SPIRITED DEBATE WITH LAUREN GREEN Why does God allow evil? “Will Davis Jr and Johnnie Moore react to Connecticut shooting”

2 TIMOTHY 3:1-5 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—

ANNE GRAHAM LOTZ "I believe that God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman that He is, I believe that He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand that He leave us alone?"

JOHN 15 “ RELATIONSHIPS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES” WHAT HAPPENED AT THE LAST SUPPER? PART 3

MATTHEW 22:37–39 “Jesus replied, ‘You must love the L ORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

JOHN 15:1-6 “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”

1 JOHN 2:24–25 “As for you, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.”

“So you must remain faithful to what you have been taught from the beginning. If you do, you will remain in fellowship with the Son and with the Father.”

1 JOHN 3:24 “The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.”

KENNETH WUEST “Maintain a living communion with me, and I with you. Just as the branch is unable to be bearing fruit from itself as a source unless it remains in a living union with the vine, so neither you, unless you maintain a living communion with me.”

1 JOHN 4:13 “By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.”

VS “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you…If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love…”

BRUCE BARTON “The word abide implies intimate knowledge of what a person has said. But it also implies that the words become a vital part of the way a believer lives. So Jesus’ words abide in us when we know what he said and did, and when we allow those words and actions to affect the way we live. By reading and memorizing, we take in God’s Word; by obeying, we indicate that the words abide in us.”

1 JOHN 3:6 “No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.”

1 JOHN 2:4–6 “The one who says, ‘I have come to know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.”

ROMANS 5:5 “Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

VS “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends…This I command you, that you love one another.”

1 CORINTHIANS 13:4-8 This love of which I speak is slow to lose patience - it looks for a way of being constructive. It is not possessive: it is neither anxious to impress nor does it cherish inflated ideas of its own importance. Love has good manners and does not pursue selfish advantage.

It is not touchy. It does not keep account of evil or gloat over the wickedness of other people. On the contrary, it is glad with all good men when truth prevails. Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen. Phillips Translation

1 JOHN 2:10 Please Turn In Your Bible 1 John 3: John 4:20-21

VS “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.”

VS “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me, and you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.”

2 CORINTHIANS 2:15–16 “Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing. To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume.”

MATTHEW 5:43-48 “I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven…Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

JOHN 16:1-4 “These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling. They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God…”

ACTS 9:1-2 “Meanwhile, Saul was uttering threats with every breath and was eager to kill the Lord’s followers. So he went to the high priest. He requested letters addressed to the synagogues in Damascus, asking for their cooperation in the arrest of any followers of the Way he found there. He wanted to bring them—both men and women—back to Jerusalem in chains…”

ACTS 22:4 “And I persecuted the followers of the Way, hounding some to death, arresting both men and women and throwing them in prison.”

RELATIONSHIPS: The most important relationship in our lives is with Jesus through His Spirit. It is from abiding in Jesus that we find the love we need to treat others in a way that pleases him. It is from abiding in Jesus that we can endure persecution from those who don’t know Him and still love them.