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What is Jesus really teaching and doing in the 4 Gospels?Perhaps Paul provided the best summary in 1 Corinthians - Chapter 13:13 when he said “As it is, these remain: faith, hope and love, the three of them; and the greatest of them is love.”
As Jesus Himself said (in MT 22:37-40): “'You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second resembles it: You must love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments hang the whole Law, and the Prophets too.”
Jesus reaches out to everyone (including the tax collectors and prostitutes) especially the poor and needy regardless if they believed in Him. He help and cure them because of his Love for them. Many are converted because they felt loved by Jesus and followed Him.
So, if a Christian is someone who subscribed his faith to “the life and teachings of Jesus”, then Christians must live his life based the 2 commandments for: "Whoever fails to love does not know God, because God is love." - 1Jn 4:8.
As Christians, we place great importance in God’s Word and keep His commandments close to our hearts. However, words amount to nothing if we do not live by them or if we do not follow God’s will in our daily living. It is easy to profess what we believe in, yet our actions are not always in line with our profession.
Jesus did not reach out to the people with words but with deeds. Through our deeds, then we are a light to the world and messengers of Christ.
Only through our deeds, we know that we have faith in Christ. As James said in James Chapter 2:
17. In the same way faith, if good deeds do not go with it, is quite dead
18. It is by my deeds that I will show you my faith
22. So you can see that his faith was working together with his deeds; his faith became perfect by what he did.
24. You see now that it is by deeds, and not only by believing, that someone is justified.
We are called to remain devoted and faithful to God’s Word in our lives. The Last Judgment account in Mt 25 reminds us that it is our actual deeds of love that matter, not mere words.
In MT 7:21-27 , Jesus also warned us that not all who call “Lord…Lord…” will enter into Heaven. It is not lips service that He wants. He said a true disciple are those who hear the words and act on it. Not those who hear but do nothing.
Why would one who believed in Him and not follow His commandments?
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