Search Results: love your nieghbor
The Law of Love
Category: General
Tags: God is Love, Living in Love, Love One Another, Rule of Love
…heart. “God is love” (1 John 4:16). And as Peter instructed: “Above all, maintain constant love for one another” (1 Peter 4:8). God calls us to fill every aspect of our life with love, for love ultimately defines every aspect of God’s life. —Adapted from Repenting of Religion, pages 53-57….
What God Requires
Category: General
Tags: Love, Obedience
Topics: Following Jesus
…everything God requires of us. It is virtually impossible to obey this commandment consistently and not fulfill the entire law. This is why Scripture consistently emphasizes that the singular aim of the disciple must be to love. Paul said, “Above all, clothe yourself with love” (Col 3:14). Christ-like love is…
Why God Made You
Category: General
Tags: Love, Trinity
The life God has for each one of us is a life of perfect love, one that eternally unites us with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is why God made us. It’s what we long for, to love and be loved. However, things like the love of the…
How do you respond to Romans 9?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Free Will, Open Theism, Predestination, Q&A, Responding to Calvinism
Topics: Providence, Predestination and Free Will, Responding to Objections
Verse: Romans 9
…witness confirms, that God’s love is universal, his love is impartial, his love is kind, and his love desires all to be saved (e.g. I Jn 4:8; Duet 10:17-19; 2 Chron 19:7; Ezek 18:25; Mk 12:14; Jn 3:16; Acts 10:34; Rom. 2:10-11; Eph 6:9; I Tim 2:4; I Pet 1:17;…
The Greatest Mystery of the Christian Faith
Category: General
Tags: Cross, Cruciform Theology, Incarnation, Love, Self-Sacrificial Love, Trinity
…the very being of the eternal God, that is, in the eternal being of the Holy Trinity.” This, I contend, is the meaning of the revelation that God is love—the kind of love that is revealed when God stoops to the infinite extreme of becoming a human and dying on…
The Distinctive Mark of Jesus Followers
Category: General
Tags: Enemy Love, Jesus, Kingdom Living, Love, Love Your Enemies, Myth of a Christian Religion, Non-Violence
Topics: Following Jesus
Image by Rob Hayes via Fickr Jesus’ teaching to love our enemies was understandably shocking to his original audience—just as it is to us today. Jesus expected much, which is why, after telling his audience to love their enemies he added that if we only love those who love us…
What Kind of God Did Jesus Reveal?
Category: Essays
Tags: Cruciform Theology, Essay, God, Incarnation, Jesus, Love, Power
Topics: Atonement and The Cross
…as absolute power, complete knowledge, or pervasive presence. He is rather defined as “love”—the kind of self-sacrificial love that was displayed on Calvary (I Jn 3:16). In the words of Deitrich Bonhoeffer, “Love…is the revelation of God. And the revelation of God is Jesus Christ.”[1] So too, on the basis…
Quotes to Chew On: Are we growing in our capacity to love all people?
Category: General
“John sums up the matter bluntly. “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers and sisters, are liars” (1 John 4:20). To truly love God includes loving others with the same love God has for us and the same love God has for them. This is part of…
The Lego Movie & Free Will
Category: General
Tags: Determinism, Free Will, Love, Predestination
…triune love. Love has to be chosen, and this means that love is inherently risky. Reason, intuition, and certainly experience tell us this is true. Consider this example: suppose you possess the technological knowledge to program a computer chip and secretly implanted it in your spous’s brain while he or…
A Cross-Like Church
Category: General
Tags: Church, Evangelism, Love
Topics: Following Jesus
When God’s church loves like God loves—which means valuing the other at cost to self—it will puzzle those outside the church. While such love might cause the religious to rail with outrage, it will cause the searching and the hungry to ask, “how can people love like this?” In God’s…
God is Not What You Expect
Category: General
Tags: Attributes of God, Character of God, God is Love, Jesus
…of eternal perfect love between three distinct Persons. God is all holy, but his holiness is his utterly unique love that leads him to become sin on our behalf (2 Cor. 5:21). God is righteous, but his righteousness is the justice of his love that leads him to become a…
Are You Fully Alive? Here’s the Key
Category: General
Tags: Benefit of the Doubt, Cruciform Theology, Fully Human, Life to the Full, Love, Love of God, Trinity
…loves us with the very same love he has for his own eternal Son (Jn 17:26). We are not going too far if we conclude that God loves us with the same love he has for himself as Father, Son and Spirit. The God whose love led him to go…
The Cross as a Trinitarian Event
Category: General
Tags: Cross, Cruciform Theology, Jürgen Moltmann, Trinity
Topics: Attributes and Character, Trinity
…impossible conclusion is avoided if we simply remember that all three Persons of the Trinity entered into this suffering out of the perfect love they have for humanity, which is reflective of the perfect love they eternally share with one another. Hence, while the experience of love between the Father…
Is Having the “Right” Theology the Core of Christianity?
Category: General
Tags: Calvinism, Love, Non-Violence, Repenting of Religion, Violence
…ascribes unsurpassable worth. We love those whom God loves, and we love them the way God loves them. And, God ascribes unsurpassable worth to everyone, as is evidenced by the fact that Jesus died for everyone (2 Cor 5:14; 1 Jn 2:2). We thus manifest our love for God by…
The Trinity and the Crucified God
Category: General
Tags: Character of God, Cruciform Theology, Love, Nature of God, Trinity
Topics: Attributes and Character, Trinity
…triune God eternally is. This is the meaning of the revelation that God is love—the kind of love that is revealed when God stoops to the infinite extreme of becoming a human and dying on a cross for a race of people who could not deserve it less (1 Jn…
The Risk of Creation
Category: General
…love others without also having the capacity to harm them. Potential to choose love requires the potential to choose its opposite. Therefore, our capacity to freely love one another must imply that, to some extent, we have the capacity to freely harm one another. This is the risk. We all…
Responding to Driscoll’s “Is God a Pacifist?” Part I
Category: Essays
Tags: Bible, Book of Revelation, Essay, Jesus, Love Your Enemies, Mark Driscoll, Non-Violence, Pacifism, Peace, Sixth Commandment
Topics: Enemy-Loving Non-Violence, Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors
…should surprise us that we’re commanded to love this way. For God loved us to the point of death when we “were yet enemies,” (Rom 5:10), and we are commanded to “imitate God” by living in this same kind of love, “just as Christ loved us and gave his life…
God’s Motherly Affection
Category: General
…I find it’s because this part of me thinks that Denay’s motherly love is too loving for God and too loving for me. Think about that! Too loving? How can any human love outrun God’s love? If God is the source and standard of all true love (1 Jn.4.8), wouldn’t…
Atonement, Christus Victor, & Aslan Pt 2: Who Demands a Kill?
Category: General
Tags: Atonement, C.S. Lewis, Christus Victor, Chronicles of Narnia, Penal Substitution View of Atonement
Topics: Atonement and The Cross
…ways, in response to particular circumstances. But the way love is expressed is not as deep as the love itself. To use Lewis’ terms, self-sacrificial love is a Deeper Magic than the Magic of justice. As such, self-sacrificial love has the power to break the Stone Tablets of justice and…
The Most Beautiful Truth
Category: General
Tags: God, God is Love, Jesus, Love, The Holy Spirit, Trinity
Topics: Trinity
…most beautiful and powerful concept in all of history! For the doctrine of the Trinity magnificently expresses the truth that God is love (1Jn 4:8,16). Love isn’t merely an attribute God has. Nor is love merely an activity God does. Love is what God eternally is. Love can only exist…