SAM HONIBALL BLOG

Jesus Christ accepts you completely. He loves you and accepts you. That doesn’t mean he approves of everything you do. No, he doesn’t do that. But he accepts you. You can accept someone without approving of what they do. A good example is one day Jesus was walking down the street and some religious leaders who were trying to trap Jesus caught this woman in the act of adultery. It’s interesting they didn’t catch the guy. But it says they caught the woman in the act of adultery. They bring her before Jesus and throw her down before Jesus. This woman was caught cheating on her husband. What are you going to do about it, Jesus? You know this famous story. Jesus looks at all of the accusers and says, “Ok, anybody who has never sinned, you get to throw the first stone.” And of course they all start going away. What is Jesus doing here? He’s giving acceptance, not approval. He didn’t approve of what she was doing. The first thing that Jesus did was he defended her dignity. He said, I’m not go

MATT. 22:36-39 (LB) “WHICH IS THE MOST IMPORTANT COMMAND?” JESUS REPLIED, “LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, SOUL, AND MIND. ‘THIS IS THE FIRST AND GREATEST COMMANDMENT. THE SECOND MOST IMPORTANT IS SIMILAR: ‘LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS MUCH AS YOU LOVE YOURSELF.” I hate to tell you this but the truth is one day all your trophies are going to be trashed. Given enough time somebody’s going to throw them away. That bowling trophy! That merit badge! That report card! That certificate of accomplishment! That gold watch that you got for retirement! Nobody’s going to remember those things. I doubt that you have any of the awards that your grandparents got. When people are dying they don’t want things around them. What they want is people. They want the people that they love and they want to love those people. The truth is everybody – every one of us – will eventually learn the basic truth of life that life is about relationships not accomplishments. Everybody’s going to eventually learn

Why didn’t God just create you to take you to heaven? Have you ever thought about that? Why does he let you spend sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety years here on a broken world where there is sin, suffering, sorrow, sadness, problems, pressures, stress? LIFE IS ALL ABOUT LEARNING HOW TO LOVE. In fact, one day Jesus was walking down the street and a guy came up to him and he said, Lord what is the most important command in the Bible. Jesus said, I can summarize the entire Bible for you in two sentences. If you get these two things you get it. You get what life is all about. It’s called the GREAT COMMANDMENT. We’ve looked at it many times. JESUS SAID, MARK 12:30-31 (LB) “LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND ALL YOUR SOUL, AND ALL YOUR MIND AND ALL YOUR STRENGTH. AND LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF. THERE ARE NO COMMANDS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THESE.” Learn to love God with all your heart and, by the way, learn to love everybody else. He said if you get those two things, you’ve got it