January 18, 2022

 

Love

 

If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

– Romans 12:18

 

To get a vaccine or not? To accept the presidential election results or not? To welcome illegal immigrants or not? The list never ends. We are a country at odds within itself.

 

God’s people have been ugly and vocal. They have reigned down criticism and aligned themselves with one side or another. Everyone knows what is best. Just ask them. Except they are all so focused on themselves that it is impossible to truly see God in them.

 

Ah, there is the true problem. Seeing God. It’s impossible to truly see Him when you are hurling angry insults at people who disagree with you. It’s impossible to truly hear God when your ugly words are aimed to tear apart anyone who dares disagree with you. It’s impossible to love like Jesus when your eyes are filled with hatred toward anyone who disagrees with you.

 

We have become a nation filled with arrogant people who have lost sight of God. Oh, we shout His name. We quote scripture and serve diligently. But our hearts? Well, our hearts don’t even know His name.

 

The saddest thing for me in the last couple of years hasn’t been Covid. It hasn’t been election results or isolation or illegal immigrants. The saddest thing has been listening to people I truly believed were God’s people ranting at those who don’t share their viewpoints. The ugliness is appalling. And for what end?

 

It’s possible to share different views without turning hateful and mean. It’s possible to live under the banner of love and service and still disagree. If you’ve got ugliness in your heart, I wonder if you truly know Him. It becomes less about your opinion and more about your arrogant belief that you are like God.

 

Hatred and God cannot exist in the same heart. Why? Because God is love. (1 John 4)

July 18, 2021

 

God Doesn’t Have Favorites

 

Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.” – Acts 10:34-35

 

I’ve never understood why some Americans believe that God favors the United States above all other nations except, perhaps, Israel. It’s not in the Bible. In fact, we are told again and again that God loves everyone equally. Yet some cling tightly to the belief that we are somehow favored above all others.

 

That belief fuels so much discord and hatred. We look down on people who speak in a different language or have different cultures. We angrily condemn the poor as “lazy” and the unwed mother as “promiscuous.” We don’t know their stories but we judge and condemn them as though we do.

 

“Not in my neighborhood,” we shout. “Stay out of our country,” we spew. “We don’t want that kind in our church,” we explain. “They should help themselves,” we insist. We are full of justifications and excuses for why refuse to do what God commanded us to do.

 

Love people. Welcome people. Extend a helping hand. Not send money to a foreign land or pray for someone while keeping them far away and not telling people they are welcome after they clean up their lives. We don’t want to be inconvenienced. We don’t want to actually do the work. We don’t want to kneel down and wash another’s feet.

 

We are better than others. It’s what we believe in our hearts. Except those same hearts are getting judged by the only One who truly sees. What does God see when He looks into your hearts?

May 8, 2019

Do You Understand?

“Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.” – Exodus 23:9

How quick we are to pick and choose which of the Old Testament verses we’ll apply to our thoughts and opinions. We look past those verses that differ from what we choose to believe. “Foreigners” are judged and rejected without an ounce of compassion.

We justify our low opinions based on the rantings of a few. Foreigners must work, we demand. They must refrain from sin, we spout. They must follow our laws and our opinions and take the lowliest of jobs and stay with their own kind and, well, you get it. We excuse our bad behavior, throwing out the instances of crime that happen. Oh, that we would condemn similar crimes among people like us.

The hard truth is that we will always reject those who are different from us. We aren’t interested in debate or compassion or actually reaching out to someone who merely needs a helping hand. We prefer to stay in our comfortable recliners, watching Fox News and using evil tongues to throw out Bible verses proclaiming a gospel we clearly don’t understand.

Jesus told us to love one another. How dare we think that He somehow meant we get to pick and choose who. Shame on us all.

November 16, 2018

Open Your Eyes

Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”

Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”

Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”

– John 9:39-41

Does it ever occur to any of us that we could be wrong? Do we ever seek the Bible’s wisdom for what it truly says rather than searching for words that will “prove” what we already believe? What would happen if we truly followed Jesus rather than picking and choosing the parts of Him that feel comfortably in line with ourselves?

Jesus didn’t come to conform to our “wisdom.” He came to save us from ourselves, from the sins that fill us, from the hardness of our hearts. But He left us with a choice. We can choose to follow Jesus or ourselves. There is no room on His path for both of us.

We are quick to point out that the Bible condemns homosexuality. We aren’t so quick to say that it also condemns divorce. Why would we? In our country, an estimated 40-50 percent of all couples will divorce. We don’t want to condemn ourselves so we choose to ignore what the Bible really says.

We are quick to condemn abortion as murder. We don’t want to support the child. That’s someone else’s responsibility. We don’t want to welcome those who are cast aside for their mistakes. We want them to pay again and again under our condemning eyes.

Obviously, abortion is wrong. So is casting aside an unwed mother. Remember: Mary was an unwed mother too. Before she and Joseph married. Before anyone understood about the Holy Spirit and the Messiah, she was a teenager with a growing belly in a world that would have destroyed her for her “sin.”

We cling tightly to our money, refusing to share or tithe as we should. We ignore what the Bible says about money – and it says a great deal about money – choosing instead to “believe” that everyone must support themselves. It is ours, we insist. Others aren’t worthy, we explain. Except the Bible doesn’t talk too much about worthy or ownership. It talks about gifts from God and sharing our blessings. Judgment isn’t ours to dispense, even when it comes to the money God has graciously given to us.

Oh, and let’s not forget the immigrants. We don’t want them. Period. We may expound our beliefs and justify ourselves but it’s just not biblical. The Bible tells us to welcome the foreigner because we once were foreigners. We are to extend kindness and compassion. But we hold what is ours tightly and refuse to show mercy.

There is no easy walk in our world today. It’s like a tightrope that keeps moving except, well, it doesn’t. The Bible is full of words that contradiction what we believe and what we say we believe. It’s impossible to truly love Jesus and stand only for some of what He says and ignore the rest.

Are we blind? Absolutely. But our blindness is a choice. We have the answers before us but we choose to ignore their truth because it’s uncomfortable and it just might cost us something we hold dear. Our money. Yes, it might cost us our money. It might force us to show kindness to people we don’t like. It might ask us to welcome people who aren’t like us so that we can show them that Jesus loves everyone and welcomes them into His arms.

Open your eyes. See your sin. Make your choice.

October 27, 2018

Would You Let Jesus In?

The LORD watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

– Psalm 146:9

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” – Matthew 2:13

Would you have welcomed Joseph, Mary and Jesus into your country? Would you have allowed them to cross the border and come into your land to make their home? Or would you have turned them away, perhaps arrested them and separated Jesus from his earthly parents, because they weren’t welcome?

“Of course not,” some of you are saying right now. My next question is this: Are you sure?

Joseph didn’t have time to apply for the proper papers. He didn’t have time to pack and have a good-bye party and make a plan. He followed the angel’s directions and left immediately. Jesus’ life depended on it.

I know there are some who cross our borders with evil intentions. There are some who are violent criminals who have been repeatedly deported. And I know that laws are important and should be followed whenever possible.

But as I read this story again I can’t help but realize that we wouldn’t have allowed Joseph, Mary and Jesus into our land. We would have turned them away. I know this because we do it almost every day.

The horror stories are real. If your son doesn’t join the gang, they will kill him the next day. If your daughter doesn’t agree to be a prostitute, we’ll kill her too. They know the threats are real because they’ve seen it happen. They don’t have two or more years to file the paperwork and go through the “proper” channels.

So, yes, we would have turned Joseph, Mary and Jesus away. We would have told them quickly that they weren’t welcome. We would have called them names and protested against desperate people because they broke the law. We wouldn’t have extended compassion. We wouldn’t have offered food and shelter. We would have condemned without ever trying to understand.

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,” – Matthew 25:35

One day Jesus will ask us why we thought it was okay to be so cruel. One day we’ll have to explain why we harshly judged those who needed our compassion. So, let me ask you again: If Joseph, Mary and Jesus, were at the border trying to get in, would you let them?

July 28, 2018

Who Is Your Neighbor?

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

– Luke 10:29

This wasn’t just any man questioning Jesus. The Bible tells us he was an expert in the law. He wanted to test Jesus. But Jesus always has a way of turning the test back to the person asking the question.

What must you do to inherit eternal life? Love God with all your heart and soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus let the man answer for himself and then assured the “expert” that he had answered correctly.

But the man, much like us, wouldn’t leave it there. He wanted to know who his neighbor actually was. And Jesus, being Jesus, answered with a parable designed to cut right to the heart of the matter. We would do well to heed His words today.

Some Christians believe their neighbor is only an American. What do you believe? Do you believe that Jesus only meant for us to love those like us, those who share an earthly citizenship with us?

When Jesus told us to go forth and make disciples of all nations I guess He didn’t intend for those disciples to be our neighbors. Maybe Jesus never expected us to love them, to have mercy on them, to include them. What do you think? Did Jesus expect us to look down on others, much the way the Pharisees looked down on Gentiles (that would be me) and Samaritans?

We know the parable well. We call it the parable of the Good Samaritan. We understand that someone should help those in need. Just not us. That’s especially true if it means we might have to get our hands dirty or share what we have claimed as our own.

What did you sacrifice to live in this country? For most of us, the answer is absolutely nothing. We are here, enjoying the freedoms and privileges, because it’s where we were born. Most have never served in the military or fought in a foreign land. We don’t have a clue about a lifetime of daily suffering and fear.

Yet we reject those who come to us for refuge. We blatantly cast aside those who are hurting without bothering to hear their story. We tell ourselves they aren’t our neighbors. Jesus didn’t intend for us to love them. They need to follow the law. They have no right to grace or mercy unless they follow the rules.

Was it lawful for Jews to associate with Samaritans? Not really. It made them unclean. Maybe that was why the Samaritan had mercy in his heart. He understood how it felt to be cast aside, to be deemed unworthy, to be condemned because of his birth.

So, while the priest and the Levite went out of their way to avoid a traveler in need, the Samaritan stepped up. He got his hands dirty as he personally cared for the traveler who’d been beat up and robbed. He paid money for a hotel room and, when he left the next day, he told the innkeeper to look after the man and he’d pay him anything extra if the innkeeper had any added expenses.

It cost the Samaritan. It cost him time and money. But he did it because it was the right thing to do.

Jesus asked the “expert” which of the three men was a neighbor to the man who fell victim to robbers. He correctly answered: the one who had mercy on him. What was Jesus’ response? “Go and do likewise.” (v. 37)

We spend so much time trying to sort out who is worthy to be our neighbor. We want to pick and choose who to help and who to cast aside. But that’s not based on the Bible. Who is your neighbor? Before you decide, consider how Jesus would answer. Then go and do likewise.

June 21, 2018

What Does Your Heart Say?

“Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” – Mark 7:15

“For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come – sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

– Mark 7:21-23

What would you do to save your child’s life? Would you move? Would you scrape together all the money you could to afford something different? Would you break laws, take chances, risk everything, so your child could be safe?

Be honest. It’s just between you and God. Tell Him what you would do to save your child from death, torture, a life of crime and violence. Now tell parents from another country that they shouldn’t dare do that for their children.

The immigration issue in the United States is awful. There are no easy answers. Should our country protect its borders? Absolutely. Should people enter legally rather than violating our laws? Without a doubt.

Unfortunately, there’s more to the story. These are human beings with thoughts and feelings. They are people who, in many cases, are filled with fear and a desperation few can understand.

According to news reports, the average time for a person to come before an immigration judge is two years from the time of application. That works great if you’ve got the time. But what happens when the cartel tells your child that he now works for them and if he says no he will die? Do you hang around and wait for his death? Do you tell him to join hands with a life of violence? Or do you flee with a hope deep in your heart that God wants something better for your family?

I don’t have any answers for our country. No one seems to be able to solve this mess. Maybe we should start with being Jesus to people who are hurting. Maybe we should extend mercy and grace and compassion to people who are desperate. Maybe we should love before we judge stories we’ve never heard.

We are further traumatizing children who have been through so much. Can you imagine what it’s like to leave everything you know, fearing for your life, not knowing when you will eat or have clean clothes, only to reach safety and find yourself ripped apart from your parents? How can we call that okay?

Some argue that we’re trying to keep murderers and rapists and other violent criminals from our country. That’s obviously a good thing. But how many fit that description? Really. It’s far more likely that most of the people are good, decent folks. They aren’t criminals. They’re desperate people reaching for our crumbs and we are denying them without even trying to understand.

Maybe we need to expedite the immigration process. How many judges does it take to reduce the two-year wait? Yes, it costs money. But how much money are we spending on housing people in locked facilities? Isn’t it better to hear their cases and make decisions based on facts?

There is just so much hate in our country right now. Much of it comes from people who claim to know Jesus. I am appalled at the venom spewing from their mouths. Surely, they understand what the Bible says about love, about judgement, about mercy. But their lives don’t reflect it. Their words don’t reveal love.

Jesus says that evil comes from our hearts. What is your heart saying to the world?

June 20, 2018

Don’t Twist God’s Words

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. – Romans 13:1

Attorney General Jeff Sessions used the Bible, quoting the Apostle Paul, to justify the Trump Administration’s policy to separate children from their parents as these desperate people cross the border asking for help and a better life. Shame on him!

Should the world have remained silent while Hitler slaughtered Jews? Should Colonial American have remained attached to Great Britain instead of fighting to create this country? Should Daniel have stopped praying because the king ordered that no one pray to anyone but him? That’s exactly the logic Sessions uses in his comments.

It creates horrific injustice when someone takes the Bible out of context and uses His Word to justify their own cruelty. Most people don’t know the Bible well enough to understand the context of this passage.

Paul was writing to a very specific audience: Roman Christians. He was urging them to obey Roman law and pay their taxes. Nero was on the throne. He was truly an evil king. But the Romans were afraid the Christians would rise up in rebellion. Paul’s words encouraged the Roman Christians to get along with others and, as Jesus noted in His ministry, give to Caesar what belonged to Caesar.

Paul also talks a great deal about loving others.

Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. – Romans 13:10

Are we loving others when we separate parents from their children? Are they criminals for trying to enter our country through legal channels? Why are we traumatizing young children, who are screaming out for their mothers? When did we become a nation who believes this is right?

And to say it’s from God?! It defies everything God is. John tells us that God is love. This is nothing from God. This is horrific behavior from a government that has come to believe it can do anything without fear of repercussions.

In the Book of Acts, Jewish leaders commanded that Peter and John stop speaking and teaching in the name of Jesus. They refused.

But Peter and John replied, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” – Acts 4:19-20

Later, they were warned again by authorities.

Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than human beings!” – Acts 5:29

Yes, we must make sure that those wishing to enter our country do so legally. But we must also extend compassion and kindness to those who have journeyed far, sacrificed much, with great hope in their hearts. They are desperate for what most of us received by mere chance of birth. We shouldn’t think ourselves better than we are because of that.

We must also remember the words from Leviticus.

“The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.” – Leviticus 19:34

There’s that word again. Love. Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love the LORD our God and then to love others as ourselves. There is no love in the actions of Sessions and others. No one is above God’s law, including them.

This is not a debate among Republicans and Democrats, no matter how they may try and position it. This is matter of following God’s law before a policy set by man. It’s past time Christians rose up and said no more. Obey God’s law before man’s.

March 16, 2018

What Choice Are You Making?

Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil. – Proverbs 4:25-27

We are distracted by the world. There are so many things, so many people, vying for our attention. We want to be involved, in the know, part of it all. Except maybe we were set apart for a higher purpose, a higher call.

We lament all the changes around us but we don’t do anything to correct what we don’t like. A sweet friend gets so angry at a television show she finds disgusting. Then why watch it? It’s like we’re drawn to the ugly. The simple truth is that television, like so many things, is a business. If no one watches, the show will be cancelled. The end. But we can’t seem to help ourselves.

Maybe we don’t want to help ourselves. Because some of the “rules” aren’t easy. We prefer to gossip, to divorce because of “irreconcilable differences,” or to have one too many drinks at the game or a celebration. We don’t want to hold ourselves to the standards God has laid out for us.

It’s so much easier to pick and choose what we’d prefer to see as the focus from the Bible. We don’t want to share our food or clothing so we condemn people we don’t know, labeling them lazy and unworthy. We forget that God tells us to be good to immigrants because we’d rather only welcome those who look, act and think like us.

We justify our actions because “everyone is doing it.” Somehow we think that makes it okay. We don’t want to cause trouble, to make people dislike us, to draw attention to ourselves. We remain silent, forgetting we are supposed to be different so that the light within us shines brightly for all to see Jesus.

Let someone else do it. We don’t want to be ridiculed and condemned. We don’t want to sacrifice. We simply want to live a good life – as defined by the world’s standards – and end up in heaven one day after we’d lived a long, happy life. We don’t want to struggle. We don’t want to give up anything. Surely, Jesus didn’t mean that we were to leave everything for Him?

Church has become more of a social venue rather than a place to worship and honor God. It is an option for those days when we feel like attending, feel like participating, feel like sacrificing our time for a God we claim to love.

It’s all about us. Oh, we say we know it isn’t really. But our actions tell a different story. Arrogance fills us as we tell others what we will and won’t do. I laugh silently at the words. Experience has taught me that God frequently calls us to do exactly what we’ve proclaimed we’ll never do.

Motives come from the heart and that is where God sees all and judges accordingly. What path are you on today? When you look ahead do you see a cross or do you see a vacation? Are you more concerned with comfort or in following the path Jesus has laid out for you?

We have a choice each day whether to serve ourselves or to serve Jesus. Each decision we make, every step we take, leads us down a path toward a final destination. What choice are you making?

February 17, 2018

Look in the Mirror

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” – Matthew 7:21-23

Hatred. It permeates our society, on every level, in every heart. We point fingers at others, all the while ignoring the hypocrisy in our own hearts. We are part of the problem.

Christians should be the most loving people around. We should be the first to forgive, the first to do good, the first to speak kindness in this dark world. Just the opposite is true. We loudly proclaim our hatred for “liberals” and “gays” and “immigrants.” We declare exactly who and what Jesus hates, calling our hard hearts justified.

Except Jesus was never about hate. God loved us so much that He sent His Son to save us. Did Jesus ever get angry? Of course, He did – at the Pharisees and others who believed themselves to be better than the common sinners of the day.

Do we all sin? Absolutely. Is sin wrong? Without a doubt. But nowhere in the Bible does it say that Christians have the right to judge others. In fact, the Bible tells us to NOT judge others. Somehow, we don’t think it means us.

I’m not someone who believes the fairy tale some pastors preach. While God does want good for us, He never said we’d get a reward on this earth. In fact, Jesus told us to expect difficulties. We don’t like difficulties. We don’t want to suffer for our faith. And we surely don’t want to show anyone who isn’t like us grace and mercy.

Jesus loved people where they were. He didn’t hate illegal immigrants. He didn’t paint them with a brush that said “lazy,” “worthless,” or “unwanted.” Does it excuse their actions for coming into this country illegally? No. It doesn’t. But anyone who rejects them and hates them doesn’t have Jesus in his heart.

What about those of different religions? Do we reject and condemn them for not believing as we do? Jesus welcomed everyone, be they Samaritans or Gentiles or Jews. He came to save everyone. He never pushed away those who believed differently because He knew that drawing them closer with love and acceptance was the better way to change their soul.

We feel threatened by those who are different so we push them away and call it “our opinion.” Hatred spews from our mouths and then we loudly cry for help when violence once against shows up in our schools. We don’t consider what we are teaching, what we are showing the innocents with out actions and our words.

Do you want to stop the hatred and violence that lives around us? Look in the mirror. Check your words before you speak. Is it true? Is it kind? Is it something that Jesus would say? Stop wearing the Christian badge and acting like you live for Him when your life carries the message of hate to a hurting world. Change yourself first and let God’s light change the world.