Over the last eleven years, I have posted numerous articles on this blog dealing with the subject of God's expectations of New Covenant Christians. I have talked in great detail about the Two Great Commandments which Christ pulled out of Torah as the foundation of Divine Law - the God standard, if you will. My critics, of course, have charged that I espouse a kind of lawlessness - that my focus on love (an "emotion," they say) amounts to no real standard at all. Indeed, many Armstrongists break out into a big grin and make fun of the mention of love as a standard! Instead, they focus on the written commands of Torah and its rituals as the standard for all "true" Christians.
Love, however, is a real standard. It is NOT an amorphous emotion that cannot be clearly defined. After all, the Apostle Paul defined it in his first letter to the saints at Corinth! He wrote: "Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance." (I Corinthians 13:4-7, NLT) No real standard? Really?
In his first epistle, John wrote: "Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us." (I John 4:7-12, NLT) A standard? How about THE STANDARD! What do you think?
Amen.
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