Tag: love

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Haters hate good.

Reading Time: 2 minutes 
“This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another. We must not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and killed his brother. And why did he kill him? Because Cain had been doing what was evil, and his brother had been doing what was righteous. So don’t be surprised, dear brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.” 1 John‬ ‭3:11-13‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Well this clears up some questions about the first two brothers. Don’t ya just love it when one of Jesus’ apostles helps us with some Old Testament interpretations? John is always going deep for the “Love God?” prove it by loving others!

Anyone can CLAIM that they love. This word has lost value in our world today. It’s been stolen, watered down and cut with nonsense and marketed back to us like a cheap cologne. It’s just a sales-pitch buzz word now.

Besides, anyone can say they love God and behave all holy and spiritual. Yet, because God is perfect and we can’t see him, we just have to take the person’s word for it when they say they “love” him. Oh, but trying showing love to another human, a flawed, broken human that is NOT perfect – not so easy.

This love John speaks of, towards one another, it doesn’t “save” them nor “save” us, it just lets us practice what we preach about our commitment to God himself. This love towards another doesn’t flippantly or carelessly push others away, judging them and walking away. No, this love artfully, thoughtfully engages them. This love stays in the fight for understanding, for perspective. This love LOVES HARD, determined, tenacious yet honest.

John gives an example. We must not be like Cain? What about Cain? Fun fact. Cain and Abel were not little boys, nor young men when Cain ended Abel’s life then angrily lied to God. No, they were in their 80’s! They had families and kids of their own.

Cain seethed over the fact that Abel just obeyed God and lived his life most likely getting all the good breaks because of being wise. Cain’s worst enemy was himself and continually believing a lie – he knew better than God and was self-determined to do life his way and prove that he did not need anyone telling him right from wrong. Cain snuggled up to the snake and chose evil as his advisor, his confidant.

When you choose to believe a lie and live towards that lie, only angry bitterness awaits you. It’s inevitable. Eventually, you’ll be picking up rocks and looking for something or someone to murder, looking for someone to blame for your own choices.

Haters hate good. Haters hate true justice. Haters have only one thing to prove, they don’t need God to be good, they can do it themselves!

Prayer

Dad,
There is no way I could ever be “good” or good enough on my own. I do not want to live for myself and unto myself as the standard of what love looks like. Kindness without your love is just a fake trying to duplicate who you are. It’s a northerner just responding with pleasantries but wishing the person would go away and leave them alone. Loving you is difficult on its own, but loving others? Wow – that’s the hardest love ever. I can say it with words but it’s empty without action. Help me to love like you love!

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¡Bienvenido a la revolución!

Reading Time: 2 minutes 
“But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you.” Luke‬ ‭6:27-28‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Society has rules that we live by. It’s not just our geographic context or culture, it’s our overarching and unifying way of life. You do me wrong, I retaliate. You make a joke about one of my family members and I slap your face! It’s a code. It’s genetic. All this talk about love, kindness and non-violence – ah that’s so vogue.

Bullies are out, those are “red choices” my granddaughter’s preschool teachers would say. Forgiveness and using your words (and someone to understand the bully) is the hot-topic morality today.

You know who started the revolution? Yeah, Jesus. He’s the same guy that folks want left out of government, education and civil conversation because it’s deemed divisively religious. And everyone knows religion is judgey. Funny that Jesus was the epitome of revolutionary and rather anti-religion.

He actually said, you’ve heard… “eye for eye, tooth for tooth,” but I say… Almost every day on the news we hear about an escalated incident that goes way beyond black eyes and missing teeth! It’s Annie get your gun and blam blam blam, someone is dead. It’s so massively ironic that the guy who made “don’t judge” a thing which is now considered to be the lightening rod of any non-civil conversation. Jesus is the one who said “DON’T.” So sure folks can hide behind “choices” or “I identify as” or even have the law give them a special and protected class meant to protect people from bullies. Jesus said things that were anti-human nature – forgive, give, love, BLESS (which isn’t the word, makarios: to make happy but rather eulogeó: to speak well of, praise)! What if the “protected class by law” becomes our cultural bullies? What if folks quit being advocates and look more like activists who behave violently? I think we should quit giving credit to our more modern, historical peacemakers and remember where they got their campaign slogans from – Jesus, the founder and president of the LOVE movement.

PRAYER:

Dad,
I just get so worked up over the enemy of our soul, Satan, supplanting and subtly stealing YOUR words and twisting them to be used against you – and for sure, against us. Satan is a thief, even stealing words and symbols like love, promise and rainbows to be bumper-stickered to promote lies and deeply, morally bankrupt codes of conduct. These bait and switch techniques are so damnable! By the time folks find truth or realize they’ve been duped there has been so much damaged done to their souls, their relationships not to mention the platforms they used to mislead thousands of others. It’s just awful, it makes me sick to see it happen. And even still, I know that you will be waiting like a good father who runs to the prodigal because they’ve come home! I just ask that you stop them from spreading the pig-slop as truth! It’s not a lifestyle, it’s a blatant liestyle.