Love, prayer, and terrorism

(Prayer about terror, standing in the gap, acting as a watchman for prayer)
///
Here is a passage of scripture that separates Christians and terrorists:
///
Ephesians 3:17-19 Expanded Bible (EXB)
17 I pray that Christ will ·live [make his home] in your hearts by faith and that your life will be ·strong in love and be built on love [L rooted and grounded in love]. 18 And I pray that you and all ·God’s holy people [T the saints] will have the power to ·understand [comprehend; grasp] the greatness of Christ’s love—how wide and how long and how high and how deep that love is. 19 Christ’s love is ·greater than anyone can ever know [beyond comprehension/knowledge], but I pray that you will be able to know that love. ·Then [L …so that] you can be filled with the fullness of God.
-- Expanded Bible (EXB). The Expanded Bible, Copyright © 2011 Thomas Nelson Inc. All rights reserved.
///
The only way we can fully know love is through knowing Jesus Christ. His life is a representation of God's love.
If we know Jesus, we know love. True love. Unconditional love.
And, God expects us to show others this love.
This is what the terrorists lack. True, unconditional love.
Christianity is based on the love of God.
///
John 3:16-18 Expanded Bible (EXB)
16 “[L For] God loved the world so much that he gave his ·one and only [only; unique; T only begotten; 1:14, 18] Son so that whoever believes in him may not ·be lost [T perish], but have eternal life. 17 [L For; Indeed] God did not send his Son into the world to ·judge the world guilty [condemn the world], but to save the world through him. 18 People who believe in God’s Son are not ·judged guilty [condemned]. Those who do not believe have already been ·judged guilty [condemned], because they have not believed in [L the name of] God’s ·one and only [only; unique; T only begotten; 3:16] Son.
-- Expanded Bible (EXB). The Expanded Bible, Copyright © 2011 Thomas Nelson Inc. All rights reserved.
///
If you do not know Jesus, these verses mentioned throughout this blog post will not make sense. See the following verse for an explanation:
///
1 Corinthians 2:14 New King James Version (NKJV)
14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
-- New King James Version (NKJV). Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
///
Here is a more simplistic version of the previous passage:
///
John 3:16-18 New Living Translation (NLT)
16 “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.
18 “There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son.
-- New Living Translation (NLT). Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
///
Here is a more simplistic version of the earlier passage:
///
Ephesians 3:16-19 Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)
16 I pray that He may grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power in the inner man through His Spirit, 17 and that the Messiah may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, 19 and to know the Messiah’s love that surpasses knowledge, so you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
-- Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB). Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville Tennessee. All rights reserved.
///
Our God is Love. And, He expects us to make love our focus--not judgment. (Also, He is the only one who judges. We do not.) Christianity is centered on love.
///
Matthew 22:37-39 New Living Translation (NLT)
37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
-- New Living Translation (NLT). Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
///
Nowhere does the Bible say we are to judge other Christians. Nor does it say that we are to judge those who are Christians.
///
Matthew 7:2-5 Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)
2 For with the judgment you use, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye but don’t notice the log in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and look, there’s a log in your eye? 5 Hypocrite! First take the log out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
-- Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB). Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville Tennessee. All rights reserved.
///
God does not tell us to murder other Christians we disagree with. Terrorists will murder, and have, others of their own faith who do not have the same faith and belief as their own. They do not believe in the saying: "Let's agree to disagree."
///
Lord, help me to take all of these verses to heart and think on them so I can apply them to my life. Help me to fully grasp these verses. Then, I can pray more about terrorism and for terrorists. Help me to know You and Your love so much that it helps me to pray about terrorism, Father.
Lord, help me to fully, completely grasp and understand Your love. Help those touched by terrorism to know your love as well. Help this world to know Your love today--not tomorrow. Today and tomorrow even.
The love of Christ is perfect. The love He has for us and the love we have for Him. To know Christ is to know love. Without Jesus Christ, there is no love. There's false love and shallow love, but not true, deep, unconditional, eternal love.
Lord, help those touched by terrorism to know love through what they are going through. Help them know that circumstances and feelings cannot diminish Your love one millimeter. Love is beyond emotion and circumstance.
///
1 John 4 Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)
4 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to determine if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
2 This is how you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. 3 But every spirit who does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist; you have heard that he is coming, and he is already in the world now.
4 You are from God, little children, and you have conquered them, because the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 They are from the world. Therefore what they say is from the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God. Anyone who knows God listens to us; anyone who is not from God does not listen to us. From this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of deception.
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent His One and Only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 10 Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and His love is perfected in us.
13 This is how we know that we remain in Him and He in us: He has given assurance to us from His Spirit. 14 And we have seen and we testify that the Father has sent His Son as the world’s Savior. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God—God remains in him and he in God. 16 And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.
17 In this, love is perfected with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, for we are as He is in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears has not reached perfection in love. 19 We love because He first loved us.
20 If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother he has seen cannot love the God he has not seen. 21 And we have this command from Him: The one who loves God must also love his brother.
-- Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB). Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville Tennessee. All rights reserved.
///
Lord, I pray all of these verses and will keep praying them for those touched by terrorism and I pray this for those who do not believe--that they may know Jesus and these verses.
///