I saw Jesus Revolution yesterday....
✝️ Scripture 🕊️
First of all, I got saved at Vacation Bible School around 1980-81.... known and loved God all my life. I could tell you story after story of how He's loved and saved me. Second, this movie, above all else, just shows people experiencing that same love and joy. You could feel the family of God around you in the theatre quietly lifting up their hearts in praise as they were seeing their own stories shown on screen.
This is not another cheesy hybrid Hallmark Christian film. It's beautifully done and probably the best movie I've ever seen.
Many hearts will be touched by the simple message. I kept waiting for Hollywood's message of SELF as God to creep in, but it didn't. Just an amazing film. Light, funny at times, and very uplifting.
It was put out by Harvest. The church Greg Laurie was given. I went with a friend who was at the Dallas revolution. She was enjoying the movie. My wife even loved it! I would say, it’s important to bring someone who is on the fence with you. God’s loving peace to everyone. And remember to “Love your enemies”! Pray for the people trapped in evil, that their hearts will be softened and be brought to light. It’s part of God’s will that we all come to him by choice. So, hating your enemies does not further what God wants. Love to you all!
Yes!
A loving connection with others is a fundamental human need, and that truth undergirds Jesus' entire ministry.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't oppose evil with as much energy and (if need be) force as necessary; it means we are literally all one family and must remain in touch with that even when others are misguided or worse.
Jesus specifically said that if you love others, you ARE His disciple. John 13:35 is a simple and direct statement; nothing else is required than having "love one to another."
Argue with that definition of "Christian" if you like, but understand who you are arguing with.
All proper behavior flows from love -- protection of children, fair dealing in the marketplace, not bearing false witness, fidelity in marriage, and so on. Laws and rules can push people to do the right thing -- sometimes -- but only love automatically and reliably guides our behavior properly.
The quotation as given in the King James version:
John: 13:34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
13:35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
What you write here resonates with me. I think it's very important.
However, there is a distinction that I believe is critical, and it revolves around the nature of love and the position of love in the universe.
Love is like a seed. It's has all the direction it needs in its potential to grow, but it must be fed, and it must grow correctly.
Like all things, the capacity to love grows through effort, action and experience. Critically, that capacity to love - if we call that 'heart' - needs to grow properly in alignment with truth. Here, truth being not a doctrinal creation or understanding, but the transcendental principles by which God created us and the universe.
(Teachings, including doctrines, are efforts to describe and lead a person to truth, to experience truth, and live in alignment with truth, but they are not the truth itself. For example, the Bible is not 'the truth'. Rather, it testifies to the truth. Who or what is the truth? The (transcendental) word of God, and it is perfected and made real in the corporeal world via Jesus, the word become flesh. Thus, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.)
In any case, the capacity to love must grow from an immature state to a mature state. The fulfillment of love growing in alignment with truth is unity with God. That's the door what Jesus opens up (himself being that doorway). Love is the ultimate creative force; it is God's own nature.
If love and the capacity to love does NOT grow in alignment with truth, it becomes corrupted and a destructive force. Thus, there is 'true love', which is love in alignment with Truth, and there is false or fallen love, which is love aligned with lies.
That's the distinction that needs most to be understood. That is the separation point between good and evil; true love vs false love. True love motivates the heart to give, to sacrifice for others, to live for others. Such love manifests in all the virtues you enumerated.
False love, however, turns the heart inward on itself. It pushes the person to sacrifice others for the sake of his or her own desire. It makes a higher priority of self than other.
All of us a mixture of true love and false love. But we can see the corruption of the lies of the devil in how love has been degraded so much today. The entire LGBTQIP phenomenon is pulling so many people towards destruction, because they think "love wins" (e.g. when Gay Marriage becomes a state-sponsored function), but in fact, it's false love.
True love pushes us towards God, resonates more and more with the Truth, and leads us to embody the same nature that Jesus perfected.
Distinguishing between true love and false love is possibly the most critical issue facing the human race. Evil has always attempted to corrupt and distort the creative power of love, all centering on itself, whereas God has continually striven to purify the heart, such that true love can blossom and grow to bear true fruit.
Such a distinction may seem obvious to some, but consider how many churches and believers are falling into the trap of "love is love", without recognizing how destruction such 'love' is. Ultimately, now more than ever, clarity about this particular issue is critical, imo.
When Jesus says "Love one another", he's talking about true love, and not about false love, don't you think?
Thoughts, Narg?
Hello Fractalizingiron:
Thank you for your comment, friend. It prompted more response from me than I can finish tonight; I'll address your parenthetical point about teachings first and try to edit my commentary on your main point down to a reasonable size for tomorrow or later in the week. You wrote:
THAT is an impressive insight, and a deep truth, known for thousands of years but largely forgotten. To slow down for a minute, here's Lao Tzu (or perhaps someone else; the authorship is disputed) on the subject circa 500BC:
Tao Te Ching (Gia-Fu Feng & Jane English Translation)
That makes a LOT more sense to me now than it did when I encountered it many years ago.
Less poetically, here's Iain McGilchrist on the subject in Ways of Attending: How our Divided Brain Constructs the World
Also:
Not understanding that causes HUGE problems in the world. Teachings are not the truth itself -- you said it, brother. Words are not the same as what they describe, and in fact words CANNOT accurately tell the full human truth of ANYTHING. This is one reason why Christians can and should feel united with those of any healthy religion; such religions are other ways of spreading Jesus' teachings, originally by people who never heard of Jesus. LOVE EXISTED BEFORE JESUS walked the Earth; Jesus brought love to the fore in His ministry but so does, for example, Jainism. Gandhi said it well:
It is the LOVE that is important; not the writings in the Bible or any other book. That is why to me "being saved" doesn't mean "believing" in Jesus but rather accepting and feeling, to whatever extent one can, the love / connection / empathy that each of us was born for, and why people who lived before Jesus and those today who have never heard the Gospel may nonetheless "believe in Him" -- because, as when Jesus talked about "little children who believe in me" he didn't mean an intellectual belief in Him but rather that they knew LOVE, as an experience, not as a concept.
Luke 17:21 -- a quotation from Jesus -- is proof of that to me:
Great Response, and a pleasure to read!
I look forward to your other response(s).
But, for a start, I think we are very much on the same wavelength on a number of things.
The quote from Lao tzu was a great start.
The Tao Te Ching was the first scriptural text I read aside from biblical content (which I hadn't really read, tho), starting from the age of 14. My subsequent journey in life took me to live in S. Korea, whose flag, you may be aware, sports 4 of the 8 trigrams and a symbol of the Great Eternity (the Tae Guk) (they call their flag the Tae Guk Ki, "ki" meaning flag), which probably underscores the level of influence Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism has historically held in that country and people.
"Not understanding that causes HUGE problems in the world." And everywhere IN the world, as well, from the individual level upwards to the global level! I'm not certain where I was first exposed to this concept, but it has become a virtual lodestone in the realms of my personal (internal) exploration: the Map is not the Territory
The quote from Ghandi is a good one too. It reminds me of something that was pivotal in me re-engaging with faith practice when I became an adult (18yrs), that thing being the parable of the blind men and the elephant. I'm guessing you are familiar with it.
There are nuances (which I would like to explore with you) around the significance and role of Jesus, what being 'saved' means etc. Nonetheless, I resonate strongly with your idea that "words CANNOT accurately tell the full human truth of ANYTHING, one reason why Christians can and should feel united with those of any healthy religion; such religions are other ways of spreading Jesus' teachings, originally by people who never heard of Jesus".
One caveat (or nuance, tweek) to that might be this: that only the words of a person who has come to embody the truth fully and completely can be regarded as direct expressions of truth. (Emphasizing the distinction between the record or teaching of Jesus' words vs those actual words, which were heard in real time in a different language 2000 years ago).
Either way, I resonate with your take on "love" here. I've never put it in those words. My own understanding / perspective is that many of the other faiths and teachings around the world had the purpose (from God's providential perspective) of preparing different peoples with different sociological, geographical and cultural conditions to be able to receive and connect with Jesus' teaching when it appeared.
How well that purpose was accomplished is a separate matter, but the point remains that all those healthy faiths / religions essentially have the same root, albeit it being expressed, imperfectly, in different ways.
In summary, I love your take on 'love' here (above), and I think there are some interesting ideas worth exploring further.
Our church is thinking about a group of us going to see it. I have never heard of Harvest Church. Are they "politically active" at all? All so often there are those who talk the talk but don't walk the walk.
I don't know about Harvest, but the movie is safe doctrinely. It's the simple gospel message.