Friday Findings (No Love... No Point!)

Today's FF is FIRE from the altar of God!
If you have 5 extra minutes to be inspired, take a look around the original post and be blessed.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Tina.

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No Love...No Point!

My teacher made our class read a online article called "Godless Cities," where it named the top two Godless cities and the top Bible minded city. To my surprise, Chattanooga TN was ranked as the top Bible minded city. Actually most of these southern states are known as the "Bible belt." But what was interesting is that my teacher made a point of saying that it's ironic that these Bible belt states are the same ones who were supportive of slavery. 

Aside from how the author of the article defined "bible minded," I was really stuck in thought by his statement. It caused me to think, what difference does it make if anyone's city is considered to be the top Bible minded place? The reality is, Chattanooga made the list but Chattanooga still has a serious gang violence issue. Chattanooga still has crime. There are still homeless people in Chattanooga. Chattanooga has corporate greed. There are still prostitutes in Chattanooga. There are abused women and drug users in Chattanooga. Chattanooga still has racist and prejudice residents. Murders still take place in Chattanooga. Sexual immortality is still a reality in Chattanooga.

I don't even know the official numbers but Chattanooga has churches on almost every corner of this city. It's like people wake up and randomly decide to start a church. That's how many churches this place has. 

But the question is, has being bible minded and having churches on every corner, turned this city into a place that reflects true disciples of Jesus? 

The Bible does not say that people will know that we are His by how many Jesus t-shirts we wear. Bumper stickers we put on our cars. Flags we place on our porches. Buttons we wear on our suits. Commentaries we have on our shelves or any of that stuff. 

The Bible says "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:35 NASB). 

This is THE sign! This is the TEST. This is the list that we should be striving to be on. It makes no difference to be Bible minded but not truly transformed by the word of God. And the evidence of our transformation is LOVE.  And if we love one another the way Christ loves us, a lot of the foolishness that happens in this Bible minded Chattanooga will slowly but surely be issues of the past.