03 July 2016
Two-Minute Features | 10 July 2016

Who Are the Neighbors We are to Love? (TMF:445)

Friday, July 08, 2016
Peace to Live By: Who Are the Neighbors We are to Love? (TMF:445) - Daniel Litton
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       Now, let’s shift gears here a bit and talk about how, we, as Christians, should love our neighbors as ourselves. You might asking, much like the lawyer did in Luke chapter 10, 'Who is my neighbor?' Well, really, that's a good question because it can provide us with further clarification. After all, this is the second greatest command, 'to love our neighbors as ourselves,' and we want to be sure that we get it right. In the most basic sense, our neighbors include everyone and anyone, really. Jesus demonstrated this fact in the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke chapter 10. After Jesus told the parable, he asked, “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise” (Luke 10:36, 37, ESV). The lawyer got it right. We are to love others as we have opportunity, and God may even have us love them to a fuller extent than the norm, like the Good Samaritan did in the parable. So, we learn that our neighbors then include both non-Christians and Christians alike. It is important to note that, for the Christian, God puts great emphasis on loving both groups of people.

We Love God With All of Our Mind (TMF:444)

Thursday, July 07, 2016
Peace to Live By: We Love God With All of Our Mind (TMF:444) - Daniel Litton
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       In order to have a healthy mind, first, we have to have a pure heart. Our thought-life should be one of purity. If were going around thinking impure thoughts, that is unpleasing to God and eventually is going to lead us to incorrect behavior. Our thoughts determine our actions. That is, we do what we are thinking of first. This is very basic. Remember what Paul said about monitoring your individual thoughts? He said to the Corinthians, “We… take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5, ESV). So, number one we have to be aware of what are thoughts actually are. Sometimes we are thinking wrong things without realizing they are wrong. Number two, we have grab hold of those thoughts, take them “captive,” getting rid of the ones that would be displeasing to God. This will take time, but it is a necessary struggle. It may take a lot of time, actually, but we should hang in there as it is well worth the fight. By having a filter on our thought-life we then have clean minds and have good thoughts which are obedient to Jesus.

We Love God With All of Our Strength (TMF:443)

Wednesday, July 06, 2016
Peace to Live By: We Love God With All of Our Strength (TMF:443) - Daniel Litton
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       Strength is the next area in our loving of God. The Apostle Paul said, “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained” (Philippians 3:14-16, ESV). Running the race that God has set before us is the way we love God with all our strength. God expects us to be maturing and growing toward becoming more like Jesus. He will focus on a particular area at a certain time, and expect us to master that hurtle and grow. Then as time goes along he will show us a new area where growth is needed. In the Christian life, we are always going to be growing into becoming better people and more pleasing to God. Jesus talked about picking up our cross daily and following him (Luke 9:23). This is loving God with all our strength, in picking up our crosses and carrying them. It was God’s will that Jesus go to the cross, and it is God’s will that we live for God, even when we don’t completely agree with him.

We Love God With All of Our Soul (TMF:442)

Tuesday, July 05, 2016
Peace to Live By: We Love God With All of Our Soul (TMF:442) - Daniel Litton
(tap or right-click link to download two-minute feature)

       We also love God with all our soul. Paul said to the Thessalonians, “Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24. ESV). Now, there is a sense in sanctification where we, as Christians, are already blameless before God in his sight, as the blood of Jesus has declared us righteous before God. But there is also a sense where we are to become sanctified in this life by following Jesus, by following what God says in his Word to us. So, Paul's prayer to the Thessalonians was that God would keep their souls—their ‘selves’—blameless before him. Now this will surely happen because of Jesus' sacrifice for us, but we should also be diligent in trying to be pleasing to God as best we can, to the best of our knowledge. This will involving denying ourselves—wanting to follow our own ways without God’s input. Jesus, on one occasion, said we must deny ourselves daily (Luke 9:23). This is loving God with our souls. Doing what is pleasing to him, with all our souls, makes him happy.

We Love God With All of Our Heart (TMF:441)

Monday, July 04, 2016
Peace to Live By: We Love God With All of Our Heart (TMF:441) - Daniel Litton
(tap or right-click link to download two-minute feature)

       In regard to loving God with our hearts, that means we have complete control of ourselves so that we are acting in the ways God says are right. Now, of course, this doesn’t mean we will be perfect in our actions, as we will make mistakes from time to time, but it means that our goal and motivation is always trying to please God in self-control. We should not put ourselves in the drivers seat of our lives, but rather let God drive the car. If we are in the drivers seat, we are being selfish and taking control of our day-to-day events. That’s bad because we will undoubtedly lead ourselves in the wrong direction. We have to let God lead us in all our important decisions. When you read the Gospels, you notice that Jesus spent a lot of time in prayer with God. And I think this is something we all should work on. I believe if we spend more time in prayer with God, we will see better God-centered results in our lives. We will have clearer direction of where God wants us to go and what he wants us to be focusing on in our lives.