Do it!

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves.  Do what it says. James 1:22 NIV

The Gospel message is pretty simple.  God loves us. Jesus died for our redemption and rose from the dead to eternal life. We are sinners but are brought into right relationship with God through forgiveness of our sins through Jesus. We are commanded to love God and love other people, especially our brothers and sisters in Christ.  

That didn’t take many words. Now I know that the ins and outs of what it looks like to love God and others can be complicated at times, but the longer I live the more I see that it’s the obvious interpretation of the commands that gets put on the back burner. Christians aren’t stumbling because they have misinterpreted some difficult passage in Revelation.  They are stumbling because they are holding grudges, they are being greedy, they are proud and they are not obeying God’s clear commands and directives. Most Christians have lots of knowledge of what the Scriptures say. Some really do follow God in mind and spirit, but there are a sizable number who don’t. It really is not enough to know what the Bible says. We have to do the loving, forgiving, and dying to self.