People are Not Easy to Love no. 28

“So Yeshua said to the Judeans who had trusted him, ‘If you obey what I say, then you are really my talmidim , you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free’”(Yochanan (Jhn) 8:31-32). If we want to follow Jesus as his students, then we will become freed by the truth. BUT do we really want the truth? People are not easy to love because they would rather hear a comforting lie than a simple truth.

I was one of those seekers of truth out there in the world. I spent a lot of time trying to find out what was really happening in the world. Why were there so many problems? What was the root of all the inequity and injustice in the world? How can we solve the problems of crime and poverty? Is there a system of a law or a rule or a philosophy that can help us be better? And I ended up right where I began . . . with Him.

I know a lot of folks are afraid of the truth because it can tell us some truly scary things about ourselves and our weakness. The truth can cut like a sword and get right through all the skin and meat to the bone. And that is why folks want to create their own lies and worship them as truth. BUT they aren’t any more true just because they are labeled truth. The Truth is the Truth. And the Truth will set you free.

Once I became convinced of The Truth, I could no longer ignore The Truth. And that is another frightening thing about The Truth. Once The Truth reveals itself to you, no longer can we ignore its veracity. And it is much easier and more gratifying to our desires to just doubt Truth. Or we can bury Truth beneath a lot of mental gymnastics and arguments. We can try as much as we want to put Truth in the grace BUT it won’t stay there. It has this habit of always finding life and spreading light.

That is the one thing about Truth, since it sets you and I free, Truth is always setting itself free as well.

Grace and Shalom to your home.

I love you. I forgive you. Have a blessed and abundant day!

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoKingButChrist #EmbraceTheWithin #NotMyWayYHWH

People are Not Easy to Love no. 27

“How blessed are those who make peace! for they will be called sons of God” (Mattityahu (Mat) 5:9). Jesus asks us to make peace when our nature calls for war. I know that gets confusing when the Old Testament is filled with battles and folks believing that is the nature of God BUT, thankfully, Christianity does not stop with the Old Testament understanding of God. Luckily, God came to earth and gave us a perfect example of who He is in Jesus. People are not easy to love because they prefer a partial understanding of God rather than the fully revealed God in Jesus.

Later in His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus reveals the truth that, “No one can be slave to two masters; for he will either hate the first and love the second, or scorn the second and be loyal to the first. You can’t be a slave to both God and money” (Mattityahu (Mat) 6:24). And I can’t serve two masters. I serve Him or I serve something else. And I can make all sorts of excuses for how I make that choice in my life BUT He knows my heart. Jesus also explains that the Law is completed by two things, “He told him, ‘You are to love Adonai your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. This is the greatest and most important mitzvah . And a second is similar to it, You are to love your neighbor as yourself. All of the Torah and the Prophets are dependent on these two mitzvot’” (Mattityahu (Mat) 22:37-40). Those are God’s laws. Love your God and love your neighbor.

One master asks me to love to the point of sacrificing myself like the example of Jesus. The other master asks me to hate to the point of sacrificing another. And we can see the choice that Jesus made. When faced with His own death and in possession of the most power to ever walk the face of the earth, He chose His sacrifice through death. That is bravery.

And sometimes in service of government we can get all confused and twist things around. We can see all these patriotic films and displays and fool ourselves into believing that this whole giving my life for my country-thing is something brave and noble. BUT, Jesus did not come to earth with an army as our example, He came as a servant that revealed the Father. Again, Jesus explains that, “My Father has handed over everything to me. Indeed, no one fully knows the Son except the Father, and no one fully knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son wishes to reveal him. Come to me, all of you who are struggling and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Mattityahu (Mat) 11:27-30). So, if we want to know God the Father the only example is through Jesus His Son.

So, it doesn’t matter that the Torah had an incomplete understanding of the Father. It does not matter that the Old Testament gives us a glimpse of God when Jesus gives us the full example of what it is to follow Him. A life of prayer, a life of sacrifice, and a life of mercy are His examples to follow. And we can choose to live out His example or we can take any incomplete understanding of God we want to build our own god in our own image. We get to choose.

So, with Sky Cloths ready to wave next week and folks singing the Magic Prayer in worship of the government. We get to choose who our master truly is. We can love God and our neighbor as He commands. We can follow His example as He commands. I choose to be a Christian first even if it means being a bad Roman.

Grace and Shalom to your home.

I love you. I forgive you. Have a blessed and abundant day!

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoKingButChrist #EmbraceTheWithin #NotMyWayYHWH