Love

Well, love certainly means not letting people continue in their sin without confrontation. Love certainly means not letting people continue in false doctrine. In fact, in prep for tomorrow morning's special year end sermon, I am preaching from Rom 16, including the part about false doctrine (vv. 17-18). Paul makes it clear that they are slaves of their own appetites, rather than slaves of Christ. At the heart of that is love. They love their own appetites, their own mind, rather than God. It would be very unloving to let them continue in that without confrontation.

But I don't know what you are talking about. We can certainly disagree lovingly (and unlovingly). Some discussions are pretty heated but at the end of the day, they are discussions. No one is losing life or limb over it.

So yes, love should permeat everything we do. No, we should not confuse love with acceptance or lack of differentiation.

 

Love is wanting the best. If I love someone I will want the best for that person. I will put them ahead of myself. That may mean it might be better for someone else to confront the person because the person may respond better to another person. It may mean that I confornt them.

When we look at how much God loves us that ought to penetrate our hearts in such a way that we love others incredibly more because of Christ's example.

Love ought to be at the top of the list of evrything we do. Does that mean we will never have conflict? No. Just look at Paul and Mark.

 

Do we as Christians really put the needs of others before ourselves because we love them in Christ?

 

Finished building my family a home recently. Put about everything I had in it to get it finished. Then worked long hours to complete a cabinet job (honorable profession huh) so I could buy some gifts. I had very little to spend on my family, but still managed to give my neighbors a good percentage of what I had because the three boys father had left and mother doesn't work. I recieved not one material gift this year.

But, the smiles on the three boys faces, and my kids unselfish attitude, wife's joy of the little things I got her. So I guess I recieved the best gift of all, Love.

I think that the blessing of walking God's way speaks for itself.

As for the conflict, a good tool Eph 4:26-29