It's another late night, Another Subway sandwhich has been eaten, another fantastic rehearsal of "Our Town" has finished, another couple hour long nap in the recliner has been had, and I am awake again. As I look through all of my new facebook statuses of the day, I stumble upon this blog. I can't say I agree with it all, I can't say I condone it all, there is in fact even a little bit of language in it too (as a warning) and at first glance, I can't even say this person himself is a "Christian" (He after all says himself that he's not religious), but he brings up a very good point, and I think the blog is worth reading.
It is kind of a long blog, so if you don't have time to read it all, I will try and sum it up. He talks about a friend of his, that he had talked on the phone with, and his friend is......gay. He says that he lives in a town that homosexuality is still frowned upon, and as a whole, people deny this person. They ignore him, reject him, and shun him because of who he his. The whole message behind the blog is about love, and no matter who the person is, what they are like, or what they believe, we should show love to everyone. This as well has been on my heart a little bit, and after reading Mr. Pearce's blog, it prompted me to write one of my own.
I believe as human beings we should show love to one another, but allow me to take it one step further. As Christians, I believe it is even more so important for us to do so. As Christians, I believe we have a duty.....no, a calling to show others love. The Bible says in Matthew 22:37-40:
"Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
"As you love yourself"? Really? Think about it, how much do we love ourselves? Sometimes we can too much! We love ourselves a lot! We love ourselves enough to take hours each day cleaning up, getting dressed, making ourselves look nice, etc. (not that this is bad, I do it myself!) Then of course there's all those times that we worry about what other people think of us. There's all those times we make excuses not to do something because we are worried about our self image. I think if we were all honest with ourselves, as human beings, we could all say that we love ourselves a lot! So as we think about others, Jesus said that after loving God with all of our heart soul and mind, as the second GREATEST commandment, we should love our neighbour as we love ourselves. So why don't we live it! Too often we look at people of the world, whether homosexual, gothic, pierced, tattooed, alcoholic, smoker, ______..........Well, I'll let you fill in the blank, We look at those people, and we think "Ooooooo, yuck!" These are the kinds of people that we don't want to be around, these are the kinds of people that we ignore, we avoid, and we shun, but should we? What does the Bible say? Is that how much we love ourself? I don't think so! As Christians, I believe those are the kind of people we should go up to, we should shake their hand, pat them on the back, if you know them well enough, sure, even give them a hug, pray for them and show them a little bit of God's love.
When we were born, we were each born a sinner. Romans 3:23 says:
"For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God"
So are we any different from them? We each are sinners, and I believe that anyone can look at us and could think "Oooooo, yuck!" All of our sins are as filthy rags, and of course, if we know Jesus as our personal saviour, He has washed all of our sins away, but that doesn't make us any better than those who don't! That doesn't mean we have to ignore, avoid, or shun those other people. Of course we as well have to be careful not to get too caught up that we get involved in some of the things of the world, but we should show them God's love, we should pray for them, and we should love them as we love ourselves. I think too often we are quick to jump to conclusions as well. We judge people based on their looks, their sounds, their smells, their actions, and sometimes we don't even know the whole story! The Bible as well says in Matthew 7:1:
"Judge not, that ye be not judged"
We all know that we don't like being judged, so why are we so quick to jump to conclusions with other people? As I said before, we are all sinners, we were all created equal, we are all God's precious creation, so why do we judge other people as filthy rags? We should:
"Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour" Ephesians 5:2
As I have taken it one step further, allow me to take one more minute to take it one more step further. I think about the church. So often we are quick to judge in the church as well. You can step into church, and there are people talking in little groups here, and little groups there. It's often turned into a school yard where there are jocks, cheerleaders, band members, glee club, the popular kids, and the new kids. Everyone is split up into little groups, and people are quick to judge each other. These people think they are better than others, these people have more money than others, these people are more athletic than others, these people are better looking then others. and the list goes on and on and on! To be honest, I get tired of it all! I don't believe that is the way God created the church to be! He wants us all to be a family. He wants us all to love each other equally. He wants us all to live together in unity, and that's the way I believe God meant it to be! Psalm 133:1 says:
"How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity"
People worry about so many silly things. Whether people wear shorts or not, whether people still use hymnbooks or not, what kind of music is listened to, what version of the Bible is used etc. While I think it is important to know what you believe on some of those things, I don't think it's worth judging people over! It's not worth starting fights or quarrels, and I don't think anything is worth ignoring or avoiding anyone for! We should all live in a way that is glorifying to God. In fact, we shouldn't judge other churches either! I think while we may have different beliefs, while we don't know some of the people very well, while we may not like some of the same things, we should still take some time to pray for other churches as well too! While it is good to focus on our core church family, I think it is as well good for churches to come together, to pray for each other, to lift each other up, we should show the world God's love. And as Christians, we should live together in unity.
I'm not trying to beat it over your head. I know as I'm writing, I'm reminding myself as well. I think it's something important to remember. We shouldn't be so quick to judge. God created us all equally, and while some people may seem as filthy rags, that's the way we were/are at one point or another. Instead, we should show other people God's love. As well, We shouldn't worry about silly little things. We shouldn't create our own group and leave others out. God wants us to live in Unity, and we all should live for the same purpose of glorifying God.
~Daniel~
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P.S. Thanks for taking a little time to sit down and read. I hope it all made sense. I always worry about whether my thoughts come out the right way in words, so I hope the main point was able to come across. I would love to hear what you think too! I always enjoy discussion, so feel free to share your thoughts with me too. I apologize that I haven't been able to write recently. It takes some time for me to sit down, think, and write, so I'm not able to do it as much as I would like to, but I am always thinking about it, and I want to be able to do it more often. I still have an idea in my mind that I want to write about, but I feel if I'm going to do it, I want to do it right, so please stay tuned. Thanks again for reading, and hopefully I will write again soon! Have a Blessed day! :)
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