This is my command: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friend. -John 15: 12-13 (NLT)
How can a single person love those of the opposite sex well? To properly answer this important question, the first thing you must do is define your definition of love. The truest essence of love is expressed in the words and actions of Jesus (John 15:13), “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friend.”
When you’re young, it’s okay to have a simplified vision of marriage.
When should you hand a person over to Satan?
When you are a Bible believing Christian and someone you are trying to help is not, you then begin to understand where the terms “Bible thumping” and “Bible beating” come from. If only we could take the literal book of the Bible and conk people on the head to help them understand, life would be so much easier . . . right? Unfortunately, these methods do nothing but embitter those who stand in opposition to the Bible.
So what can be done? I was meeting with a young man who had been a member of our church, grew up in a Baptist household, married a Christian girl, but now in his early twenties was beginning to questions his Christian faith. He wanted to meet with me about the inerrancy, authority, and perfections of Scripture, doubting more and more with every secular book he read that the Bible really was an inspired book.
We talked for hours on multiple occasions. I answered his questions, explained the facts, pointed him to good Christian scholars, but over the months his position against God only strengthened.
Finally, he stated he was now fully an atheist.
Bible Verses:
You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. – James 4:4
What does friendship with the world look like? Why is friendship with the world wrong? If God loves the world (John 3:16), why does he tell us if we are friends with the world we are an enemy of God? How can you love someone without being their friend? And how can Christians evangelize to the lost if the lost don’t know we love them?
While Scripture is clear that believers should “not be unequally yoked with unbelievers” (2 Corinthians 6:14), it also clear that Christians should seek to serve and love the world, for as Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31). These two commands are not in contradiction. While it may seem like we must be friends with the world to love the world, this is not truly the case. Therefore, its important to truly know what friendship with the world really looks like and what it does not look like.