Quote:
Originally Posted by Godsdrummer
The way so many so called Christians treat there fellow man.
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Too often we apply the world's standard of what love should be instead of God's standard of love. The way Christians treat one another is NOT the evidence of a lack of love, but it reveals the lack of spiritual maturity and growth. Christian love is a purposeful act of will, not an emotional trigger; it's born from our view of where we're at in the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. With growth, this act of will becomes a part our nature and manifests itself through compassion toward others (within and without the Body of Christ).
The tone of the following passages border on brutal; yet Paul and James intended for them to snap the reader out of their carnality and focus on repairing their place in Christ. I couldn't imagine either apostle not loving the recipients of these letters, but desiring them to quit their folly and go on to perfection.
1 Corinthians 3:1-3
1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.
3 For ye are yet carnal : for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
James 4:1-5
1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?
2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.
3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
5 Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?