Therefore I take it to mean that it is crucial that we love ourselves, and by extension, each other. On this forum, and on other Christian outlets, I see a whole lotta Christians lacking in love for their fellows, and I expect down deep, for themselves. With repect, believing in "the one He has sent" hinges on believing and acting upon his commandment to LOVE. Belieiving in Him without loving yourself and others, is like looking at food but not eating it.
If we want to win America back, if we want to restore Christian values, we must LOVE and be patient with the poor dumb kids (er ... young adults!) with all the tatoos and the body piercings and liberal brainwashed mindset. Instead what I see among all too many Christians, is anger, something close to hate, for all the "stupid Americans" who voted for leftists.
Not to sound like a hippie, but "love is the answer." Instead of wanting to kill or jail people for having a wrong sense of entitlement and a wrong "belief" that governmnent should fund abortion and punish people for turning away from open homosexuality and such, we must deal with them the same way we would like to be treated, and certainly the way the Almighty dealt with us: with loving patience. That is, if we want to take Christ at his Word.
You are, of course, right.
However; LOVE has no meaning without the BELIEF that is behind it.
Just as many false religions throw the name of Jesus around to justify their belief systems.... so too the word Love is abused and misused today.
The only thing which will save this nation is for people to have change of heart..and that can only occur when the Gospel is presented to them. Everything else is simply a band-aid covering a serious wound that needs surgery.
Patience with people does not mean you tolerate the intolerable.....especially when it flys in the face of a Holy God and His clear distinctions of what is right in His eyes as well as evil. Our God is a God of "distinctions"....he expects that we too will identify these and expose them for what they are...not cover them over with a false front of toleration...or false love. If we avoid doing so then the ability to discern good from evil gets blurred and redefined...just as we see today. I think as that day approaches closer we will and are being called to all the more expose the false masks of religiosity and or churchianity which so many are wearing....
Belieiving in Him without loving yourself and others, is like looking at food but not eating it.
***I think Elsie’s got it right. The main message of Christ was that He had to die for our sins to pay the price, that He was God Himself. Sure, the most important COMMANDMENT was what you say, but that isn’t the Main Message.
Here’s an example: the first believer in our timeline. The thief on the cross. Do you think he loved himself? I don’t. Did he even have a chance to fulfill ANY of the commandments? NO. And yet, Jesus said that thief would be with Him that day in Paradise. What the thief responded to, that was the main message. Yes, the commandments are important, but that is not the main message or Jesus would have walked him through something related to them