Posted on 07/12/2020 5:39:35 AM PDT by metmom
"This precious value, then, is for you who believe" (1 Pet. 2:7).
Love for Christ is the primary characteristic of a true believer.
First Peter 2:7 speaks of the believer's affection for Christ as contrasted to an unbeliever's rejection of Him. The first part of that verse could be translated, "To you who believe, He is precious." "Precious" means "valuable," "costly," "without equal," or "irreplaceable." Christ is all that, but only believers recognize His supreme value and regard Him with affection.
Affection for Christ is the bottom-line characteristic of true believers. Believing in Him and loving Him are inseparable. In John 16:27 Jesus says, "The Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed." In Matthew 10:37 He says, "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me." Believers have a compelling and surpassing love for Christ.
To His antagonists Jesus declared, "If God were your Father, you would love Me" (John 8:42). Anyone who truly loves God will love Christ. Those antagonists claimed to be children of God, but their deception was revealed when they tried to kill Jesus for preaching God's truth. They were in fact children of the devil (v. 44).
In John 14 Jesus adds, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. . . . He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him. . . . If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words" (vv. 15, 21, 23- 24).
Many people are confused about what it means to be a Christian. But you have the privilege of clarifying the issue as you esteem Christ highly, love Him deeply, and demonstrate your love by obeying His Word. May God bless you richly as you pursue that goal today.
Suggestions for Prayer
Ask God to give you opportunities to demonstrate Christ's love in specific ways to those around you.
For Further Study
Read 1 John 4:7-5:3.
How did John characterize God? What affect should your love for God have on your relationships with others? How did John define love?
LOL!!!
Jesus told us to pray for our enemies, especially those against the Catholic faith.
You cannot back that up with The Word of God unless you play a liar’s game of transposition and conflation, as if The Catholic Church is the Whole Body of Believers known as the Body of Christ. PROVE your cultish assertion that Jesus told The Catholic ORG anything! Your Org did not begin to exist until Constantine.
-your religion teaches and believe you can eat the body and blood and divinity and get God into your flesh;
-your cult worships a female known to all as the Mother of Jesus, calling her the 'mother of God' and praying to her statues for aid and deliverance, believing she can save your soul (one of the list of titles given to this statuary is 'co-redemtrix, or co-mediatrix;
-your religion began teaching the false doctrine of purgatory with pope innocent, teaching poor souls that Jesus did not destroy ALL the sins of the world on His Cross so your adherents must go through a soulish (that's the flesh) cleansing in a mythical purgatory
-your religion (that 'other religion' Paul referred to as anathema) teaches that an infant baptized by one of your priesthood become a saved person, but like a yo=yo religion that same baby can lose and regain salvation as they age and submit to your ORG (rhymes with Borg, appropriately);
-your religion denies that a human before the age of knowing right and wrong is destined for Hell unless they are baptized by one of your empowerment crazed priests (Jesus indicated that those little ones are in His heart and with Him should they die before the age of accountability)'
-your cult religion has asserted that one can buy their way our of time in the mythical purgatory; as if your ORG can buy and sell sanctification)'
-your religious ORG has made alterations to the Word of God rendering passages to have opposite meaning to the Greek and Hebrew texts (I will cite examples for you if you are ignorant of them, starting in Genesis and 'she will bruise your -satan's- heel);
-your cult has taken demonic visitiations with visual displays as 'the mother of god' commanding the rosary, etc (see the great lie of Fatima Portugal, where even a UFO silver disc was photographed in the sky over the crowd gathered who witnessed it and even wrote of it but have had their eye witness testimonies hidden away from public view);
-your pagan cult religion murdered thousands during its brutal campaign to murder all opposed to Rome and torture people into vowing fealty to Rome, as if your bloody murderers were god's handymen rather than the demonically directed fiends for satan's empowerment;
ADSUM you are a false mouthpiece, ignorant of what born again in the spirit means and pushing the Nicolaitan brand of 'work work work, follow perfectly the sacramental trail ushered by your dead soul priesthood, to obtain eternal life'. The Lord Rebuke you, Romanish cultist.
I gave it up for lent. 😁 But bro, even as a Catholic, I was embarrassed by some of the Catholic doctrines. The one that embarrassed me most, was the concept of holy water. It was fake news. 🥳🤗
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