Love Without Tolerance
Today's Daily Soap {Scripture | Observation | Application | Prayer}
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SCRIPTURE:
And so I insist—and God backs me up on this—that there be no going along with the crowd, the empty-headed, mindless crowd. They've refused for so long to deal with God that they've lost touch not only with God but with reality itself. They can't think straight anymore. Feeling no pain, they let themselves go in sexual obsession, addicted to every sort of perversion. Ephesians 4:17-19 [MSG]
OBSERVATION: We do not need to be accepting to be loving.
APPLICATION:
I've been thinking a lot lately about tolerance, as it seems more and more that we're told that we should accept the differences of others. Not racial or ethnic differences, or gender differences, or differences in abilities, but differences in lifestyle choices. I could create an exhaustive list of Biblically inappropriate lifestyle choices that some today say we should be tolerant of. I won't.The Bible, we're told, teaches that we should love everyone. That's the argument often used by those who would call for tolerance. But can we love a person without accepting his / her lifestyle choices? I do.Just as God loves each and every one of us, but hates our sins, so can we love a person without being forced to accept his / her choice of lifestyle. The Bible says that we should not go along with the crowd. Don't settle for the sin that we know to be wrong. Love others, but be strong in our support for God and His Word. Tolerance is not the way to achieve harmony or peace. Tolerance will lead only to more tolerance, until we are in fact intolerant of those who are trying to follow Christ's teaching. I can love you without being tolerant of your sins. Christ showed me how.
PRAYER:
Father, help me to show Your love to all, without regard to anything. At the same time, help me to following the crowd and avoid falling in with the calls for tolerance of that which you teach is wrong.
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