I have found myself very concerned with the events
of the past week across our Nation and I felt led to write a new blog post. It has been a long time since I have posted
anything. Life is busy and life often
distracts us from what is really important.
Today, I want to talk about the most epic threat to our community; hate.
The earliest example of hate is found in Genesis
Chapter 4 BibleGateway
Genesis Chapter 4 where we read about Cain and Abel. Cain and Abel where the sons of Adam and Eve;
both having jobs supporting the family.
Cain worked the gardens while Abel worked the flocks. As the Bible tells us, Cain became jealous (a
form of hate) of Abel because Abel found favor with the Lord. Now some would read this and think that God
was biased and that he may have like Abel more than he did Cain, at no fault of
Cain’s. At first glance, you may find
that both Cain and Abel’s offerings to God were equal. However, if you study the text in greater
depth, you find that Cain’s Offering was out of obligation, and not of honor,
or respect to the Lord. Abel’s Offering
was the best he had to offer to the Lord to which the Lord looked upon with “favor”. There are countless passages throughout the
Bible demonstrating such acts where people gave very little, on the
service. However, when you look a little
deeper, you find that offering was substantial in that it was all the person
had, or that it was of a greater sacrifice by the giver. “What are you getting at Matthew?”
I’ve often posted that I would love to have been
able to sit down with great men of God such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and
Dwight L. Moody to simply bask in their relationship with Christ. The sole purpose in the hearts of these two
men were to share the love of Christ with as many people they could. Yes, Dr. King’s platform was as a civil
rights activist, but at his foundation was his love of Christ. Think about it! How can you argue equality and ignore
love? The truth is, you cannot and Dr.
King understood that. Unlike Dr. King,
D.L. Moody is relatively unknown to many, but he is responsible for leading a
young shoe store salesman to Christ who would lead others to Christ. D.L. Moody’s witness, through these people,
would ultimately see Dr. Billy Graham to Christ through Dr. Mordecai Ham. There is no telling how many people were led
to Christ through Billy Graham’s preaching and there is not telling how many
people witnessed that same love through Dr. King. You see, both of these men understood the
love of God and that his love was not restricted to a color of skin. They both understood that Christ came to give
us life, and life more abundantly (John 10:10).
By the way, if you study the New Testament, you will find one of the
greatest examples of racism ever found; the Jews and the Gentiles. The Jews did not believe the Gentiles were
worthy of God’s salvation and in fact, it was illegal for a Jew to even talk to
a Gentile. There are many references to
this racism throughout the New Testament and I could write several posts about
this, but the message of Christ was that God loves us all.
Over the last decade, we can see a significant
exodus away from the teachings of Christ to various other things, religions,
and yes, hate. Our very foundation as a
Nation is one of rebellion which has no choice but to be ingrained who we are
as a people. Some would argue this
rebellion breeds the attitude of, “you can’t tell me what to do” and I tend to
believe that it does. However, when we
choose to be rebellious, our actions can have disastrous consequences. Look at 1 Samuel and the story of David and
Bathsheba where you will find an excellent example of what I’m talking about. In my opinion, hate is nothing more than the
absence of love and we are witnessing a mass exodus from love across our
Nation.
This morning, I read about one of our local Churches
experiencing change and losing their pastor.
What is striking to me is that this is front page news with all three of
our major TV affiliates, newspapers, and social media alike. When was the last time those same media
outlets issued a Breaking News Alert
to tell us about the number of salvations that have occurred at this Church, or
to tell us about the hundreds of people who were baptized on a given
Sunday? So why is this breaking
news? Hate. Most all media outlets (traditional and
social) are looking for the highest possible ratings and reach (how many people
see a post in social media) and will push stories to achieve higher
ratings. If you don’t believe me, just
look at your news feeds on social media.
You will not have to search very far on social media to find hateful
words from every side of the political spectrum and most disappointing is the
hateful and hurtful words from other church people. How in the world will people ever see the
love of Christ when his own people are spreading hate?
There is hope, but it will be difficult. There is a solution, but many of you will not
be able to follow this solution. The Bible
is very clear in that we are to, “love thy neighbor as thyself”, second only to
loving the Lord. If you are going to
love each other, then we are going to have to stop reading and sharing hateful
posts. So, stop reading and sharing
their posts and tell all media outlets (including individual social media
profiles) we are not interested in spreading such hate. When stories of love have a larger reach than
stories of hate, you will see more stories of love. While it may seem that I am blaming the
media, I am not. They have a job to do
and that is to produce the news that we the people want to see. When we click, read, and share their stories,
we are telling them we want to see stories like this. I am blaming we the people. We are going to have to stop engaging in
hateful words when we see a Pastor fall.
I have news for you! A pastor is
human and aren’t we glad our failures aren’t shared as Breaking News?! I know I am because I am human just like a
Pastor is. The bottom line is that we
must stop sharing hate and start sharing love, and we must hold each other
accountable for sharing hate. Hate is
easy, and love is hard. For this I will
say #NeverQuitTheFight . Start today by
sharing a little of God’s love and a little less of Satan’s hate.
Do you realize how much God loves you? Do you realize that God allowed his only Son to die a brutal death so that you can enjoy life in heaven? Knowing that God loves us so much, should we not find a way to share his love with others?
Father God, I am sorry when I share hate instead of
love. I am sorry when I fail to provide
the same love and forgiveness you provide me.
Please forgive me and be with me as I share more of your love and none
of Satan’s hate.
