Love God and Love Others!

Last Wednesday our youth group started a new series and talked about forgiving but we also spoke about loving God and people, which was so GOOOOOOD!! Some of the things that my youth pastor said were they (speaking of people) are not going to know that we're Christians by our tee-shirts or bumper stickers but by our love. Think about it. You might see someone wearing a Christian tee or have this cross necklace but when they're yelling at their Mom or whatever else, you are seriously going to doubt that they love God, which kind of leads into something else that we spoke about (though it actually was before that :). You cannot say that your relationship with God is going good and not love other people, here. Our relationships effect our relationship with God. Here'sverses that we looked up and please do look them up, too! They are really good!

-> Matthew 5:23-24-reconile, move on. Don't bring the sin up anymore. -> John 13:34-35-love will speak to the world that we are children of the King. -> Matthew 22:36-39-The first and second commands. The first and greatest, love God with everything. The second is loving others like ourselves. The NLT says, "A second is equally important". The greatest command is to love God but the next, to love others as ourself, is of the same importance. Crazy, hun? -> Ephesians 4:1-2 tells to lead a life worthy of God's calling in verse one. Verse two tells us things we should do but they're not rules. They are commands and if I love Christ, then I'll follow them.

This week at our youth group, just yesterday, we spoke about acceptance, continuing in the second week of our series. With acceptance there is no normal. There's really no thing as normal. God doesn't make the stories in the Bible perfect but He leaves them in for us. We live much of our life to be accepted. But we need to remember that even when others don't accept us we're totally accepted by God. And if you haven't accepted God's free gift, then please think about it seriously. Place your faith in Him, in the things He said, and accept His free offer. And as a Christian, we need to follow God, you and me. Because Jesus accepted us, we need to go out and accept others. Accept!!