The Simplest of Doctrines: Lose the Religion, Light the Love

When I say lose the religion I mean that respectfully but frankly. Christianity is not about religion, it's about love. The life and times of Jesus Christ is a love story. It's a true tale about God's love for us and Jesus' love for His Father and us, manifesting itself in obedience even unto death. Greater love hath no man than this.

One day, after a particularly powerful intercessory prayer session, the Lord began speaking to me about Love.

He was speaking of the scripture in the bible that says, "let your light so shine before men".

Salt and Light
¹³"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.
¹⁴"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. ¹⁶In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

He spoke to my heart that in the above scripture we should replace light and salt with love. Let your love so shine before men that they may know your Father that is in heaven. And, He went on to say that a Christian without love is like salt without saltiness... good for nothing. The intensity with which the Lord conveyed that message to me was tremendous. He imparted to me an understanding of how deeply and thoroughly He meant those words. A Christian without love is good for nothing but to be thrown out and trodden under foot. The Lord has no use for a loveless Christian. Christian should be synonymous with lover. A lover without love is useless.

One day I asked the Lord, What is love? He showed me Jesus on the cross with his arms outstretched. Love is doing, and sometimes love is dying. No greater love hath any man than this, that He would die for His friends. Love is good deeds. Love can be seen in our actions. Jesus showed us the ultimate act of love: He died. He acted.

Once upon a time, I was in a very abusive relationship where I heard the words, I love you, but I was also being beaten - regularly. It was very confusing. I can't begin to convey to you how confused I was. I didn't know any better but something was very wrong. Then, The Lord used these words to deliver me from a life of abuse: "If there is an apparent contradiction between what a person says with their lips and what a person says with their actions, believe what they do not what they say."

If you love, it will be manifest in what you do. Your love will be visible in your actions. You cannot hide what is inside of you for it flows out in everything that you do. You cannot love with your thoughts and feelings alone. Love is an action, not a feeling, nor an emotion. Affection and tenderness are emotions. Love is a verb. Love is a choice.

If we were to read the above scripture again, with the understanding that the Lord imparted to me, it would go like this:

Salt and Light
¹³"You are the love of the earth. But if the love loses its love, how can it be made love again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.
¹⁴"You are the love of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. ¹⁶In the same way, let your love shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

Jesus said that the entire Old Testament (the Law & the Prophets) could be summed up in two sentences: Love your Father who is in heaven, first and foremost, with all of hearts, and love our neighbor as ourselves.

Christianity really is that simple, and to make it anymore than loving God and others is a shame, because when Christianity becomes more than that division results. Divisions from doctrinal disputes, and many other weeds ready to grow up and choke the love out of well meaning Christians, at which point we lose our unity.

If you are a new Christian, or even an old Christian, I urge you to stick with the most basic of basics: Love.

Loving too much? or not enough?

Too often Christians are so zealous in their love for God that they begin to take a stand against those whom are opposing God and His laws. But God's love includes loving those that don't believe what we believe and even those that hate us, our beliefs and even Himself. When God says love your enemies, He says so because that is what He does. He loves His enemies which means He does good deeds toward them.

1 John 4:20
If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.

Love for Enemies
⁴³"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor^[h] and hate your enemy.' ⁴⁴But I tell you: Love your enemies^[i] and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain (author's note: rain was essential to life and is not a connotation of bad in this passage. Without rain came drought which meant certain death) on the righteous and the unrighteous. ⁴⁶If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? ⁴⁷And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? ⁴⁸Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

According to scripture, being perfect is loving even those who hate you .....and that includes those hating your religion, too. Don't fight them. Stand for what is right, but love them in truth and in deed while doing so.

The Word says to love those who persecute you. Some of the people persecuting Christians in our day and age are sometimes liberals, sometimes homosexuals, and various and sundry others who hate Jesus. And sometimes their hate and persecution toward us is rabid, but the Lord said to me one day, Do not be confused I have not asked you to take a stand against homosexuals but to take a stand for righteousness. Therein, is a world of difference. Love those who hate you. Love those who hate what you believe. Love those who are living a life in direct contrast to the word of God, and even those who are trying to further their unrighteous lifestyles, but don't take a stand against them. You can love them and take a stand for righteousness at the same time.

The Lord said to me, "[They] are not the enemy they are the mission field."

Afterward, I was amazed that prior to that word from the Lord I did not realize that those whom were fighting to destroy what I believed were a mission field. The Lord's one sentence took the wind of fight right out of my sails immediately. I immediately understood that I was not fight against what they were doing but instead I was to love them, be there to minister to them, and to stand for rigtheousness. I could take a stand for righteousness without being all riled up and ready to do battle, because I was ready to do battle. Gay agendas irritated me. Gay pride marches irritated me. Liberal and gay activists irritated me, because I felt they were opposing God and that irritated me, because I loved God. I did not feel love toward anyone opposing God's standards, I felt irritation. But after hearing one word of truth from the Lord I was released from that irritation by understanding that He wanted me to love everyone and to love what was right at the same time. It feels so good not to have those feelings of fight inside of me anymore. I am free just to love and it feels sooooo good.

The bottom line is: Just love people. If you stick to loving God with all of your heart and loving people by treating people the way that you would want to be treated, you will have the doctrine of Christanity down pat.

What comes next just boils down to growing up and getting to know God personally. That's coming. Next.

Love,
Mia

Amen. I was the exact same way. I loved the Word and the Lord but hadn't a clue about loving people.

I am glad that you are here, sunshine.

Thank you this is powerful.Somtime I struggle with this I mean I love God and I love to help people, but I dont like to see peope or my family in the state that they are in. They have the antichrist spirit. So sometime I get upset because they refuse to serve the Lord in spirt and truth. So The other day I told them I was sorry whatever I done in the pass and even though I did not do anything really and I told them I love them and I want a better relationship. So there reponse was okay but the did not respond back with there changes whihc is fine I expected this from (mom, dad, brother). I knew how they would react so it did not bother me because I know my Father in Heaven was well please with me. Sometimes I have to make myself speak because it has not been easy walking with the Lord and your family is in a slothful state. So I am gald you shared this because this taught me to LOVE anyway. I ma learning no matter what people do Love them anyway. I am walking in a new light concerning love. This make the devil mad when we express and show love even when we are being treated unfair because in the end this makes us stonger and wiser for the next task. Thank you Mia I love you.

Thank you for such a sweet post. It made my day.

Love,
Mia

I am glad anytime !! You deserve it. Trust in the Lord with your heart and lean not to your own understanding

I loved the Word and the Lord but hadn't a clue about loving people.

...Amen, I can attest to this one for sure mia!!!lol

This is also a confirming word MIA because I just listened to a pastor speaking about "salty christians" and how God needs those Christians who are "Seasoned with his salt" so that the world may know him!!

Definitely for me!!!
smooches
desi

Thanks to all you for your kind words and participation! It is an encouragment.

Love,
Mia

Ahhhh, the love topic...I love it!!!

I honestly think that religion has run a lot of new converts away from the body of Christ. I've been studying on God's Love for a long time now and I've come to the understanding that Pastors/Ministers need to teach on it more than what they are. I believe it's God's Love that will draw people to God, not teaching all the "Do's and Donts". I've seen it with my own eyes in my own church...a person is listening to the message and at some point in the message the list of all the "big" sins are listed and preached against. When the altar call comes, the pastor says "if you are living in sin and you are looking for a way out come to the altar". The altar is full of condemned new believers BUT the next week, those same people (if they make it back to church) are up at the altar AGAIN...and AGAIN...and AGAIN!!! Why is that? Well in my opinion, no one has told them that once you come to the altar and give your life to Christ YOU ARE FORGIVEN FOREVER and that God still loves them despite the fact that they have "fallen" back into the sin again. I think knowing that God Loves them DESPITE will help because usually when they go back to the altar, there is shame and condemnation...like God is mad at them.

As far as walking in love with each other, I mediate on 1 John 4:19 a lot. It's a short scripture, but it is so powerful to me. The NIV Bible says "We love because He first loved us". I have come to the conclusion that the reason why it's so hard for us to love each other and love those who we deem "unloveable" is because we DON'T understand and know the love of God. This scripture says to me (my interpretation)...we will love because we know that he first loves us. God's love is simple and is so unconditional. We usually try to love with our human side, which we all know can only do so conditionally. We need to learn how to accept and experience God's love and then we can honestly love others...religion doesn't really teach that.

Mia, I love the way you inserted the word "love" in the "salt and light" scripture in Matthew. That opens that scripture up in a whole new way.

I agree. We need to shed abroad the Love of Christ instead of doing the Holy Spirit's job of convicting everyone because:

a.) People that don't want to change won't be convicted no matter what you say,

b.) People who are already being convicted by the Holy Spirit don't need us adding our conviction to it, they are already convicted and looking for a safe harbor or answer to their conviction, which is repentance, the love, and the forgiveness of Christ.

Thank you, Cholette, but it wasn't me. The Lord himself spoke that very thing to me and I am just passing it on. I found it pretty profound at the time, too.

Thanks for sharing Mia

Ya welcome. :snow: