Tag: Hatred

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Things Christians don’t obey.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

““You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’ But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment! If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell. “So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.” ‭‭Matthew‬ ‭5‬:‭21‬-‭24‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Jesus preached his signature sermon and brought up a whole slew of hearsay of things his audience had heard through the grapevine. Jesus said, “our ancestors were told.” Yep, God told their ancestors (ours by adoption) that #6 on the list of God no-no’s was MURDER. Thou shalt not.

Then Jesus redefines what murder may look like from the hidden, recesses of our heart. Oooo, it looks a lot like anger and hatred! It looks like a caldron of hot, stinky thoughts ruminating around in our head. Maybe under our breath or whispered to a friend we might say, they are an Idiot.

I know it’s a word that’s been cancelled as a demeaning, derogatory term, but believe me Jesus word, rhaka, is so much worse. The word “fool” used here means an empty-headed, numbskull, good for nothing, who acts presumptuously and thoughtlessly. It’s more than the Proverbs word, “keciyl,” which is a slow, silly, careless fool. It’s more like “pethiy,” a person incapable of learning, thus continuing to fail themselves and others. Jesus says that kind of name calling can get you hauled into the court of the Sanhedrim (Hebrew elder board). But actually cursing someone out of anger can cause you to start wearing the cologne of hell, smelling like putrid smoke!

Jesus pulls back the dark curtain of our thoughts, intentions and attitudes to reveal the nasty stuff inside us when our anger is not righteous, but petty and self serving. Then Jesus makes a stunning conclusion. When our anger rages to the point of unbridled hatred towards someone, we’ve murdered them in our heart. Don’t tell me you haven’t wished someone dead! Jesus told them, and us, when that happens you’ve got to take drastic measures to be reconciled to the person your aiming your heart-hatred at.

It’s so important, so critical, Jesus says, that you have to LEAVE your gift, your praise, your sacrifice, your sweet one on one with God to take care of business! Then with a clear, non-murderous heart we can come back to God and give our gift.

Do we do this? No. Do we practice this? No. Do we believe this to be true? No. We don’t disrupt our time with God to make things right between each other. Why? Because it’s hard. It’s painful. It’s humiliating. To reconcile is an admittance of our guilt, our humanness. Our justifications sound like toddlers fighting on the playground, “well he started it!” Can you even imagine all our murderous thoughts and attitudes of all the people who have offended us, wronged us or embarrassed us? And we bring all that trash before a holy God while we pull out our little gift of praise or sacrifice?

Jesus said, LEAVE God’s presence and make things right with our fellow humans that have hurt us! And don’t even think about whining, complaining or tattling on someone before God. He won’t listen. Go make it right. Do the hard job as Jesus commanded. Quit messing around with years of stacked and stuffed anger, frustration and death threats towards others. Make amends.

“But there are so many,” you say. “What should I do then?” Ask the Holy Spirit to bring up the worst and most egregious, the one that darkens your soul and consumes a massive amount of your time just thinking about how MUCH you hate that person. This is such a powerful, yet IGNORED practice. I am convicted just reading this and have to deal with one of those reconciliations today!

Prayer

Dad,
Help me be brave and obey your word! Help me to humble myself and make things right with the person you have brought to mind as I write this. Forgive me for the delay. Amen.

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Wrong war, wrong enemy

Reading Time: 3 minutes 
“Do not be afraid of them,” the Lord said to Joshua, “for I have given you victory over them. Not a single one of them will be able to stand up to you.” Joshua‬ ‭10:8‬ ‭NLT‬‬

​These war stories, although gory and brutal, are not the focus of the grand story God is telling in the Old Testament, but they are critical. Here’s a few things I noticed.

One: there really IS a war going on, not “wars” but a war of good verses evil. A war of Satan using men like pawns, promising them great riches and power. And all these up and coming men of worldly positions had to do was be ruthless, hungry and destroy everything that got in their way. They existed then, they still exist today. There still is A war, and men and women want to play the same game and cause as much death and amass as much control over humans as possible. These stories are not stories of patriarchal power by the way, they are about rebellion, of which men and women both clamor for.

Two: It is difficult to wade through these ancient stories where we have no comprehension or understanding of the culture at that time. We have no real sense of the brute force and unmerciful actions of these kings nor their kingdoms. And each one of these cities mentioned have their own intricate culture, a bloodthirsty DNA so to speak. The leaders created and maintained these deep cultures that ran through several generations of children, who’s little boys and girls would naturally turn into mean, nasty men and women. A couple of highlights to note: King Adoni-zedek made the first move and sent word out to all the other Amorite kings. Hoham of Hebron, Piram of Jarmuth, Japhia of Lachish, and Debir of Eglon. “Come and help me destroy Gibeon,” he urged them.

Three: God spoke to Joshua promising a win. Joshua asked God for an extraordinary miracle – more daylight to get the job done! “On the day the Lord gave the Israelites victory over the Amorites, Joshua prayed to the Lord in front of all the people of Israel. He said, “Let the sun stand still over Gibeon, and the moon over the valley of Aijalon.” The five kings fled their cities and met up to hide in the caves, “During the battle the five kings escaped and hid in a cave at Makkedah.” Joshua had men block the cave entrance until he had complete control over the cities. Then he returned and brought the five kings out for a public trial and punishment. “So they brought the five kings out of the cave—the kings of Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, and Eglon. When they brought them out, Joshua told the commanders of his army, “Come and put your feet on the kings’ necks.” And they did as they were told.” Joshua promised that this is what God would allow them to do to all their enemies.

Four: Right here there is a picture, an object lesson that is repeated throughout both Old and New Testament. “THE” enemy of God and all creation, THE rebellious one, THE liar and deceiver will find his neck under the foot of one meek, humble, innocent person far into the future – when that enemy convinced humans to crucify the messiah thinking it would crush God’s plan to finally end the war and rebellion over the entire Earth. (Gen 3:15, Ps 47:3, 1 Cor. 15:25, Eph. 1:22). Then Joshua had them spiked and displayed for all to see and later buried in the cave they had hidden in.

Five: There will be a final day of justice and there will be an end to brutality. When we see our society struggle with inequalities and misappropriated power, we want to blame men, or political systems, or even an entire race. Look deeper, follow the promises and lies behind those powers – you’ll find a puppet-master of sorts, pulling the strings of hatred, chaos and mayhem. Just make sure you know the real enemy and the very real war.

PRAYER

Dad,
One of the things I can’t stand the most, speaking as an enneagram nine, is the misplaced blame of judgment on the wrong people for the wrong problem. People are people. We are weak and imperfect. We makes mistakes and listen to lies and worse, believe liars. Help us get the story straight. Help us understand the real war and the real enemy here. It’s not each other at all. I can’t wait for your justice to be finally and forever delivered.