10 Ways to Love

ACP

Sunday, March 20th, 2016

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

1 John 2:15 — King James Version

He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

1 John 4:8 — King James Version

It is my hope and prayer the following proves helpful to you. Below you’ll find many ways of TRUE love. Revealed through God’s living, active, inerrant Word. Below each bold heading will be the complete passage or verse pertaining to that particular heading, from the King James Version. If, at first reading these do not cover your heart in understanding, please pray the Spirit of God give you the discernment, the wisdom, the spiritual nourishment to live and grow needed to understand and eat of the living Word of God in these Biblical times.

Love is the best known but least understood of all God’s attributes. Almost everyone who believes in God these days sees Him as a God of love. I have even have agnostics contacting me who are quite certain that if God exists, He must be benevolent, compassionate, and loving.

All those things are infinitely true about God, of course, but not in the way most people think. Because of the influence of modern liberal theology, the perpetual liberal erosion and permissiveness of our entire society, many suppose that God’s love and goodness ultimately nullify His righteousness, justice, and holy wrath. They envision God as a benign heavenly grandfather-tolerant, affable, lenient, permissive, devoid of any real displeasure over sin, who without consideration of His holiness will benignly pass over sin and accept people as they are. When these people are given the Gospel truth, the truth within God’s inerrant Word they often reply with, “That’s not the God I believe in, my God is a forgiving God of love.”

They fall far short and do not understand judgment, God’s justice, God’s righteousness, God’s ultimate wrath met out upon unrepentant sinners, unbelievers, and evil and their subsequent placing in hell for eternal damnation, with the saved, those who believe upon His son and live godly lives, turning to God and Jesus in truth, in faith, in hope and turning from this world receiving if we have fought the good fight eternity in heaven with our Lord — is THEE ULTIMATE EXPRESSION OF LOVE!

Judgment, justice, discipline, consequences for actions — accountability used to always be a part of real love. These attributes of real love have been banished and removed from our society over the past 60 or so years, and thus as the church has eroded and turned into an apostate body ignoring the Head, and attempting to tell the Head instead of the body listening to and obeying the Head! People do not know what real love is these days. Even in the Church.

Liberal thinking about God’s love also permeates much of evangelicalism today. We have lost the reality of God’s wrath. We have disregarded His hatred for sin. The God most evangelicals now describe is all-loving and not at all angry. We have forgotten that “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). We do not believe in that kind of God anymore.

We must recapture some of the holy terror that comes with a right understanding of God’s righteous anger. We need to remember that God’s wrath does burn against impenitent sinners (Psalm 38:1-3). That reality is the very thing that makes His love so amazing. Only those who see themselves as sinners in the hands of an angry God can fully appreciate the magnitude and wonder of His love.

In that regard, our generation is surely at a greater disadvantage than any previous age. We have been force-fed the doctrines of self-esteem for so long that most people don’t really view themselves as sinners worthy of divine wrath. On top of that, religious liberalism, humanism, evangelical compromise, and ignorance of the Scriptures have all worked against a right understanding of who God is. Ironically, in an age that conceives of God as wholly loving, altogether devoid of wrath, few people really understand what God’s love is all about.

Thank you,

Ken Pullen

1.) Listen without interrupting — Proverbs 18

1Through desire a man, having separated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom.

2A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself.

3When the wicked cometh, then cometh also contempt, and with ignominy reproach.

4The words of a man’s mouth are as deep waters, and the wellspring of wisdom as a flowing brook.

5It is not good to accept the person of the wicked, to overthrow the righteous in judgment.

6A fool’s lips enter into contention, and his mouth calleth for strokes.

7A fool’s mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul.

8The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly.

9He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster.

10The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.

11The rich man’s wealth is his strong city, and as an high wall in his own conceit.

12Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before honour is humility.

13He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.

14The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?

15The heart of the prudent getteth knowledge; and the ear of the wise seeketh knowledge.

16A man’s gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men.

17He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him.

18The lot causeth contentions to cease, and parteth between the mighty.

19A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and their contentions are like the bars of a castle.

20A man’s belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth; and with the increase of his lips shall he be filled.

21Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

22Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD.

23The poor useth intreaties; but the rich answereth roughly.

24A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.

2.) Speak without accusing — James 1:19

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath:

3.) Give without sparing — Proverbs 21:26

He coveteth greedily all the day long: but the righteous giveth and spareth not.

4.) Pray without ceasing — Colossians 1:9

For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;

5.) Answer without arguing — Proverbs 17:1

Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than an house full of sacrifices with strife.

6.) Share without pretending — Ephesians 4:15

But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:

7.) Enjoy without complaint — Philippians 2:14

Do all things without murmurings and disputings:

8.) Trust without wavering — 1 Corinthians 13:7

Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

9.) Forgive without punishing — Colossians 3:13

Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.

10.) Promise without forgetting — Proverbs 13:12

Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.