It's Not That Complicated
It’s Not That Complicated
“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.”
1 John 4:7
Isn’t it crazy just how much we complicate things? We do this because we are of the opinion that we are the most important part of life. We cannot show how we feel to them because if we do they might hurt us. We cannot allow them to see that we are frail and vulnerable. We cannot allow them to have access to who we are so we keep them at a distance.
Isn’t it amazing that God does not look at us like we do them?! If we were to take and boil down the real problem with humanity it would be in this simple phrase, “Us Vs. Them”. It starts so early in life and is perpetuated by mom, dad, grandparents, teachers, preachers, and people in the bleachers. Early in life we see “us vs. them” in mom and dad. So, we naturally use that to our advantage to get our way. As siblings come along it is us vs. our parents. It’s our parents vs. our grandparents as they battle for our affections. Then we get to school and it’s girls against the boys, or grade against grade as it goes on to school against school. In government it’s them against us the people, or state against state, or party against party...it just goes on and on and on.
In our churches today it is just as rampant as anywhere else. It’s the pastor vs. the people or the deacons vs. the sunday school teachers. It’s the baptists vs. the catholics , the presbyterian vs. apostolic or the southern baptist agains the lutheran...it is the greatest tool satan has to keep us distracted from what really matters...love. If he can keep us at war with the ones we are supposed to show the love of Christ to, then he won’t lose those that have not met Jesus yet.
The Bible says this in 1 John, “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.” It’s not complicated at all. It really isn’t. I complicate it when I don’t show my wife the love of Christ. I complicate it when I don’t show my family, my church family, my neighbor, my enemy...yes them the love that Christ shows me.
You see, when we look at them with something other than grace all we do is prove that we don’t really know Who God is...because God is love. If you know that, quit complicating it. There can be no “us vs. them”...there is only Us with Him!
Pastor Larry Hof
“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.”
1 John 4:7
Isn’t it crazy just how much we complicate things? We do this because we are of the opinion that we are the most important part of life. We cannot show how we feel to them because if we do they might hurt us. We cannot allow them to see that we are frail and vulnerable. We cannot allow them to have access to who we are so we keep them at a distance.
Isn’t it amazing that God does not look at us like we do them?! If we were to take and boil down the real problem with humanity it would be in this simple phrase, “Us Vs. Them”. It starts so early in life and is perpetuated by mom, dad, grandparents, teachers, preachers, and people in the bleachers. Early in life we see “us vs. them” in mom and dad. So, we naturally use that to our advantage to get our way. As siblings come along it is us vs. our parents. It’s our parents vs. our grandparents as they battle for our affections. Then we get to school and it’s girls against the boys, or grade against grade as it goes on to school against school. In government it’s them against us the people, or state against state, or party against party...it just goes on and on and on.
In our churches today it is just as rampant as anywhere else. It’s the pastor vs. the people or the deacons vs. the sunday school teachers. It’s the baptists vs. the catholics , the presbyterian vs. apostolic or the southern baptist agains the lutheran...it is the greatest tool satan has to keep us distracted from what really matters...love. If he can keep us at war with the ones we are supposed to show the love of Christ to, then he won’t lose those that have not met Jesus yet.
The Bible says this in 1 John, “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.” It’s not complicated at all. It really isn’t. I complicate it when I don’t show my wife the love of Christ. I complicate it when I don’t show my family, my church family, my neighbor, my enemy...yes them the love that Christ shows me.
You see, when we look at them with something other than grace all we do is prove that we don’t really know Who God is...because God is love. If you know that, quit complicating it. There can be no “us vs. them”...there is only Us with Him!
Pastor Larry Hof
Posted in Bad Translations, Forgiveness, Get Humble, Losing to Win, Love, Scripture is Illuminating, Support Group, The Word
Posted in complicated, Love, God is Love, love like God
Posted in complicated, Love, God is Love, love like God
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