A False god- Love

Today's churches--especially in America--have fallen to a false pretense of love. The biggest slogan for churches is "God loves you." If you've ever watched Veggie Tales, the show always ends with "God made you special and He loves you very much." At its foundation, there is nothing wrong with this view, for God loves everyone. But the problem is that we have taken love to far; we have made God a god of love only and forgotten that He is also a God who is holy, just, righteous, vengeful, and jealous. Many people will say that you cannot say someone is a false teacher because they "believe in God," or that we cannot tell homosexuals they are wrong because "God loves everyone and therefore we need to show them love" and not tell them they are wrong. We have forgotten that God hates sin. In fact sin seperates us from God, which is why Jesus had to come and die. It was because of sin that we could not be with God, so Jesus had to become sin for us to bring us back to God. Therefore, as Christians who are striving to be Christ-like, we need to be as Jude said, "[to] be merciful to those who doubt, snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy mixed with fear-hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh." This is what true love is. It is what Christ did for us and what we need to do for others. It means loving people by saving them from hell, it means showing them they are in the wrong, that they are a sinner and that they have sinned. Love is bringing them to the only One who can save them from their sins. If you see someone who is in sin, to love them is to bring them out of that sin. But our churches have fallen asleep, we have become comfortable in our own life of happiness. The church has forgotten to tell people about hell. We think hell is something only for halloween, and we joke it about when  reading Dante's Inferno. But it is real, and people are going there--people you know are going there--and what are you doing to love them, to save them from the fires of hell? Look here at what God told Ezekiel,

"Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. When I say to a wicked man, 'You will surely die,' and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his evil ways in order to save his life, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. But if you do warn the wicked man and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his evil ways, he will die for his sin; but you will have saved yourself.

"Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and does evil, and I put a stumbling block before him, he will die. Since you did not warn him, he will die for his sin. The righteous things he did will not be remembered, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. But if you do warn the righteous man not to sin and he does not sin, he will surely live because he took warning, and you will have saved yourself." (Ezekiel 3:17-21)

Friends, be aware that Hell is real, be aware that as Christians our job is to snatch people from the fire, be aware that to love and follow God means to live a life that is not comfortable. It is a life that is accompanied with sacrificial love, for Jesus said, "there is no greater love than this that a man lay down his life for his friends." So friends and Christians, love as God loves. Do not love as the world does.

The Bible says no one can Love God and Hate his Brother. Hatred in our lives destroys, it destroys are realtionship with God, it destroys are realtionships with others and it destroys ourselves. God wants us to love everyone so that we may live a good life, full of Joy and Love. We must Love people for who they are not who we want them to be or who we percieve them to be. Everyone will mess up and cause hurt, because we are human. But we must be willing to fogive and move on and Love that person, because God Loved them so much to die for them and us.