Fighting to love each other...

You know it makes me really sad that we live in a world where we don't show love!! We take every opportunity to insult and hate each other. Instead of honesty we sow gossip; Instead of sowing love we sow hate; instead of unity, we sow discord; instead of humility we sow pride and envy; instead of forgiveness and reconciliation we sow bitterness and isolation...and I'm just talking about within the church!!

I think satan must be having a field day. This is EXACTLY what he wanted all along!! I got this awesome email a long time ago that had a conversation between Jesus and satan. Satan had the world and Jesus asked him what he was going to do with it. Satan sneered and said "Oh, I'm gonna have fun! I'm gonna teach them how to marry and divorce each other, how to hate and abuse each other, how to drink and smoke and curse. I'm gonna teach them how to invent guns and bombs and kill each other. I'm really gonna have fun!"

"And what will you do when you get done with them?" Jesus asked.

"Oh, I'll kill 'em," Satan glared proudly.

"How much do you want for them?" Jesus asked.

"Oh, you don't want those people. They ain't no good. Why, you'll take them and they'll just hate you. They'll spit on you, curse you and kill you. You don't want those people!!"

"How much?" He asked again.

Satan looked at Jesus and sneered, "All your blood, tears and your life."

Jesus said, "DONE!"

Then He paid the price.

Think about that sacrifice. Think about what it cost for Jesus to come to earth in such a vulnerable way and give His life so that we would live. Think about the fact that God, whether you know Him or not, sent His ONLY Son to die your death!! Whichever way you want to look at it, we did NOT deserve that! We fall so short of His glory. We did NOTHING to deserve the sacrifice that was made for us. But the worst thing is that the sacrifice WAS made and now we do nothing to show how much it meant to us. We don't even think about it. Jesus paid the ULTIMATE sacrifice for us because He loved us...He came and showed us the right way to live, how to love and care for each other...and you can't say 'I wasn't alive then!' because it's all written out in black and white for you in the Bible. So why do we keep getting it wrong??!

I can't tell you how many times I've been hurt by other people, and likewise I can't tell you how many times I've hurt other people. You know, just since taking on my role as Youth Pastor here I've been hurt and insulted more time than I can count. There are SO many people who support me here, but there are also those few people who don't like me. People seem to think that you can prick a leader and they won't bleed. Let me tell you...they DO! And I'd normally say right at this point 'But, that's ok, cause you can't please everyone and not everyone will click' But, I'm not going to say that because it's just crap! I'm sorry but it's just insane to brush it off by saying that and not even give Jesus' example a second thought. Jesus CLEARLY showed us and TAUGHT us to love each other and be tolerant of one another! Let me just say that there are people who grate me the wrong way and I need this lesson just as much as anyone, but I think it's about time we stop making things like this seem so trivial. It's not trivial. We're talking about loving each other, and if we can't get that right within our own church circles then how on earth do we think that we're going to love the rest of the world??!!

But I promise you that if you are angry with someone, you will have to stand trial. If you call someone a fool, you will be taken to court. And if you say that someone is worthless, you will be in danger of the fires of hell. So if you are about to place your gift on the altar and remember that someone is angry with you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. Make peace with that person, then come back and offer your gift to God. Matthew 5:22-24

Man, God doesn't even want our worship while we're not at peace with each other. We think that we're ok because we go and do our weekly duty and we go to church and throw our arms up in the air and sing 'Here I am to worship...have all of me...' but at the same time our hearts are not right because we have these unresolved issues and we're thinking about the person two rows in front of us who we just can't stand! Or even worse, we have an issue with the preacher and so we switch off and miss what God's trying to say to us!! When are we gonna get real and sort ourselves out. God gave us a commandment to love each other and in fact He even called it His GREATEST commandment...of all the commandments that God wanted to give us, His GREATEST one was to LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS CHRIST LOVED US!! It's not something we can just brush off and say, 'Oh, it's no big deal...I love everyone else...I just don't get along with Fred!' IT IS A BIG DEAL!!! Jesus said, don't even bother coming to me and worshiping me and offering sacrifices to me if you still have a partially hardened heart even towards just ONE of your brothers!

I want to challenge you (and believe me, I'm feeling very challenged myself here!!...start loving each other! Stop putting each other down...stop hating each other...love like Jesus did! His love was NOT cautious...but EXTRAVAGANT!! Ephesians 5:2 LOVE LIKE THAT!!