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Now at this point, there may be some that might think that love is an 'uncontrollable emotion'. Therefore not something that you can turn on and off at will. Therefore it should not be added to the list of necessary requirements to be saved. But, if we are going to be true to our study, we must look and see what the Bible says about love, and if someone can be saved without it.
Remember back in 'Study #010' where we talked about how we "must" love, in order to be acceptable to God. And where in (
Matthew 22:35-40
&
Mark 12:28-34
), in an effort to trap, or trick, Jesus into saying one commandment was greater than another so they could come back and say, "What about this commandment or that commandment?" So they asked Him which commandment was greater than any other commandment, of all the commandments. And He answered by stating that there were two commandments that was greater than any of the others, and BOTH of these were concerning LOVE.
In (
Matthew 22:40
), we see where Jesus tells them that on these two love commandments, "Hang ALL the Law and the prophets." You can picture this like hanging a picture on the wall. Where the picture (ALL of the other commandments) is hanging by a single nail (love).
Here is another scripture that tells us about the necessity of love and how it covers sins. (
1 Peter 4:8
).
And also in (
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
), we see that the Bible tells us that if we don't have "charity" (LOVE), Nothing else matters. (even baptism)
This is the very idea Jesus was trying to get the scribes and Pharisees to see in (
Matthew 15:7-9
). When He told them, "...their heart is far from me." (no love involved). Even if they were doing all of the 613 Jewish commands (which by the way they were not doing all of them), they were doing them simply because they were commanded to do them and not because they wanted to do them. The wrong motivation.
Now let's stop right here for a moment and look at our own situation.
We have heard = How God made man. How man sinned and became eternally separated from God without any means or hope of salvation. How Christ died to provide a way of salvation.
We have believed = that because of God's love, (
Romans 5:8
) we now have a way of salvation.
We see that God's motivation for saving man was love (
John 3:16
).
So what is our motivation for obeying God's word?
The answer to this question can be found in (
Galatians 5:6-14
). Where it tells us, "but faith which worketh BY love", "BY love serve one another", and "For all the law is fulfilled in ONE WORD, even in this; Thou shalt LOVE thy neighbour as thyself."
Jesus said in (
John 14:15
), "If ye love me, keep my commandments."
LOVE should be our motivation!
So how much MUST we love the Lord?
Well Jesus says in
Matthew 10:36-38
that we MUST love Him MORE than our own families.
I never said that ‘Love’ would be easy.
But let me explain. What Jesus is saying here is that, ‘We must not even let our own families stand in our way from doing God’s will.’
And as I said before, "Love is not optional. IT IS A COMMANDMENT"
So here again, the BIG QUESTION is: “Is this something that you would be willing to do?”
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What do you think about this lesson ???
Go to the COMMENTS link and enter YOUR COMMENTS
so we can SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH together.
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