An opinion from an outsider

I just now received this letter by email, and thought it could fit into any of several current threads - about God's love. Since I couldn't decide where to post it, I thought I'd let it stand on its own. It is written by someone who is no longer in the church, and whom I thought was no longer interested in the things of God. I was surprised to read this: I remember a lot of lip service in church about God's love, but when I look back at it now, I can see that a lot of christians behave as if they don't believe in it at all. No wonder I was so confused when I was little. The more I get to know God personally, the more He tells me that His love is the single most important thing about Him. It's why we're here. People act as if they have to deserve His love (as if they could), or as if they thought for a minute that God could possibly love them, society would fall apart and people would be murdering each other and whatnot, because they won't be afraid of punishment anymore. But it's not the people who feel truly loved by God who are murdering people and stealing and doing drugs. If you feel loved by God, you want to spread that love to everyone you see. One of the major places churches fall down is the failure to understand that focusing on fear of punishment actually makes people MORE likely to do the things they abhor, not less. It's like a "parable" I remember from church, way back when I was little, about trying to walk in a straight line in the snow. The first person tried to walk in a straight line by watching his feet carefully, but it turned out all crooked. There was probably another person in the middle who did something else likewise crooked. Then the "hero" of the story set out, looking at a tree or something, never taking his eyes off his goal, and made a perfectly straight line of footsteps in the snow. You can't walk straight if you're worried about your feet, and you will walk straight towards whatever you're focusing on. It's good to read the whole bible, and think about everything, but if you ever look at it without remembering God's love, you'll get all confused and interpret it the wrong way.What do you think about these words, written by a 26 year old? Diane

This reminds me that I need to read 1 Corinthians 13. Even if I have everything in the world, and not love, I am nothing.We all need to pray that we will look to christ and not mans works, so that we can be a witness to the world, I think sometimes we act too much like the world. I feel if we had this, we would definitely look more similar to the apostles in the book of acts.I hope we all learn something from this letter.thank you Diane for sharing with us.bless you

DianeIt contains a lot of insight and speaks to me. It easy to be distracted by the minor details of the law. I think I'm often busy tithing mint, or perhaps just busy.Mat 22:37-40 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.The author is an outsider to dry religion perhaps, but not God's Kingdom.PassingThru

This would call for a discussion of what God's love really is- and what it isn't.There is a lot that we can learn from this letter. But at the same time, it needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Now, she's right- not many christians do live like they believe what they preach. But at the same time, love is often different than what people might outrightly think of it as. Here's an example:A wiser man than me once said that "Of all the things love is, love is not tolerant." I think it was in response to an unbeliever's anger that this person would warn them of their deserving Hell. How could a person do such a mean thing as tell a person that they deserve Hell? Because of Love. They gave the example of a father who had a son on drugs. Would the father who loves his son just sit back and watch his son destroy himself? No! He would warn, teach, and discipline his son. 'Thing is, that son might not see the love right then. Someday he would, but not right then.We have this same dilemma when we take lessons from those who don't know Christ. That really is a very interesting letter, and with much of it I'm not sure what to think. There is no excuse for why much of the christians out there act the way they do, except that in some way, we're each the man who looks in the mirror, and immediately forgets what he looks like. Maybe many of us really don't believe what God says... Maybe a good lesson in the making...

But at the same time, love is often different than what people might outrightly think of it as.This couldn't be more true. Yet, from the context of this letter, I suspect that she has a real understanding of love. Do you notice what she sees love doing - making godly people? When we really don't know God's love, we can't proclaim it. We can't trust it. That, I suspect is why the church to a large extent views love as an impotent sentement. And so they taint love by "propping it up" with laws - laws that spring forth from their own legal mindset. Really they end up killing love in the process. Jesus was vehemently opposed to this. Yet it still happens today all the time - and turns off so many people from God. Yet we insist on calling that true love.Did you notice that the only people Jesus gave warnings of judgment to where the religious "upright", not the sinners on the outside. Diane