God Is Love: Therefore We...

Hey, Y'all,

Ran across this passage a few days ago, been rattling around in my head ever since. We just started discussing the book of James in our men's group and in chapter 1 (verses 22-27) it says:

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.

If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

What jumped out at me was the similarity of that message with that of Isaiah 1:11-18--basically this: "Stop merely doing stuff 'cause you think it appeases me as if I was some heathen God that needed appeasing. I AM Love; my Way is Love; my followers ought to manifest this trait above all others--including 'being right' and 'doing the right things'" (for more on that see all of 1 Corinthians 13 but especially verses 1-3 as well as 1 John 4 especially verses 7-8 and 19-21). Here's the Isaiah passage:

"The multitude of your sacrifices—
what are they to me?" says the LORD.
"I have more than enough of burnt offerings,
of rams and the fat of fattened animals;
I have no pleasure
in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.

"When you come to appear before me,
who has asked this of you,
this trampling of my courts?

"Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—
I cannot bear your evil assemblies.
Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts
my soul hates.
They have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.

"When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even if you offer many prayers,
I will not listen.
Your hands are full of blood;
wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds
out of my sight!

"Stop doing wrong,
learn to do right!
Seek justice,
encourage the oppressed.
Defend the cause of the fatherless,
plead the case of the widow.

"Come now, let us reason together,"
says the LORD.
"Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
they shall be like wool."

God IS Love, therefore we, His professed followers...what?

You've been prayed for today...