1 John 4:16
"So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him."
1 John 4:8
"Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love."
Zephaniah 3:17
"The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing."
Romans 8:37-39
"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Galatians 2:20
"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
We can love people from afar as we pray for them. The Bible is full of commands and instructions about not keeping company with those who have heard the gospel and will not obey. God doesn't need us to influence them, He can do it all by Himself and with others.
Christ was not honored in His own town among His own family either, we can expect the same thing. There is freedom in following Christ without the continual drama and foolishness that comes with superficial and unsaved family. Such peace came over my soul when I decided it was time to exit family gatherings. Now I desire to be in fellowship with those who love the Lord.
If the Lord brings someone into my life temporarily for His purpose, one of those who has rejected Him and me, then I will engage, but not just because family pressures me to do so.
Most Christians today are not obeying Christ even though they say they read the Bible, they disobey most of it, because they want to seem superior in knowing the Bible, but care little about loving Christ or the Brethren.
