, you attempt to free yourself of the task we were called to give! Tell them the GOOD NEWS of Jesus! And His love for them! But also tell them what Jesus told the adulteress... "sin no more." Jesus commanded her to STOP her lifestyle! And yet we have the nerve to tell them that they are under grace and can continue whatever they want! Blasphemy! Who gave these people the right to judge the persons acts as pleasing to the Lord when the Bible specifically speaks against them! It is not love! it is a love of themselves! People today care more for their own desire to be liked that they would reduce the Gospel to something so minuscule and powerless. This is NOT the love of God!

True love is helping each other. Loving the other person more than yourself! When you feel pressure and are afraid that the people might dislike you after you speak the truth to them, remember that Jesus said that persecution would come, but that is no reason to refrain from carrying out with all BOLDNESS the work that needs to be done! To the deepest depths of Hell, the lies of subtly must be thrown! In Acts, the apostles prayed that the Lord would grant them all BOLDNESS to declare His word! It was through their boldness that people came to Jesus - NOT though this lie of subtly! I see no where in the Bible where the Apostles or Jesus were subtle! They spoke the truth boldly and with power and conviction! So why should we be? We hold the same calling, and our world today needs Jesus more than ever before!

The point of this entire rant? When you love someone, you will want what is best for them and not for yourself. Forget all the approaches that were brought into the church out of the desire to be accepted. We were not called to be accepted or even liked. We are to be in the world but not OF the world! (Yes, there IS a difference). We were called for the reason. WHat some call the great commission. And we are to do it through LOVE! So God bless the feet of those who bring the good news to the nations! We give thanks for them! We give thanks for their loving hearts, which love their neighbor more than themselves. They rose to standards and are refusing to live beneath them! I challenge you and myself as followers of Jesus (the One and ONLY way!) to rise to the mark that is set before us! Let us run the race together. That when we meet our Savior, He will smile and look at us and say "Well done!"
Amen.