This is the second part of Where Is the Love? Today we are going to journey a bit further through the Scriptures to see what God has to say about the word called”LOVE”. While we are looking at the Scriptures, let us have an open heart to receive what God has to say to us today.
Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, Thank You for Your Word. Thank You for giving us another day to praise You, and worship You by studying Your Word. Thank You for every blessing that You give to us each day, it is a blessing that Your mercies are new every morning. Thank You for giving us our lives, our health, and our strength to make it through each day. We would not be here if it were not for You, Heavenly Father. May Your name be lifted on high forever more, Amen.
To start our lesson, let us look at Ecclesiastes 3:8-A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.We should love at all times, no matter what. Love from the Father is the most important kind of love there is in the world. Yes, we love those that we are married to,and we love our families. We are a part of God’s family, and that is love that will never change; it will always be the same today, yesterday, and forever. We are never to hate people, because God loves everyone; He created us to love, not to hate. To hate is not God’s nature, but He does hate evil, and sin, and wickedness. We are to love the things that God loves, which is righteousness and truth, and hate what He hates, such as sin, evil, and wickedness, and anything that is not right in His eyes. War has always been since the beginning of time; it is all through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. It talks about wars, and rumors of wars before the end comes. There will be a battle against good and evil. There will be Scripture coming later on those subjects. Peace is something that our world does not have. The times that we are living in today has caused more drama than a little bit. Can we even find peace during these trying times that we face from day to day? Can we wake up feeling peace in our heart, mind, and soul? We are facing something that we never thought we would have to face, but where is the peace that we once had?
We can find peace in Jesus Christ. He gives us peace even in this storm that we are having to face. He gives us peace that we may rest knowing that everything will be alright. We may not be able to see it, but His peace can be felt in our heart. He gives us peace to make it from day to day. We know that He holds everything in His hands; He keeps us all held together so that we will not let this thing overtake us. Yes, it is hard to see the positivity in the circumstances that we are in right now, but things are starting to turn around little by little. As long as we do not lose faith during this trying time that we are facing, the enemy will not win! As long as we keep on praying, that shows God that we trust in HIM, and have faith enough to know that He will work this all out. When we seek God, we find Jesus, and we find the peace we need to sustain every day because He is our eternal peace.
Let us look a Amos 5:15-Hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgement in the gate: it may be that the Lord God of hosts will be gracious unto the rememberant of Joseph. As the Scripture states, we should hate the evil, and love the good, and establish judgement at the gate. I cannot make it any plainer, hate what God hates, love what God loves. It is not hard to do, but we are human beings, and there are those that are just the opposite of what the Scripture says. Some just love evil and doing evil things. What does that profit them? Where does it lead them in eternity? Evil leads people to hell and death, or behind bars for the rest of their lives; it is not wise to love evil and hate good. Doing good will always have a good reward, and some are remembered by the good things that they have done; it is never forgotten. God rewards the righteous. God always remembers the good things that we do concerning the building of His Kingdom; everything that we do should be for the building of God’s Kingdom, and that is sharing our faith and bringing people to Jesus Christ. God remembered Joseph when He was in prison, and eventhough Joseph was in prison, God still gave him favor. Joseph was good to the others, and he was promoted eventhough he was in prison. It does not matter where we are in our lives, God see everything that we do; that is why it is important to do good at all times.
establish judgement in the gate – Bing I wanted to have a clear understanding of what that part of the Scripture was saying to us, so I looked it up on Bing to find out. Click on the line and it will take you straight to the meaning of the Scripture.
Let us take a look at Zechariah 8:17-And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbor; and love no false oath: for all these are things I hate, saith the Lord. We are never to imagine evil in our hearts against his neighbor; and love no false oath. God tells us this beause these are the things that He hates. Our neighbors are everyone, it does not matter how far they are from us, or how near they are to us; we are all neighbors. This makes me think about the story of the good samaritan that helped the man that was beaten and left for dead on the road when the traveler saw him and helped him, as to where everyone else walked on by. Jesus is like that, He helps everyone. He may not come when we call Him, but He is always on time. There may have been times when you have heard a person say the words”on oath”love no false oath – Bing, we are not to believe it or love it God hates that, the only words we are to love is the Words of God that He speaks to us through His Word, and what HE speaks to our spirit. What God tells us will always be true from everlasting to everlasting.
This next Scripture is a very hard Scripture to understand and do. Jesus tells us to do something that He knows we will not be able to do in our own strength. We can only do it by fasting and praying for God to help us to do this great thing; because we are HIS children, we must do it at all costs.
Let us take an adventure into the Scripture of Matthew 5:44-But I say unto you, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully persecute you; When I look at this Scripture, in my mind, it takes me back to my younger years when people would say mean and hateful things to me, and other things along that line. I never retaliated for a long time. I have always been the type of person that was quiet unless someone said something to me. People can be cruel and vicious. Jesus wants us to love our enemies, but why? When we follow Jesus we must love everyone, even the unloveable. We must pray for them; as a matter of fact, we must love all people. When there is someone that just continue to do you wrong, curse you, and do all manner of evil against you, we still have to love them and pray for them; why? Because we are God’s children and that is the Christian thing to do, and not only that , it is written in the Word of God.
I know all about persecution. When someone persecutes you, it does not feel good; it hurts. When someone curses you, it does not feel good. When someone hates you, it does not feel good. When we pray for those kind of people that does these things to us, we are putting them in the hands of Jesus. We are to let Him deal with them, why? Because He can do more than we can. He can change that person to not be that way towards others. He can give them a new heart, and a new way of thinking, and new eyes as to how to look upon others with a kind heart. Because we belong to God, we are going to face persecution. Not everyone believe in Jesus, so they will say and do anything to offend us and hurt us because of Him. When people act like that, they are lost souls that are in need of a Savior, and that Savior is Jesus Christ, the one that takes away the sins of the world.
Let us look at Matthew 6:24-No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. We cannot serve God and money.mammon – Bing
Nothing belongs to us. Everything belongs to God. We are to love nothing more than we love Him. We are not to make idols out of anything. We are to love God, worship and praise Him only; not things or other people, not wealth and riches. We came in world with nothing, and we cannot take nothing out of the world when we leave here. We cannot serve two masters. We need to choose this day whom we will serve while it is still called today.
In this next Scripture, Jesus once again is telling us how to treat our neighbor.
Matthew 22:39-And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. When we pray for our neighbor, we are showing God that we care about our neighbor, we love them. When we check on them, we are showing them that we care for them. We are the hands and feet of Jesus while we are here on this earth. We are to be caring to all people, loving , and compassionate. We treat people how we want to be treated, because we never know when we just may need our neighbor to help us. As I stated before, everyone is our neighbor; not just those that live around us, but all people. Jesus loves everyone,and so should we. We are all family in His eyes. He created us all. We all belong to Him.
love thy neighbor scripture – Bing love thy neighbor scripture kjv – Bing I thought it would be a good idea to look up the Scripture so that we can see other verses on this subject.
Luke 6:27-But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you. This is a very important subject to Jesus, because He has told us this again through Luke. We must love others, even our enemies, and we are to do good to them which hate us. How can we say that we love God who we cannot see, and hate our brother that we see everyday? When we do that, that makes us liers and the truth is not in us. God is love, so therefore we are to love as well. We have free will, but love is important. How can we live our lives without love in our hearts for others? When we love others, and treat people good that hate us, we are showing them the love of Christ, and we are showing them that no matter how they feel about us we are going to love them anyway. The love of Jesus Christ outweighs everything, and that includes hate.
Let us see what true LOVE really does. John 3:16-For God so loved the world,that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. “For God so loved”, let us think about that for a moment. When we think about real love, what do we think about? How do we feel? Well, When I think about love, I think about God sending His only Son into this world to die for my sins. I think about how He took the nails just for me. I think about how He took the punishment that I deserved for my sins. I think about how on the third day He rose just for me. I cannot speak for everyone, but I can speak about how I feel,and what I think when I think about love. God loved this whole world. He loved us all so much that he did not want any of us to perish in the end, so He sent His Son to take our place; to become sin for us, the ultimate sacrifice once and for all. We will have everlasting life when we believe in Jesus,and trust in God. Love laid down His life for us. Love opened blind eyes for those that could not see, love made the lame walk, love calmed the raging sea, love fed the multitude twice, love walked on water to save us in the middle of a storm, love was tempted forty days in the wilderness by the devil, love is our mediator, love stands for us when we call His name, love dries our tears, love gives us beauty for ashes, love picks us up when we fall down, and love remembers our sins no more. If we did not have real love we would perish in our sins. https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=gRKwHSAMZTQ&feature=sharehttps://music.youtube.com/watch?v=gRKwHSAMZTQ&feature=share
Let us look at John 13:35-By this shall men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. Jesus is telling us that if we do not have love one to another we are not His disciples. We must have love one to another so that men will know that we are disciples of Jesus.
This Scripture is the most important. It talks about Greater Love. Who is our greater love? What is greater love? John 15:13- Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for His friends. Jesus is our greater love. He is love. He lad down His life for us, no one took it from HIM. He could have called on a leigon of angels if He wanted to, and they would have took Him right down from the cross. Love kept Him there, not the nails. He suffered for us so we could be free, so we would not have to be separated from Him for all eternity. We are no longer enemies of God because of what Jesus did for us. We have a friend that came from heaven and died for us, if that is not greater love, then I just don’t know what is. His love will stand the test of time forever. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. We have sixty-six books that talks about the love He has for us,and what He did for us. How can we not want to open our love letter and read about the Greatest Love since before the beginning of time? I know it can be hard sometimes because life gets in the way with all of the distractions going on around us, but that is where we set aside time to do that. We need to spend more time with the One that set us free from sin. Jesus wants to have a relationship with us, not just a part-time relationship when we need or want something from Him. He wants to spend time with us on a daily basis. He loves us very much.
This ends part two of Where Is the Love. Part Three is on the way, also stay tuned to see where God is going to take us through this series on that four letter word called LOVE.
Food for the Soul 
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