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Intro: We do love being loved, don’t we? Me, too! But if you’re a Christian…
…there’s a good reason to be careful with that. We’ll knock that out in our apologetics segment.
Sponsor: (none today)
Bible segment: Amos 6-9, NIV (New International Version)
Apologetics segment: “I worship a God of love!”
You actually heard me say this in yesterday’s show, but it’s worth repeating: The most loving thing God can do is hate sin.
I think the key is to point out that being “for” one thing means being “against” it’s opposite. If you’re for justice, you’re against injustice, right?
So if the Creator of all, including you, knows that if you sin you die, what should His position be on sin? If you choose it, you die, and He loves you. He knows what’s good for you. He doesn’t want you to die, He wants to be with you.
Now imagine you’re loving your own child. Imagine you so want to keep them from sinning out there in the world that you tie them up in their bedroom. They can’t get pregnant prematurely or catch an STD, get drunk and drive off the road. You just “kept them from sinning,” but it wasn’t very loving.
When someone says they worship a God of love, say, “Me, too. He loves me so much that He hates the things that hurt me — and since He’s the same unchanging God for all of eternity, when I read the Bible I’m asking myself, ‘How does this story reveal God’s character' even if I don’t fully like it?’”
Is it a perfect answer? No, but it just might give someone something to think about.
Take action segment:
Pray through Psalm 127
Watch The Bible Project’s video on Amos (below) if you haven’t already.
Love you!
-R
Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in digitally-extended communication and connection, an award-winning speaker, award-winning author, and a passionately bad guitarist. Follow him on Twitter -- @RogerCourville and @JoinForTheHope – or his blog: www.forthehope.org.
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