He Who Is Born of God Loves He Who Is Born of God

1 John 5:1

Everyone who believes [with a deep, abiding trust in the fact] that Jesus is The Christ (The Messiah, The Anointed) is born of God [that is, reborn from above—spiritually transformed, renewed, and set apart for His purpose], and everyone who loves The Father also loves the child born of Him.

        1 John 4:20, 21

    20. If anyone says, “I love God,” but 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.

    21. And we have this commandment from Him: Whoever loves God must love his brother as well.

     It is not enough to declare, "I am a Christian" and go on living our lives the way we've always lived them. Someone who truly follows (obeys) Christ will also love the other people who follow Christ.  We can't help it: that's the way we have been built. Or shall I say, rebuilt. 

    We are transformed day by day into the people God desires us to be. We are not 'chips off the old block': we are born from above, a new creation: created by God in Christ through The Holy Spirit. [Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:10; Ephesians 2:10].

   We do not pick and choose whom we will shower our love on. We love our brothers and sisters in Christ just as deeply as we love those who are not. Our hearts are no longer filled with prejudices, nor are we a complaining people. Grumbling against God has consequences we don't want to go through. 

     We love our heavenly Father, God. Why? "Because He first loved us." [1 John 4:9]. Since God can look beyond our faults and still love us, so, too, should we look beyond the faults of those who fail us, or whom we have failed, and extend the love of God within us to them. 

     But if the love of God (Jesus Christ) is not living in us, then we cannot love others the way God loves us. The world we live in, especially our corner of it (wherever we are living), will not improve until God improves us. 

     We must be born again by God into His family first before any change can take place. And the first change that happens is that we believe that Jesus Christ is The Messiah, The Anointed, The Only Begotten Son of God. Do you believe?

    Jesus loves us with an unprejudicial love. Men and women and children. All races, all nations. Slaves and slaveowners. Strangers, aliens, foreigners. Civilized or uncivilized. 

    Colossians 3:11 

Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian (wild people), slave, or free, but Christ is all and is in all.

    Romans 10:12

For there is no difference between Jew and Greek: The same Lord is Lord of all, and gives richly to all who call on Him.

    1 Corinthians 12:13

For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free, and we were all given one Spirit to drink.

    Galatians 3:28

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

    Mark 10:14

But when Jesus saw it, He was greatly displeased and said to them, "Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God."

    Zechariah 7:9,10

"This is what The LORD of Hosts says: ‘Administer true justice. Show loving devotion and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, The alien (stranger/foreigner) or the poor. Let none of you plan evil in his heart against his brother.’"

    

LOVING GOD, LOVING EACH OTHER - Gaither Vocal Band

 

    

Names of Christ - Jesus Is The Life

 

IESOUS ZOE

(pronounced ee-ay-soos'  dzo-ay')

JESUS IS THE LIFE

John 14:6

Jesus said to them, "I Am The Way, The Truth, And The Life. No one comes to The Father but by Me."

    Whether we are speaking of this life we now live or the life we who believe will one day live on the other side of death, this word 'zoe' is applicable. It refers to the life we are given when we are born into this world. It also refers to the life eternal the born again believer will have after death. For Christ Jesus is part of the Triune God Who created life from the beginning. 

THE CREATED LIFE

    Genesis 1:26

And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

    Genesis 2:7

And The LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. 

    Psalm 139:13

For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb.

    Job 10:11

You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews.

THE BORN AGAIN LIFE

    John 1:4

In Him was Life, and The Life was The Light of men.

    John 5:26

For as The Father has Life in Himself, so also He has granted The Son to have Life in Himself.

    1 John 5:11, 12

And this is that Testimony: God has given us Eternal Life, and this Life is in His Son.  Whoever has The Son has Life; whoever does not have The Son of God does not have Life.

    Psalm 36:9

For with You is The Fountain of Life; in Your Light we see Light. [(cf) John 4:14].

    From the moment of conception there is life. Whether it is the baby being formed in the mother's womb or the born again believer being transformed by The Holy Spirit, there is life. As infants, we take our first breath with mild shock, for we have left the relative darkness and warmth of our mothers and find ourselves in a wide-open, airy, somewhat colder and brighter place. 

    When we first believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, the wonder is even more amazing. We have left the darkness of sin and shame, exchanging that place for the Light and Life of a Loving God and Merciful Savior. Our first breath in Life in Christ is amazing. We have drawn into our souls the unimaginable grace that saves us from eternal damnation and punishment. We find ourselves in a wide open garden, a meadow full of wonderful things which God has prepared for the believers. 

    As babies, God 'knit us' in our mothers' wombs. As believers, God weaves us into Himself through His Word and His Spirit. As believers, we form the body of Christ, the church, Whom He gave Himself for. As born again believers, we recognize Christ as The Head of the church and choose to be transformed into Him on a daily basis by being obedient to The Spirit's lead. 

BORN AGAIN BY WATER & BY BLOOD

    John 3:5

Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and The Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." 

    Titus 3:5

He saved us, not by the righteous deeds we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of new birth and renewal by The Holy Spirit.

    As a child grows in life, so, too, must a child of God grow in Life. We grow in The Life of Christ after Christ is written on our hearts by The Holy Spirit at our new birth. We seek out God in His Word and His Word is daily applied to our hearts and our minds by His Holy Spirit. This is wisdom. This is Life. 

    And when we draw our last breath in life, when death tries to embrace our souls, we take our first breath in Eternity. We will leave this frail body of death and decay, and rise in new bodies that will never die. Because LIFE ETERNAL is Living in us now. What a Way to go!

JESUS IS LIFE - Steven Curtis Chapman

LIVING FOR JESUS - classic hymn