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It seems that love is what Christianity revolves around. First off, God is love (1 John 4:8). Second off, the two most prominant commandments ever given in the Bible are to (1) Love God with all of your heart mind soul and strength and (2) Love your neighbor as yourself. Both of those commandments can be found in the new (Matthew 22:34-40) and old (Deuteronomy 6:5, and Leviticus 19:18) testiments. And, as the set of verses above found in Matthew shows, Jesus said that those commandments are the most important, and that the law revolves around them. 1 John tells a lot about love: those who don't love their brother are not a child of God, (1 John 3:10) that the message that has been heard from the beginning is to love one another, (1 John 3:11) if you don't love, you remain in death, (1 John 3:14) that we should lay down our lives for our brother, (1 John 3:16) and 1 John 4 is full of explaning that we need to love, why we should love, and that we even rely on God's love, and, of course, John 15:12 tells us to love one another as Jesus loved us, and as we all know, Jesus loves us unconditionally, to the point where He begged for the forgiveness of the people who were torturing/killing Him. but i didn't put this up here to reteach this all to you, i put it up here to ask a question. now, obviously, i didn't put all of the references to "love" from the Bible on here, but these seem to be the most relevant. Ok, well as i put up there, John 15:12 tells us to love one another as I (Jesus) loved you. Alright, now "one another" means everyone, leaving no one to be left out. So we are to love everyone as Jesus loves us. Ok, well Romans 5:8 tells us that He died for us while we were sinners, that while we were His enemies, while we were against Him, doing things that He sees as disgusting and evil, He died for us. So that means that we must love everyone, regardless of their sins, of their past, what they did, are doing, or plan on doing, right? Ok, well that means that we should be willing to die for a liar, a thief, a murderer, even terrorists, because they fall into the category of "one another" and dying for them is the love that Jesus has shown us, and therefore we must show it to them. Now, obviously we don't die for their causes or anything, but what i'm refering to is, if they could be saved, to die for that reason at the very least. Ok, so here's my question: how many people on here can honestly say that they love murderers, terrorists, and child abusers enough to willingly lay down your life for theirs? and, more importantly, could you help me out with that, because i've been working on this for a year, and though i have improved, i'm just not there yet. Thanks for any helpful answers! sorry for such a long post
PS: I know that some of you might disagree, so please keep your replies as civilized as possible.
PS: I know that some of you might disagree, so please keep your replies as civilized as possible.