August 04, 2016

Rain and Prayers on the Unrighteous

Recently a member of the local Humanist, Atheist, Free Thinkers and Agnostics (HAFTA) objected to the sign on our church marque which read, “Put God’s Truth over Political correctness.” In a letter to the church Mr. Read ranted and raved about God’s laws and then ended his missive, "So look, I understand that most of your congregation don't actually read the Bible or obey what it says, but I just wanted to point out how horrible out lives would be if we actually obeyed God's laws!" Secretly I wish enemies of the church would not make themselves known because then I’m obligated to love and pray for them. Jesus said, "But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous" (Matt 5:44-45 NIV).

1 comment:

Steve Corey said...

Gail;

-----But alas! God has led you to the grasshopper leg.
-----First, love is the most misunderstood concept I can think of. Too many people think it has to do with liking. Most think it has to do with acceptance. It seems there’s a general expectation of participation about it. These loose notions seem to run rampant through various people’s perceptions about love in varying degrees. Test out my theory. Go down the street and tell ten strangers you love them and note the wide variety of reactions you’ll get. I once told a prospective client that I loved all my clients. From the change in the tone of our conversation, I am sure she mistook me as being a pervert, and I never heard from her again. But it remains true.
-----I love all my clients, and all my enemies (which a few of my clients have wound up becoming.) Why? How? Because the most basic element of love is the truth. Love is not as much about liking someone as it is about liking what is true of that someone. It is about accepting whatever about them is true and participating in that truth. And the truth about everyone is their need for, at the very least, good health and prosperity, which are yet worse than nothing without an assurance of eternal perfection and bliss. Love is indelibly bound to the truth, since that assurance only comes from the truth, which then also becomes the life by its making for you the way.
-----There really is no other way of saying it. It can’t be avoided for the sake of our dear atheists, and I won’t apologize to them for saying it: loving anyone and anything is about liking what they are or should be in Jesus Christ, accepting whatever about them is or should be shaped by Jesus Christ, and participating in whatever of them is either of Jesus Christ or might lead them to Jesus Christ or build them up further in Jesus Christ.
-----Well gee. It doesn’t sound like love is at all about the other person. It’s just all a bunch of Jesus, Jesus, Jesus stuff. But who wants the one he loves to be deader than a door knob? And that’s what rejection of Jesus is in this temporal life: Death. Who truly loves anyone without giving a rip that he will live in eternal torment?
-----Just look at these atheists. They hang their placards of deceit everywhere for convincing as many as they can to go into the grave alone, hopeless, all submissive to annihilation. Then they accuse God’s law of causing the destruction they themselves wreak. We live by the way, the truth, and the life from our Father. They live by the accusations, the deceit, and the destruction of their father, The Accuser, The Deceiver, and The Destroyer.
-----No. To love is certainly not to accuse, deceive, and destroy. It is to acknowledge truth, dispense truth, and build up according to truth. Thusly it approaches everyone and everything. For, after all is considered, everything has its being in Jesus Christ. So whatever will not conform to the truth of its being will be jettisoned away from all good, since good comes only from God.
-----This is why your church puts God’s truth over political correctness. It does not say things to please people. It says and does things to effect truth in people. And about whatever it has not the ability to correctly say or do, it prays. How much more loving can one get towards his enemy?

Love you all,
Steve Corey