I walked into chapel tired and worn out. The classes had taken a toll on me and I had just stayed up really late to finish a project. I was pleasantly surprised however to find out that our president would be speaking. I always enjoyed listening to him speak. I had to fight so hard to stay awake and to be completely honest I didn't stay awake the whole time but I did understand his message. He was speaking about Christ's answer to the lawyer in Matthew 22. He spoke a while about Loving God and loving others. He said that if we all loved God and loved others we wouldn't even need a rule book. This got me thinking for the entire rest of the semester.
Some people may ask, "what is Christianity all about?" this could be an incredibly hard question to answer but I think I have found an answer that is satisfactory for me. Christianity is all about RELATIONSHIPS. First it has to deal with your BROKEN RELATIONSHIP with God due to sin. Then your RECONCILED RELATIONSHIP through Jesus' sacrifice. And then it has to deal with your RELATIONSHIP with OTHERS. I then started looking into commands that Christ gave that had to deal with relationships. Jesus instructed us to love one another. This is a hard enough command to obey but i think perhaps the hardest one that Christ gave was that we are to love our enemies. When we apply this to our lives we often apply to the Christians that we do not get along with, however; we were already command to love them in the loving one another. i had to put this into more current times in order to understand the full meaning of it. So I asked "who is my enemy?" First person that came to mind was Osama Bin Laden. There's no way God expects me to love him! Next was Sadaam Hussein...NO WAY!!!! Hitler! OH COME ON GOD!!!! Really? How am I suppose to love men like this??
I realized at this point that God didn't want me to love their murderous ways or their hatred, but love them because God has told me to. Why would i love someone just because God has told me to? The answer is found in one of my favorite passages Romans 5.
vs8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
10 For if,
when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
God has the authority to tell me to love Bin Laden, Hussein, Hitler because HE LOVED ME when i was just as these men. I was the reason Jesus died on the cross, HIS SON died for me and God loves me. How if we are to show God's love to people, can we hate anyone? Another thing to consider is that man is created in the image of God....even these men bear the image of God. We have no right to hate another human when we have been forgiven such a great debt. Otherwise we are just like the Unforgiving Servant in the parable Jesus gave us. "forgive us our debts AS WE FORGIVE OUR DEBTORS."
So Christian, do you love Bin Laden? are you grieved by the fact that Hussein and Hitler were not reached with the Gospel? For as much wrath as we would like to demonstrate on such men, God had and more wrath towards us, however; He chose to demonstrate that wrath on Christ while he hung on the cross and He turned his back on His Son, so that we can know light. How can we hold this truth inside us and refuse to share it? THAT IS THE MOST HATEFUL THING WE CAN DO TO SOMEONE, NOT TO SHOW THEM GOD'S LOVE!!!!
So Empty yourself of Hate and let God fill you with His love.
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