Over the past few weeks, I’ve talked a bit about how important love is in a Christian’s life. Today, we’re going to go over how important love is for a Christian’s own life, his relationship with God, and in his relationships with others. There is a lot of things regarding love that people overlook or try not to think about.

First and foremost, we need to love God. We need to love God with all of our heart, soul, and mind, according to Matthew 22:37. In order to love God, we need to make sure He is foremost in our lives. We can’t put anything ahead of what He calls us to do. The Bible is full of examples of people who tried to serve both God and something of the world. Without fail, all of those people ended badly. As Jesus taught, we cannot serve two masters; we must pick one to love. We also need to obey His commandments. How can we say we truly Love God with everything we have, if we do not also obey His commandments?

Secondly, we need to love all other people. The Bible says to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Let’s be honest, most of us have a overinflated view of ourselves; we see ourselves as much better than we really are. We should love others with the same view that we have on ourselves. Even if they don’t seem to deserve it or if we think that they aren’t worth it, we need to love them more than people would think they deserve. 1 John 4:20 makes it clear that if we don’t love each other, we’re not right with God. If we truly love God, we will truly keep His commandments, and because we’re keeping His commandments, we will truly love other people. Not only that, but God loved us to the point that He sacrificed His son to save us. If He was willing to do that, shouldn’t we be at least willing to love our neighbors and brothers in Christ.

In Matthew 5:44, Jesus teaches that we need to love our enemies. Even though they hate us, and would not hesitate to hurt us, we need to show them the love of God. It may seem foolish to love someone who’s hurting us, but if we don’t show them the love of God, how can we ever expect them to change? There isn’t always someone else to show them the way; you may be the only Christian in their lives. Let’s look at this a different way. If we hate them, like they hate us, are we any better than they are? We need to seriously examine our lives, and make sure there is no hatred there, and forgive those who are hurting us.

Love can be very hard sometimes. There are a lot of people in our lives that are difficult to love, and easy to hate, but we need to let go of our hate and dislike for these people, and show them the love of God. Let’s all take a hard look at our lives, and make sure that God is the center of our lives, and that we love not only our fellow Christians and neighbors, but our enemies as well.

People have a tendency to say things that they don’t mean. We say we’re sorry when the last thing in the world we want to do is apologize, we say it’s not a big deal when inside we’re fuming, and we say thank you for a gift even when we hate it. As far as the world is concerned, it’s not a big deal. As far as God is concerned, it’s a huge deal. Our words need to line up with our actions and our thoughts. If our thoughts are wrong, we need to change them rather than lying. The Bible says we need to have clean hands and a pure heart, if we have that, then our words will line up with what we do. We can’t say one thing and do or think another.

Love is probably the most repeated example of needing actions more than words in the Bible. John, in 1 John 3:16-18, says that we need to show love in our actions, not just in words. Words without actions are meaningless. He uses the example of Jesus showing His love for us by dying for us. How many of us would be willing to die for someone we loved? It’s a cliché question that’s very easy to say yes to since most of us will never be in a position like that, but seriously think about it. Could you?

Not only are our actions supposed to match up with our words, but our thoughts are sometimes more important than our actions. Jesus teaches that if we hate someone in our hearts to the point we want to kill them, it’s the same thing as murder. He taught that lust in our heart was the same thing as adultery. John teaches in 1 John 3:10-15 that if we hate a fellow Christian, we’re living in darkness and we’re a murderer. These are all pretty strong statements, we need to be very careful about what we think. If there is someone that we hate, we need to talk to them; to work things out, rather than building up resentment. The more we dwell on how much we hate something or someone, the more likely we are to slip and sin. It’s never alright to hate a person. We’re all sinners, saved by grace. If they’re doing something wrong in their lives, we need to pray for them, and be there for them, but never hate them. How about us? Is there someone in our lives that we’re mad at? Someone who did something wrong towards us? We need to forgive them, let go of our hate or anger, and move on.

It’s difficult to change our thoughts . It’s difficult even more sometimes to show the actions that go along with what we claim to believe. But, with God’s help, we can do it. Is there someone in your life that you’ve not been kind to because you were mad at them? Is there someone that you told you loved them, but you haven’t shown it? If so, pray, and go change the way you’ve been doing things.

In today’s world, we are surrounded by books, how-to guides, and speakers who all talk about how you can know God. They lay out plans and multistep programs, all based on their personal knowledge or what they say they believe. While some of these guides are right on the money, most of them are distortions of Christianity at best. They over-complicate things, knowing God, according to the Bible is very simple. John lays out a simple list of ways to find out if you’re close to God in 1 John 2:3-11.

The first question we need to ask ourselves to find out if we know God, is if we keep His commandments. If we truly know and follow God, we’re going follow His laws. How can we say we follow God and know Him if we ignore His commandments? Or worse, how can we say we follow God if we don’t know His commandments? If we truly want to know God and follow Him, we need to not only study His Word so that we know what He wants us to do, but we need to do it as well. Like John says, if we say that abide with Him, we should walk as He did.

The second question, in 1 John 2:15-17 is how we view the world. If we love the things of the world rather than loving God, we don’t abide with Him. God should be the focus of our lives, not the world. The world is going to pass away, while God is going to exist forever. Where should we put our focus? On the things that don’t last, or the thing that does last? More and more, Christians are putting more of an emphasis on the world, making comments about not ready for God to come back because they’re not ready to leave their lives here. That is not right, this world is not our home, we’re just here till Jesus comes back. Yes, life here be good, and we can do a lot for God here, but, we never should put a greater emphasis on the world than we do on God. How about us, do we sometimes push God off to the side so we can do stuff in the world?

The final question, in 1 John 2:22-23, is how we view Jesus. If we deny that Jesus is the Christ, we’re denying God. We can’t deny Christ, and still have God. A lot of cults teach that Jesus was just a good man, or that He wasn’t God. All of these cults, by that single belief alone, prove that they are not of God.

So, to know God and abide with Him, we need to obey His laws, love Him more than anything, and accept that Jesus is Christ. Sounds much easier than following multistep guides and full-length books, doesn’t it? Man complicates things of God. Let’s look at our lives, can we say that we know God?

It’s very easy to lie to ourselves. In a lot of ways, it’s easier to lie to ourselves than it is to lie to other people. We tell ourselves that we’re doing fine, we tell ourselves that we’re not sinning, we even can tell ourselves that we had no choice in the matter. But, no matter what we tell ourselves, lying to ourselves is just as wrong as lying to someone else.

One of the major lies that we can tell ourselves is that we can sin and live in darkness while we’re still following God. John, in 1 John 1:5, plainly states that we can’t do that and that we’re deceiving ourselves. God is light, there is no darkness in Him. If we’re living in sin or darkness, how can we say that we’re walking with Him as well? We can’t live in sin, and live for God, the two are mutually exclusive. It’s easy to say sometimes that everyone is doing it, or it’s not a big deal, but if we’re Christians, knowingly and repeatedly sinning is completely unacceptable. If we are truly walking with God, we’re going to change the way we live. How about us? Do we do “little” sins habitually, and not think that it’s not that big of a deal? If we do, we need to pray for God’s help to stop, sin is sin and sin is always wrong.

John goes on to say that if we say that there is no sin in our lives, than we’re deceiving ourselves even more. Everybody has sin in their lives. We may not want to admit it, but we all have something we do that’s wrong. We need to ask God for the strength to stop sinning, and for forgiveness for our sins. John says that God will forgive us if we ask and clean us. However, we need to ask Him to do it, we can’t do it ourselves, and pretending that we don’t sin just makes it all worse.

In closing, John details the worst lie that we can tell ourselves. It is telling ourselves that we have not sinned. This is worse than the others because it makes God a liar. The Bible says repeatedly that everybody has sinned. God sent Jesus to die for all of our sins. If we say that we’ve not sinned, than Jesus didn’t have to die, and the Bible is not infallible. We all have sinned. If you say you haven’t, then you’re just lying to yourself, and insulting God’s sacrifice. Is that really the best choice?

Lying to ourselves is easy; none of us like thinking that we’re in the wrong. But, we need to be honest with ourselves. We all have sinned, but with Jesus’ help, we can be forgiven and made better. So, let’s look at our lives. Is there any sin in our lives that we’ve been trying to ignore? Are we really walking with God the way we should?

As time goes on, more and more people drift from the teachings of Christ, and start to follow after false teachers and false doctrine. A more common term than “false teacher” would be cult. These cults promise much, whether it is happiness or eternal life or even vast material possessions. This is not a new problem, it’s been a problem since the beginning of time according to the Bible.

Peter strongly condemns cults and false teachers in 2 Peter 2. He says that these false teachers say and teach things that even the angels would not dare to say. Let’s stop and think about that for a moment. Even the angels would not make blasphemies like what some of the false teachers do. Peter says that these teachers speak on things that they do not understand. Most of the cults make all sorts of wild promises and use pretty insane doctrine, they just string together things so that it looks good, but means nothing.

An interesting thing about these false teachers is that for a short period of time, they get what they think they want. They get all the pleasure they could possibly want out of this life, but when they die, they have their condemnation. Peter says that they have a special darkness for them after they die. I could keep repeating what Peter says, but I think we can just read the chapter individually to get a feel for precisely how depraved these teachers are.

So, what can we do about false teachers? First and foremost, we need to make sure that everything we’re taught lines up with the Bible says. When someone tells you that the Bible says something, look it up for yourself, and check the context of the verse. People can pull some very twisted doctrine out of the Bible if you don’t look at what the context of the verse is. Another thing to do is make sure that the focus of what you’re being taught is God and Jesus. If the focus is more on the preacher or the teacher, and how much they know, be wary.

We also need to be careful of the people we lead to Christ. New believers are especially vulnerable to false doctrine. If we lead them to Christ, we need to stay by them, and help them grow. False teachers and cults go after new believers and the unsaved; the people that aren’t firmly grounded in the faith. The people we lead to Christ are our responsibility. Have we made sure to keep in touch with them? Or have we drifted away from them?

False teachers and cults are a major problem these days. They’re everywhere in the news and in the world around us. Most people don’t fully understand the danger that they represent to us, but we need to be sober and vigilant.

When most of us became Christians, we had a period that most people would refer to as being on fire for God. We tried hard to leave our old ways behind us, we wanted to learn more about God, and we wanted to change the world. However, over time, most of us lost that feeling, and slowly slipped back into what we used to be. It probably wasn’t an overnight fall, but a gradual slipping. See, it’s very easy to lose something slowly. If we’re not constantly trying to follow God; if we neglect our personal Bible studies, and if we skip church, it’s going to be hard to stay on the path.

Peter writes about this in 2 Peter 1:5-9. He lists a lot of qualities that we need to have, like godliness and love, and says if we don’t have these, we’re blind, and we’ve forgotten that we saved from our sins. Without those qualities in our lives, we’re no different than what we were before we were saved. We need to constantly be trying to be better Christians and be closer to God. Do we try to have these qualities in our lives all the time, regardless of how hard it is? Or do we only do so when it’s convenient?

Paul speaks a lot about resisting his old nature. Even though we’re new creations, we still have to resist falling back into our old habits. It’s hard work sometimes, but with God’s help we can change. If we’re still doing all the things that we did before we were saved, we need to take time to pray and seek God’s help to change. How about us? Are we all very different from what we were before we were saved?

It’s possible, however, to still do all the right things, and still have forgotten God. Revelations 3, where the churches are being assessed, criticizes one of the churches for having forgotten its first love. This church followed the letter of the law. They wouldn’t tolerate evil in their midst. They endured so much from the world. It sounds like they were a strong church, but they had forgotten their first love. They had gotten so focused on doing things that they forgot the reason why they were doing them. We need to be sure that not only are we doing the right thing, but we need to be sure that God is the focus, not what we’re doing.

So, looking at our own lives, do we still feel as on fire for God as we did when we started? Are we still trying to change the world around us for God? If not, we need to take a good hard look at ourselves, and come back around to Him. It’s hard to keep focused sometimes, but with His help, we can.

Everybody goes through rough times in their lives. Times when the walls seem to be closing around them, nobody is for them, and everything seems to be falling apart. Christians are not immune to this, even you are living the way God calls you to live, eventually you will go through a time of suffering. But, when you are suffering for following God’s will, remember that God has a plan, and that things will work out for good.

Peter talks a lot about suffering in 1 Peter 3:13-17. He says that if we are suffering, we are blessed for it. Don’t be afraid of what is going on around you and what is happening in your life. Make sure that you are following God’s will and focus on Him; don’t focus on your problems. It’s hard not to focus on all our own problems, but God doesn’t want us to drown in our despair. He wants us to seek Him. Also make sure that you are suffering for doing the right thing, rather than suffering for sinning. If you’re suffering for doing the wrong thing, it’s meaningless.

Peter goes on to say that we need to bless those who are causing us to suffer. We’re not to hate them or try to get even, or repay their evils with more evils. What does that accomplish? If we hurt them because they’ve hurt us, are we any better than they are? We’ll just bring in more suffering on ourselves in the end, and like Peter says, it’s better to suffer for doing the right thing, than the wrong thing. Peter also says, in verse 14, that we’re not to be afraid of those who are threatening us. Trust God, and do His will. Remember that through your suffering, you may be able to lead another to Christ because of what you’ve been through. When Paul and Silas were imprisoned, they led their own jailor and his family to Christ. Pray for those who are causing your pain, and try to lead them to God.

In closing, Peter goes on to say, in verse 18, that Jesus suffered for doing God’s will. Not only did He suffer, but the way He suffered was more than any of us will ever have to bear. Because He suffered for us, we have an eternity with God in heaven, rather than an eternity of suffering. We shouldn’t forget this. Jesus went through more than any of us ever will, and yet He stayed focused and finished His task.

It’s hard sometimes to stay with God when things are getting rough. It’s even harder to not hate the people who are making things rough for us. But, with God’s help, if we’re doing God’s will, we can get through these tough times, and come out the better for it.

The world we live in loves tearing people apart. It doesn’t really matter who or what it is, if it can be hurt or made to look bad, it’ll do it. But, there’s one type of person that the world really loves to hurt and see fall, its Christians. Because of this, we as Christians need to be careful of our appearance, not only to the world, but to other Christians as well.

Peter, in 1 Peter 3:16, speaks of this. He says that we need to have a good conscience, so when people slander us or say things about us, people will realize that they are lying. In order to have that kind of a good conscience, people need to see us as who we are. We can’t lie, or sin, or anything that’s going to make us look unchristian. If we do sin, as all of us eventually will, we need to confess it, and not try to bury it. Look what happens when people try to bury things in their past, when people make accusations against them, all those things come right back in their faces.

People are always looking to tear down leaders in the church, so leaders need to be above reproach so that there is nothing for people to use against them. Paul repeatedly says that leaders in the church need to be above reproach, making it one of the primary qualifications for a pastor or deacon. People judge churches by their pastor and deacons and other leaders. If they aren’t good, people question the entire church. If people can’t trust a pastor or a deacon, what does that say about the church as a whole? If you’re a leader in a church, you need to make sure that your life is clean and that there is no sin, hidden or visible, that people could fault you for if they knew about it.

Not only do we have to be careful of our own actions, we need to be careful about what we do with other people. Hanging out with poor company not only can affect our own spiritual lives by putting us in situations where we may get tempted, but it also destroys our own reputation as well. I’m not saying to ignore the unsaved, but I am saying to be careful about what situations you let yourself get into with them. Don’t put yourself in a place where you will be tempted to do something wrong. You may think that you’re helping them or witnessing to them, but all you’re really doing is setting yourself up for a fall.

Living above reproach in this day and age is hard. But, with God’s help we can do it. Find another Christian to be accountable to, and together, make your walk with God better. Take a good hard look at yourselves. Is there anything in your life that makes people wonder if you’re a Christian? Is there any sin in your life you haven’t dealt with?

Authority is one of those words that most of us only like if we’re the ones with it. Most of us aren’t too fond of submitting to someone else’s authority. However, in this life, we all spend more time under someone else’s authority than we do in authority over other people, so we may as well get used to it. There are three main figures that are in authority over us.

First, our parents are in authority over us. Not only is it one of the Ten Commandments, but Paul himself comments on it in Ephesians 6:1 saying that children need to obey their parents because it’s the right thing to do. Now, if one’s parents ask us to do something that’s directly contrary to Scripture, we don’t need to listen, but I’m pretty sure most of us aren’t going to be in that situation. What parents say to do doesn’t always make sense, but keep in mind that they’ve lived a lot longer than us, and have a lot more experience in life than we do. Now, some of you are probably wondering about what happens when we move out of our parents home. Well, they’re not in authority over us as much, but rather they deserve our respect and honor, and we definitely should seek their advice with the tough stuff. Because they’ve had more experience than we do, it’s better to learn from their experience and their mistakes than to do it all ourselves.

The second authority that we need to submit to is the government. We live in a day and age where the taxes are high and the government isn’t popular. However, Peter makes it clear in 1 Peter 2:13 that we need to submit to every ordinance of the government. Again, if the ordinance is contrary to Scripture, we don’t have to obey it, but aside from that one exception, we need to be the model citizens. We need to follow all the laws, even the ones that seem stupid or unfair. A lot of people these days complain about taxes, and talk about how they’re getting around them. Yeah, taxes may seem high or unreasonable, but even Jesus said we had to pay taxes. Are you wiser than He? It’s sad to look at the news, and see Christians going to jail for tax evasion because they don’t believe that they have to pay them. Is this the witness that we want to give the rest of the world?

Not only are we to honor the laws, we need to respect the leaders of our country as well. Regardless of who wins the election this year, we need to respect them and show them honor. If we’re constantly digging up bad press on the candidates, are we really any better than they are? It’s one thing to point out their politics that go against what God says, but to compare them to Satan, the antichrist, and so on? Is that really even that accurate? Yeah, the other side always ridicules our candidates, but we should be the bigger person, and be better than that.

The final authority, in more ways than one, is God. We need to obey God. It sounds trite; perhaps overused, but it needs to be remembered. Obeying God is much more than just following the letter of what the Bible says. Obeying God needs to be done happily, with the right attitude. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter. Look at the Pharisees. The followed the law that God gave the Israelites to the letter. They went beyond that, and did even more. But, they did it for themselves, and looked down on anyone who wasn’t as “good” as they were. Even though they were doing all the right things, they were doing them for all the wrong reasons. When you obey God, you need to do it not only because it’s what you’re supposed to do, you need to do it happily. Otherwise, it’s meaningless. And no, God’s laws aren’t always easy to follow. Loving your enemy, and doing good to those who curse and hate you is quite hard. But, with God’s help we can do it.

In the end of it all, if we obey God, we’re going to obey the government and our parents and anyone else who has authority over us. Pray for God to give us all the strength we need to do so.

When most of us became Christians, we were living sinful lives. Sure, most of us weren’t mass-murderers or serial killers, but there was definitely obvious sin in our lives. When we become Christians, we need to leave the sin of our past behind us, and change.

Paul teaches in 2nd Corinthians 5:17, that when we’re in Christ, we’re a new creation, and our old selves are passed away. This means that we’re essentially a new person after we become Christians. We don’t do the same things that we used to do. Rather than focusing on US, we should be focusing on God and others. We should be able to look back, and see a definite change between who we are now and who we were before we got saved. More importantly though, the people around us should be able to see that there has been a change in our lives, otherwise, what’s the point? If the unsaved people around us can’t see a difference in our lives, are we really changed from who we were?

Ephesians 4:22-24 teaches that we need to lay aside our old life, which has been corrupted by sin, and take on our new life, that is created in righteousness and truth. We need to leave all the past behind us. All our sins, all our old fleshly desires, everything that causes us to sin or lead us into temptation needs to be dropped and forgotten. For some of us, those raised in a Christian home, that’s not too hard to do. But for the ones of us who got saved later in life, it’s a lot harder. How many of us still hold onto our old ways of living? How many of us still follow the same patterns of sin, even though we’re saved and have been for a while?

There is one thing though that we shouldn’t just leave behind. If we hurt someone or did something wrong to someone before we got saved, we need to make it right. We need to face the consequences of our sins, even though we’ve been forgiven by God for them, there are still earthly consequences for them. So, apologize to those your have hurt, and pay whatever consequences you must for anything wrong you did. Not only is it what we’re supposed to do as Christians, but it’s a large step in leaving the past behind.

Just because we’re saved and trying to change our lives doesn’t mean that it’s going to be easy. We need to constantly stay on guard to make sure that we don’t start to fall back into our old patterns and sins. We can’t do it by ourselves, we need to pray that God gives us the strength so we can change and stay changed. It’s easy to change for a day or two, but it’s much harder to make a change that lasts. Pray that God helps us all make a change and stick with it.