Is It Just a Theory?

[Pamela Adams]

Many of us often think the opposite of love is hate....but I am learning it is "self".........  this is the enemy that so easily besets me. 

[newbie]

Many of us often think the opposite of love is hate....but I am learning it is "self".........  this is the enemy that so easily besets me. 

Yes, I do agree with this Pamela.  It is easy to see the change in Genesis when Adam and Eve loved each other so much and would do anything for each other and God and then Satan entered the scene.  Quickly the blame game started and it was all selfishness. 
newbie

[teresa]

that is what will happen at the second coming.  the people will turn on their pastors instead of accepting the responsibility for not searching the scriptures for themselves and taking a stand for the Lord.

[newbie]

that is what will happen at the second coming.  the people will turn on their pastors instead of accepting the responsibility for not searching the scriptures for themselves and taking a stand for the Lord.

Absolutely!!

[Deborah Risinger]

This conversations reminds me of the story about Corrie Ten Boom...after her freedom from the Nazis...she had heard... the man that was her family's neighbor..(the one one who turned them into the Nazis for hiding Jews) was very ill and very poor.....she made arrangements to bring him to her home, and she cared for him as if they had been friends.

(I am paraphrasing the story of course)....this truly is the Agape' Love of Christ....

God's Blessings'
Deborah

[Soli Deo Gloria]

Great story and example that Corrie Ten Boom gives. In her case there is no question that she was motivated by agape love.

But looking again at 1 Cor. 13:3

" And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing."
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This verse says that even if we give our lives and all our goods for another, but it is for the wrong motive, or not motivated by agape love, then it means nothing. This really brings all our actions and motives under a very penetrating microscope.

Who can live up to this kind of standard?

The New Testament standard of righteousness goes far beyond the Decalogue, which is of course our basic standard of righteousness, but our righteousness according to Jesus must exceed that of the scribes and pharisees.

Jesus gave us a new commandment in John 13:34 'A new commandment I give unto you that you LOVE one another AS I HAVE LOVED YOU'.

Pastor O asked in his opening post, whether 1 Cor 13 was only a suggestion or just a theory?  Jesus says that the kind of love He is commanding is just that--a command!

I am overwhelmed when I think of the implications of loving one another as Christ loved us.

I wonder when we argue back and forth about Christian perfection whether we consider the implications of what it really means to be perfect in the Christian sense of the word? I think it goes far beyond obeying the 10 C's as important as this is.

Our only hope is trusting in the mercy and grace of Christ!

Stan

[teresa]

great points made in the posts!!  and so very true!!


what gets me is, the times a thought to do someone good comes to mind and immediately a selfish reason for doing it comes!!

[El]

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Questions:
1. Is this chapter just a theory? Is it a suggestion?
2. Often we speak about the 144,000 as having gotten victory over sin. What will be their relationship to 1 Corinthians 13?
3. Would marriages be breaking up the way they are if this chapter were implemented in the life of even one of the spouses?
4. I have been studying love as taught by Jesus. His focus is to love our enemies (that could include a husband, wife, parents - then what about other members in the church who don't agree with us?)

I am baffled that we speak about the end times, victory over sin, a healthful diet (these things we ought to have done) but when it comes to loving each other as described in the love chapter you can forget it, it is just an option at best or a theory at worst.
Who is the real enemy - the papacy, Iran, the contemporary worship styles?

I am thinking that I had better rethink the whole thing. Something tells me that the track that is easy to get on doesn't go anywhere.

  Pastor,  does the teacher have the answers?  Maybe if we could have an explanation  of how you would answer all these questions,  we as students and congregation could better understand.  I want the answers, and further understanding may be given to us who are not quite so learned.  These are very important things for us to understand.  Does it not take two or more to come to an agreement?  Can one person alone save a marriage?  Argument can never solve a problem.  So how can we better understand the love of Jesus?  Can we ever enter heaven when an enemy is in our vocabulary?  Can our enemy be sin itself? I seem to be walking in circles. 

[Ed Sutton]

How I was taught to OBTAIN <25>agapos <26>agape

In 1991 my family and I relocated from Kentucky to Nashville, then on down to Theodore AL.   My wife & I had been trained as missionaries at Wildwood in the early 70's.   I had wandered away from God and took the whole family down with me. 

God used circumstances to convict me and my wife, and as unconverted's still on the books but fully worldly - we recognized we were not ready. 

Once reconverted I was worse than helpless.  I remembered enough that I was in too deep to pull myself out I no longer remembered how to pray, study, or know God - my candlestick had before that been moved out of it's place.  (lookup candlestick solomon )

I dimly remembered that Jesus is the best teacher a human could relate to, He is the Prince of teachers.  I could not agape / agapos love and I remembered the text "he that loveth <25> (5723) not knoweth not God." And I remembered that Jesus said to the lost rejected in His parable "I don't know you"   "I know not whense ye are".

I was desperatly being crushed.   I could not force myself to love <25> <26> like He does in His perfected humanity, and I was tempted to see it as hopeless.

Then the thought came to me - I remembered a passage from yrs ago  "obtained like precious faith", and like a life preserver thrown to a drownding man overboard in a storm - I realized - I must cry out to Jesus and ask Him to teach me to OBTAIN this love frm Himself alone and believe He will do it because I trust Him and am helpless in my need.     The promise of John 6:63 would be my lifeline and preserver .... i would see that later.

I asked Jesus to tutor me and so He started ............ continued later........

[BobRyan]

I am baffled that we speak about the end times, victory over sin, a healthful diet (these things we ought to have done) but when it comes to loving each other as described in the love chapter you can forget it, it is just an option at best or a theory at worst.

Who is the real enemy - the papacy, Iran, the contemporary worship styles?

I am thinking that I had better rethink the whole thing. Something tells me that the track that is easy to get on doesn't go anywhere.

I agree.

On some message boards (SDA centered) you find "anything passes for SDA" and there is often some animosity If you happen to agree with all 28 FB. But they emphasize love and acceptance "for all"

On a few others boards - you find a group at the opposite end.  Not only do they strongly censure failure to sign up to all 28 FB and all of Ellen White (often quoting EGW instead of scripture 90 to 1 when making a case) but they go beyond that to arguing that if you do not agree with them on xyz ministry (for or against depending on the scenario) then you are also to be shut down etc. You see a lot more "that is of satan" comments on those kinds of boards.

But if we may refer to Ellen White - her argument is that when the Holy Spirit is submitted to  - there is repentance reformation and unity in the Spirit INSTEAD of attacks criticism fault-finding evil surmising. She speaks of the Millerite movement just prior to 1843 in this way - a group that was experiencing the real fruit of unity in the Spirit. That dropped denominational boundaries and also dropped some prominent amellinnial and post-millennialist errors.

In 2SM 57 (there I go again) she refers to leaders in the SDA church that will be so devoid of the Holy Spirit they will condemn manifestations of it in the last days. A jugmental condemning spirit instead of the FRUIT of Love, joy, peace patience etc. And you know what - you can actually go some places and see this in living color.

I have to think that among those of Ezek 9 that sigh and weep over the sins being comitted in Israel are those who realize that the condemning thought-police critical spirit that sometimes surfaces -- is not at all the fruit of real vital Godliness (living Godliness).

Preach it brother!

in Christ,

Bob

[Ed Sutton]

What Bob brought up about sighing and crying is not what Isaiah 58 describes that happens among the ones who hate but profess to love.  The sighing and crying is those who love but feel powerless to change the situation, they yearn toward the offenders because the compassion for the sinner that lives in perfect human nature of Christ - they have as much of that in them as they can hold in their humanity.     They want to rescue the offenders and reconcile them to God and their be Heaven's portion of consecrated holy unity between them, and the one time offenders who are now repentant restored kind hearted fellow believers "in the faith".    But the offenders refuse such and maintain that they defend the truth - while they obey Satan's ways and attitudes - in so "defending" in their eyes the truth, and ravages the reputations of anyone whom they disagree with or disagrees with them.

God adresses the issues of back biting (and biting face to face for that matter ), those folks will never ride upon the high places of the earth, they will never rebuild what was broken.

Isaiah 58;

(fasting by spiritual cannibalism ) - "58; 3

[Ed Sutton]

How I was taught to OBTAIN <25>agapos <26>agape    .......  continued

Jesus would bring to mind various passages of scripture and I asked Him to open my understanding and show me what to pray for and teach me how to find out and what to do with what the Bible said.   Since Scripture says that the writings of prophecy = the testifying the testimony of Jesus, I asked Him to tutor me using that too, and direct and guide my reading and cause me to find the things He wanted me to see and investigate.

Sometime after that I was reading Christ's Object Lessons in conjunction with Scripture.   many places stood out, but one page did more - I started to see and undertand a process.  A supernatural process.

On the next installment I will tell why this process would come from a background that would be very meaningful for me and why none of this could be just an unused theory; it would have to become a living experience of supernatural realities; or it could not do me any good.

[Deborah Risinger]

Ed,

     Your testimony of having a hard time "loving" brought to mind a book you may be familiar with, "Living God's Love" by Douglas Cooper.

It was one of the earliest books I read as a new SDA.  It really helped me to connect the dots about "love"...I was happy to find, that I can love people (how I treat them, respond to them etc...) even though I did not have "good feelings" toward them.

I (in God's power)can treat with kindness and can pray for them even though my carnal nature was/is fighting me.  That helped me a great deal.



Bob,

   A dilemma that "seems" to happen frequently is....that if I (anyone) disagrees with a worship style, certain music for "worship"...perhaps "how" Sabbath is "kept" etc.....the fact that I see it differently "in of its' self" causes a  problem.
The understanding of "seeing things differently" causes a rift. And in that, I am accused of being harsh and unloving.  Yet, those who disagree with me (I will pick on myself here) demand to "not be seen" as they see me.

I wish those "rules" went both ways.   

God's Blessings'
Deborah

[Ed Sutton]

How I was taught to OBTAIN <25>agapos <26>agape    .......  continued

Hi Deborah

At that time my need was too pressing to have any confidence in authors who were not prophets, I needed what came from God according to His offical agencies that had supernatural power to change existing realities.  Hence that would for my needs be, as John 6:63 puts it - words with supernatural life and power in them because God sent the words and stands to fulfill those words.

Other authors did not demonstrate that they had overcome and conquered Satan, so I had to only go by the words of the one person in humanity Who did.  it wasn't that I felt others were bad authors, but they had not been there and done that and so I only felt that I could trust the instruction and testifying and tutoring of the One Who had proved conclusivly that He did get it right 100% and I could trust my present survival and eternal hope on whatever He said, lived, and taught back then and now.

When a contract is written, it is spelled out who has power to set terms and perform actions.   Those persons only can edit, modify, maintain, fulfill their end of the terms of the contract.  The contract also spells out the other person involved (me).  

The conviction was too strong to trust mortals with.  The conviction because of the Holy Spirit's work - covered not just my past but my present and also who and what I had become and following and filled with - not just my behaviour.  

I was being caused to remember pieces of quotes and texts and passages, and my wife through all our moves steadfastly kept all her SOP books, and I still had a Bible, and between us a Young's and or Strong's Exhaustive Concourdance (i don't remember if we had both or not.  

I was pleading with Jesus to teach me and reminding Him that since I had spent 6 yrs so darkening my self I did not trust coming to my own conclusions - please guide me to where He testified and set forth His conclusions both in the Bible and His testifying for me in these last days - the SOP.   To cause me to read pivotal things in both and have those things jump out - to impact me grab my attention and then start opening my mind to their worth and how He wanted me to apply them in my life because I remembered James says the do-ers get the life and blessings within - not the reading forgetters.

I was convicted more and more strongly what the NC State motto talks about -  "TO BE RATHER THAN TO SEEM"  

I seemed to be drawn to the book wherein Jesus explains His lessons behind the parables.  Reading Scripture, going to Christ's Object Lessons, after heartfelt prayer - self examination comparing myself with how Jesus is represented - then reading - praying - cross referencing - reading - attempting to put to use what I would find as He would lead and gradually open my mind.

(using standardised paging)  

I read p- 384-385 of Christ Object Lessons.  Here was a pivot point - a make it or break it cross roads, this jumped out at me with lasting and unfolding force, (as well as corroberating Scripture texts and passages as time went by.)

I was and still am convinced certain things regarding the love/compassion dwelling in the humanity of Jesus that He obtained from His Father.   And also convinced I did not have that and convicted I must have those things no matter what it cost to get them.

But now that I knew basically what I must have, I did know how to get it; trying and trying harder and harder did not work, because what is approved of in 1st Corinthians Ch 13, and what moved the humanity of Jesus - is INTERNAL AND FROM ABOVE - NOT ALREADY INSIDE - or I would not be empty of it and in desperation because of that emptiness through the conviction sent by the Holy Ghost.

[teresa]

I was convicted more and more strongly what the NC State motto talks about -  "TO BE RATHER THAN TO SEEM" 

I seemed to be drawn to the book wherein Jesus explains His lessons behind the parables.  Reading Scripture, going to Christ's Object Lessons, after heartfelt prayer - self examination comparing myself with how Jesus is represented - then reading - praying - cross referencing - reading - attempting to put to use what I would find as He would lead and gradually open my mind.

(using standardised paging)   

I read p- 384-385 of Christ Object Lessons.  Here was a pivot point - a make it or break it cross roads, this jumped out at me with lasting and unfolding force, (as well as corroberating Scripture texts and passages as time went by.)

I was and still am convinced certain things regarding the love/compassion dwelling in the humanity of Jesus that He obtained from His Father.   And also convinced I did not have that and convicted I must have those things no matter what it cost to get them.

But now that I knew basically what I must have, I did know how to get it; trying and trying harder and harder did not work, because what is approved of in 1st Corinthians Ch 13, and what moved the humanity of Jesus - is INTERNAL AND FROM ABOVE - NOT ALREADY INSIDE - or I would not be empty of it and in desperation because of that emptiness through the conviction sent by the Holy Ghost.

being individuals the Lord reaches us each differently with different materials.  i mean i have been convicted through reading other things but more by seeing how ugly, hateful and hurtful,  self-righteous holier-than-thou behavior is.  seeing that behavior has driven me to my knees  to plead with God for a heart and right vision, more than anything i have ever read.  then the reading tells me how God would have us behave and treat others.

being "right" and having the "truth" too many times, seems to be far more important than behaving as Jesus did.   it is a constant struggle to be on my knees begging to be more Christlike in all that i do!!