Tuesday, June 29, 2010

This is His Commandment

And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
1 John 4:21 ESV

Monday, June 28, 2010

If You Don't Love Your Brother...

If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
1 John 4:20

Friday, June 25, 2010

How To Not Win An Arguement

Dear Pastor Lawyer,
I noticed on a recent Good Reads review of yours that you don’t like it when people criticize other's ideas through the lenses of the other's teachers or heroes. How should we approach others when we want to discuss their ideas?
Interested


Dear Interested,
                Before I address the main point of your question, let me remind you of several important things you need to remember as you prepare and as you comport yourself in the battle. First, you need to remember that you exist to bring honor and glory to God. You are not in this discussion to win an argument, but to represent Christ, to incarnate Christ to the person you are arguing (in the technical sense) with. The real goal is to make Christ look good so that God will receive any glory that comes out of the conversation.

We Do Not Define What Love Is

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
1 John 4:10-11 ESV

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Is Evolution Really Science?

"Clinical observations," like all other observations, are interpretations in the light of theories; and for this reason alone they are apt to seem to support those theories in the light of which they were interpreted. But real support can be obtained only from observations undertaken as tests (by "attempted refutations"); and for this purpose criteria of refutation have to be laid down beforehand; it must be agreed which observable situations, if actually observed, mean that the theory is refuted.
Carl Popper, "Science as Falsification"

No Love ≠ Know God

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1 John 4:8 ESV

Friday, June 18, 2010

Trying To Be Somebody

Hey Dr. Lawyer,
I hope all is well.  What would you say is the biggest controversy with the FV?

Matthew

Hi Matthew,

I think the biggest controversy of the FV thing is a lack of Christian love being shown by those who think they know something, but who have never gotten it from the beginning. I don't really see the men who were first accused of FV theology writing anything lately, but I do see them being attacked without any real evidence and with strong vitriol.


Beloved, Let Us Love One Another

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
1 John 4:7 ESV

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

By This We Know

And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.
1 John 3:23-24 ESV

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Truly Love

But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
1 John 3:17-18 ESV

Unity in Action

The Lord’s Supper is one of those events that puts into practice the things we have been talking about here this morning. The Bible says that when we eat this meal together we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes (1 Co. 11:26). But we are saying much more than that Jesus died. We are also saying that he died for us. We are proclaiming that his death paid the price for all our sins. Jesus’ death took our punishment and his resurrection gave us life. We live because he lives.

He Has Touched Your Lips

And he touched my mouth with it, and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; Your iniquity is taken away, And your sin purged” (Isaiah 6:7).
            The Bible says there is great joy among the angels of God when one sinner repents. You have confessed and repented from your sin, and I like to join with angels and so it gives me great joy to confirm for you that your iniquity is taken away, your sin is purged and your sins are forgiven through Christ.
Congregation: Thanks be to God

Forgive the Drift

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Father of glory and light. We come to you as people who live in land which has been blessed in incredible ways. We are the first truly Christian nation, founded on Christian principles and lead be Christian men. But over the years we have seen the world, out there, and have envied what we’ve seen in what we think they have. We have left our first love as a nation. We have elected officials and leaders who do not love you and consequently don’t love us either.
Father forgive us for our drift from godly judgment, for our sin of forgetting how we got here and more importantly who got us here.  Please transform our hearts and make our nation, once again, a nation of priests and kings. Then, please give us leaders who will honor you and work hard to glorify you in all that they do and say. Please transform us into a people set on a hill so that the other nations will want what we have. They will want you. And then give yourself to them and make them like Jesus too.
We offer up our private confessions now… In the great name of Jesus we pray, Amen.

The Danger of Drifting Away

The author to the letter to the Hebrews warns his readers that they should pay special attention to the things they know about God and his salvation, lest they drift away and be lost (2:1). After a pretty impressive list of things the Ephesians are doing well and right, the author to the book of Revelation warns them that they have abandoned their first love and are in danger of being lost forever (2:4). In the book of Judges, we find a pattern played out over and over again: God was with his people, but they, in their comfort, forgot where that comfort came from and they drifted away from their relationship with God.

He Will Fulfill His Purpose For Us

We will praise you, O LORD, with all our heart; before the "gods" we will sing your praise.

As your holy temple we will bow down and will praise your name for your love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word.

When we called, you answered us; you make us bold and stouthearted.

May all the kings of the earth praise you, O LORD, when they hear the words of your mouth.

May they sing of the ways of the LORD, for you glory O LORD is great.

Though you are on high, you look upon the lowly, but the proud you know from afar.

Though we walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve our life; you stretch out your hand against the anger of our foes, with your right hand you save us.

The LORD will fulfill his purpose for us; your love, O LORD, endures forever—You will not abandon the works of your hands.

And so, Father of Love, of Joy, of Holiness, we come to you now in the great name of our Lord and redeemer Jesus Christ, and in the Power of your Holy Spirit. And Amen!

Monday, June 14, 2010

Got Love?

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
1 John 3:16 ESV

Friday, June 11, 2010

Assurance of Salvation

We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.
1 John 3:14 ESV

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

One of the Oldest Commands

For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
1 John 3:11 ESV