A Quote by Francis Schaeffer
Jesus taught that the mark of the Christian is the observable love shown among all true believers.
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There is a brotherhood within the body of believers, and the Lord Jesus Christ is the common denominator. Friendship and fellowship are the legal tender among believers.
The Christian Church should not be a secret society of specialists, but a public manifestation of believers in Jesus.
Our responsibility is to love God and to love our neighbour which is what Jesus taught and it's also what Judaism taught - and that would make sense because Jesus was Jewish.
Studies of the people named and described in earliest Christian texts show that, right from the earliest years, they included craftsmen, merchants, and owners of businesses. Of course, there were also slaves and poor among believers. By at least the second century, there were also believers from upper levels of Roman society.
Christian love is the only kind of love in which there is no rivalry, no jealousy. There is jealousy among the lovers of art; there is jealousy among the lovers of song; there is jealousy among the lovers of beauty. The glory of natural love is its monopoly, its power to say, 'It is mine. ' But the glory of Christian love is its refusal of monopoly.
True believers are continually shown by reality that their god doesn't exist, but have developed extensive coping mechanisms to deal with this cognitive dissonance.
Dear young people, we have seen that it is the Holy Spirit who brings about the wonderful communion of believers in Jesus Christ. True to his nature as giver and gift alike, he is even now working through you. Let unifying love be your measure; abiding love your challenge; self-giving love your mission!
True believers just don't see things the way they are, because if they did, they wouldn't be true believers anymore.
I taught what was clear in Acts 11:26: SAVED = CHRISTIAN = DISCIPLE, simply meaning that you cannot be saved and you cannot be a true Christian without being a disciple also. I taught that, to be baptized, you must first make the decision to be a disciple, and then be baptized. I taught that their baptism was invalid because a retroactive understanding of repentance and baptism was not consistent with Scripture.
There are those, of course, who deny that they need any form of authority. They are the popular atheists and agnostics. Such men say that they must be shown by 'reason' whatever they are to accept as true. But the great thinkers among non-Christian men have taken no such position. They know that they cannot cover the whole area of reality with their knowledge.
Love is the language we as believers must speak. Galatians 3:26 says we are ALL children of God. The spirit of God is Love. I would be as bold as to say that if you are unable to love, you likely are not a Christian. I know that sounds harsh, but the word Christian comes from "little Christ," meaning we operate and behave with the same spirit as our Savior.
The Crucifixion, Atonement, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ mark the beginning of a Christian Life, not the end of it.
What can be shown?
What true love be?
All could be known or shown
If Time were but gone.
People need to learn how to respond to each other's hatreds with love - which is what Jesus taught us, which is what Buddha came here to teach us, which is what Muhammad taught us, which is what all of the great spiritual masters who have ever walked among us who live at those highest energies taught us - responding to force with more force will just create more problems.
You can keep your own religion - Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Mormonism - you just need to add Jesus to the equation. Then you become complete. You become a Buddhist with Jesus, a Hindu with Jesus, a Muslim with Jesus and so on. You can throw out the term Christianity and still be a follower of Jesus. In fact, you can throw out the term Christian too. In some countries, you could be persecuted for calling yourself a Christian, and there is no need for that. Just ask Jesus into your heart, you don't have to identify yourself as a Christian.
We can understand that the Fathers of the Church in the East wanted Apocalypse left out of the New Testament. But like Judas among the disciples, it was inevitable that it should be included. The Apocalypse is the feet of clay to the grand Christian image. And down crashes the image, on the weakness of these very feet. There is Jesus--but there is also John the Divine. There is Christian love--and there is Christian envy. The former would "save" the world--the latter will never be satisfied till it has destroyed the world. They are two sides of the same medal.
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