American Christianity

Hey, i don't want to step on anyones toes, but im tired of american christianity.
you might ask me why?
well, because i see a lot of people saying they are christians, and even preach on the street, yet they lack the most fundamental thing of christianity, which is charity/love.
the bible is clear about what love is and i just wanna remind you brothers and sister what love is biblically:


1 Corinthians 13:4-8
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant
5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful
6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.


And here Paul explains that even with faith he is nothing without love :

1 Corinthians 13:2
2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.


So the conclusion is that love is a fundamental part of being a christian, its a very different love than the worldly love, its a love that can only be manifested when someone is fully walking with the Lord, because it takes so much self denying.


Jesus even said, there are no greater commandment than to love God and to love your neighbour like yourself, because no one hates oneself, so the commandment is to love your neighbour or anyone out in the world, like you love yourself, you know how hard that is? but it is indeed possible when your rooted in God, in his word with prayers and self denying.

Mark 12:30-31
30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.
31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.


GOD BLESS EVERYONE OUT THERE. <3

If you were to break it down to it's core,all who are of God will have their temple built on love.The purpose of life is love.If you asked Jesus yourself he'll tell you that is the answer to life is love.
The answer is on the cross.

John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

It's also written into our dna,and in all living things.Which is the Living Word.

Gods love to us is different from what im talking about, his love is out of this world and its perfect,

what im saying is our love one towards another in Christ and even other people that are not believers, i don't see this, very rarely indeed, God hates those who sow discord among brothers and sisters, yet the american church is as divided as it gets, people fight over denominations and doctrines and have no love, this grieves me so much, it was never Jesus will to be like this, The Bible even says we are all supposed to be in complete unity of Faith.

Love is one of the fruits of the Spirit and must be grown. Peter tells us, "as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby." Paul tells us in Heb 5, "Anyone who is a babe is unskillful in the word of righteousness and needs milk." Jesus said, "I am the vine and you are the branches, except you must abide in me, ye can do nothing."
We begin our journey to the Lord by being born-again as spiritual babes, who must feed upon the scriptures as illuminated by the Holy Spirit to grow to spiritual maturity. The Holy Spirit then applies the blood of Jesus purging our consciences from dead works to serve him and as we walk in the Spirit, we're able to no longer fulfill the lusts of the flesh. The Lord then supplies strong-meat rather than milk which includes doctrinal truth, and the knowledge of the Lord himself along with him sharing his heart whereby we're able to even love the unlovely whom he loves, empowering us to sacrifice what we want in service to the needy and the lost.

We're told, "except there is a falling away, the end shall not come," so that it's not only are American Christians who have a lack of biblical love, but it's also Christendom as a whole: of whom we're told, "except there's a falling away, then end shall not come." Sadly!

But in the first century after Jesus; as told in Rev chap 2 and 3, the seven Churches that were in Asia had Churches that were doing well along with Churches that were back-sliding. Not all of us have to be falling away when Jesus returns in the clouds, some of us can be a faithful remnant who walk in obedience to the Spirit as a sweet-savor of Jesus to both the Lord and the world.

I agree with all you say, but those who are falling away or fallen away, are not the issue here, its the saved believers who don't act upon each other with pure love. this is very sad and shows why the Bible says the church will be judged first.

my point for my post is to encourage you and others to love like God tells us, and im talking to myself too, we ought to deny ourselves and Love the way Jesus Loved, and how The bible defines love, as i showed in scriptures.

God bless you my dear friend!!

How would someone go about loving with the love of Christ?

Then you're in the wrong place. The BDF is the Epitome of what you're describing, I'd say even worse, in fact.
And no amount of scripture, complaining or trying to change it will have any effect.

Well the unity described in the New Testament is always focused in unity within a local NT church. All the letters sent to the churches.

So the thrust for unity would ideally start with each church individually.

There will not be unity in this chat site or most other forums, because first..they are not churches... second...all sorts post on these..and last .. they aren't about teaching most of the time but discussion.

The other thing..is you are saying the 'American ' church as if the problems there are distinct to them .

I think you would find the same problems all through the world..especially the richer nations.

There were no physical churches back then, and Ephesisans 4:11:16 is talking about the body of Christ / the believers which WERE the church and still is, its not a church building, they went from house to house and had fellowship, just like we can have fellowship here online now.

let me quote you the scripture.

Eph 4:11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

Eph 4:12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

Eph 4:13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

Eph 4:14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

Eph 4:15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:

Eph 4:16 From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.


So as it says in verse 16, the body is joined together and compacted by that which every joint supply, we are each a body part and we each have a gift and responsibility to make an increase of the body of Christ, if we say we are believers, which is why we have to be in unity, a body cannot function if the bodyparts do not agree with each other, we have to do this by listening to those elders in verse 11 who are given the gift of God to be Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors, Teachers, instead of lone wolfing and thinking we can interpret the bible as we want and cherry pick as we want and then share our interpretation.

but i really feel the issue is we are in the end days and that's why so many are cold and don't want to pick up the cross dying to oneself which means loving others as he did among other things.

all i want is to encourage the true believers to walk in love, denying yourself, put others before you in meekness and show the true light of Jesus through your actions, this way there are hope that other people will get saved or come back into the faith, pride is the biggest problem.

writing this i feel so grieved and sad, but i will not give in to the devil, i want to show the light wherever i go, i want to put God first and do good to others, putting them before myself, doing this as i would do to Jesus, because if i reject people and have no love then i have no love for Jesus because he defined love and commanded these things and indirectly i would show no love for him by showing no love for people.

I pray everyone in here will feel encouraged to be better and to walk obediently with Jesus, shining his light through love, the love that he defined and through spreading his good news.

God bless you.

Derobo

@Cameron143 By first loving God with all your heart, soul and mind, then when you do this, which takes full denying of your own pleasures, and desires, you put God first. then you love everyone the same way Jesus loved you and gave you salvation, you show the same grace towards others as he gave you, you die to yourself for others just as he died to himself for us. this is christianity.

i encourage you my brother to walk in his love, lets do it, we are in the end days!

So...by the power of one's own will?

I don't know what BDF means my friend im sorry.

- well, i have faith that at least the people who love God, will wake up a bit, we have to remind each other of the things which Jesus commanded us, if we just turn silent then we are part of the problem.

Its Gods will that you do these things.
So IF you love him you will keep his commandments. Jesus said it clearly to Love God and to love others as yourself is the greatest commandments, which the law and the prophets stand on.

Loving God is denying yourself and putting him first, and if you put him first then you love others like he does, because its his will that you walk in love and shining his love through yourself. its that simple my friend.
anyone who does not do these things don't love God that much.
@Cameron143

My point is that no one has ever kept the law by trying to keep the law except Jesus. If one is going to live as Jesus did, they will need to have Christ living in them and the life they live will be Him and not them...I live yet not I; Christ lives in me.

'' If one is going to live as Jesus did, they will need to have Christ living in them and the life they live will be him and not them''

I agree without Jesus its not possible.

so if someone is a believer and claim they love him , they will then follow his commandments and walk in his love toward others to shine the light, that others can see this light and be amazed, and maybe even saved after this.

John 14:21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

John 14:23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

John 14:24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me.

@Cameron143

So brother it is possible, everything is possible with God, we have to strive to be better, to listen to each other , to bear each others burdens, to have more patience, to not fight with eachother over things that don't matter, to love unconditionally YES !
actually we are to shine so much that unbelievers will see and come to us.
so we must start in the church to be loving towards one another, even when its hard, even when we don't agree, even when we feel the others have wronged us, we need to not take things personally but forgive 77 times a day if be, it starts with ourself.

i encourage you to do this to those around you my dearly beloved brother in Christ.

I appreciate that you are exhorting believers to holiness, but you are exhorting them basically to try the best they can in their own strength. What they need is to learn to walk in Jesus' strength by walking in the Spirit. Otherwise, it will end up being an exercise in futility. If men could please God and obey apart from Christ, we have no need of the Holy Spirit.

Again, you are doing an excellent job of relaying what should be done without showing how it is done.

No we go in faith just like Abraham did when he took his son to be a sacrifice, he acted upon his faith, he didn't just sit and say ok Lord.
we do all things through God, we take a leap of faith and then we take the step, and walk obediently in his commands, this is possible when we deny ourselves and our own will, and walk in his Spirit.

Php 2:12 Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Php 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

Php 2:14 Do all things without murmurings and disputings:

Php 2:15 That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;

Php 2:16 Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain.



Ephesians 2:10: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them



1Ti 4:6 If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed.

1Ti 4:7 Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness;

1Ti 4:8 for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

1Ti 4:9 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance.

1Ti 4:10 For to this end we toil (work hard) and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.