Must It Be a Cruel World?

There is so much cruelty in the world. Hatred, sarcasm, negative “humor”, hitting, hurting, killing, stealing one’s property, stealing one’s identity are part of everyday life. We even use negativity to show our affection to people we supposedly like or love. This rampant cruelty is a sickness in our world. People even lift up bullies as heroes, seeing bullying as a sign of confidence  or strength, when in actuality it is usually a sign of insecurity or cowardice. Cruelty is unacceptable behavior. God is love. We who are lovers of God are called to emulate God as best as possible. There is no cruelty, hatred, or fear in love. There should be none such among God’s children. 1 John 4:18 says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear…” 

Many people go out of their way to hurt others. Where does this come from? God has given us free will. Therefore, we have equal ability to do good or to do evil. We can say yes to who God is or we can say no. Saying yes to God is saying yes to love. Saying no to God is saying yes to hate and no to love. Some who say no to God get a sadistic pleasure out of hurting others. Some who say no to God just don’t care enough about anything beyond themselves to even care about whether they are hurting someone else or not. Sometimes negativity is a response to personal experience. That is a reason but is not an excuse. I read an article in Travel and Leisure called, “How Not to Be a Jerk on an Airplane”. The fact that they felt a need to print such an article is very telling.

We who have answered God’s call with a resounding yes need to be intentional about how we treat the world around us. We need to do intentional acts of kindness. We need to do extra because not only are we doing good as our personal action but we are also trying to make up for those who are cruel. Not only are we to be kind and loving to those we love or like, we are also supposed to be kind and loving to strangers. If we are to imitate God, we are to be love; we are to personify love. We have to learn to swallow that quick biting tongue we have been conditioned to use. We have to no longer admire the quick retort or insult. We have to hold people accountable for cruel behavior; it is unacceptable. We have to speak love, do love, be love, act loving. If we find pleasure in hurting someone or putting someone down or in hating someone, we are living wrong. We have to love rightly to live rightly. Let us fully, completely, live and love as God’s children. We can help change the world! www.fcccarrollton.org

    

Living Loved

     Too many wander through life unaware that they are loved. There are very few things sadder than not feeling loved. I remember clearly the before and after pictures of people when they fell into a relationship of  reciprocated love. A plain unassuming face became all aglow. Even the plainest faces became beautiful when the people realized they were loved. The instant you saw them, you realized the difference; the change was remarkable. Imagine now, how beautiful inside and out they would have become with this new relationship if they had realized they were loved all along, beauty expanded rather than born. For me, it is sad that such a glow is dependent on the capricious love of another human being.
       All of creation is loved by God all of the time. As you experience God's love on a daily basis you begin to "live loved" (a phrase used by Paul Young in The Shack). There is more joy, more glow, and more power. Knowing you are loved makes you powerful. You walk with a lighter tread. Living loved enables you to live longer and healthier. Living loved gives you the security to have better human relationships as well. When you realize that you are not dependent on another human to love you, then you can love better. You are less needy and more giving. You can eliminate jealousy.  Knowing that you will always be loved helps you be more confident. Confident people make better lovers.
     The difficult part of living loved is believing God is really always loving you. It is easy to say, but how can you know it is real? God seems so non-tangible, the immortal, invisible God. Not surprising, the believing comes first. When you believe in the truth of God's love and invite God into a loving relationship with you, then you begin to feel it. The more you feel it, the more you believe in the reality of God's love, and the more you believe it, the more you feel it. No, it is not simply convincing yourself of the truth of an illusion. For illusions have no lasting effect upon you. However, God's love has a lasting effect; an effect that increases exponentially with the ever deepening experience. I choose to live loved, and I choose to love. It is very real I know; I live in God's love. www.fcccarrollton.org

Haters Need Not Apply

       When we follow the way of the Christian faith, the way Jesus personified and illustrated, there is no room for hate. We are not even supposed to hate the haters. Too many church goers define their faith by what they are against rather than what they stand for. They choose some group or behavior as being worse than all others and decide to speak out against, place themselves in opposition to, and down right hate them or it. They try to take over the role of God as righteous judge and place a judgment against someone for who they are or what they do. It is  only by grace that we are righteous, so how can we judge others? We have not a clue as to the mind of God, so how can anyone so vehemently speak out on God's behalf? They choose certain scriptures to prove their agenda, but with contextual spins and choosing what they use and what they leave out they can "prove" any subject in any direction.
       Jesus was all about love, for he came to earth as the incarnation of God, who is also all about love, for God is love. We have free will. We can choose for whatever reason not to approve of a certain behavior, life style, or group. That does not give us the right to judge on God's behalf. It does not give us the right to say we speak for God. God has already spoken-- he loves the world and everyone in it. God wants to save us ALL from ourselves and take us home to be loved and cared for forever. No one knows exactly what that will look like. It is not an exclusive club. Only God decides entrance requirements, and God wants all of us. There is no room for hate in a faith based upon God as revealed in Jesus Christ.  The spitting rage with which "Christians" hate others with different understandings removes the label's truth. True Christians don't live that way, for it is not the way of Christ, not the way Jesus lived, not the way he taught. We can choose to live for God; but we cannot choose to judge or speak for God - leave that to God. "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God." (1 John 4:7) ."A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another." (John 13:34) As Dr. Phil Snider proclaimed, "I believe in the separation of church and hate." Our church is about love and acceptance. www.fcccarrollton.org