Okay....simple Christian doctrine lesson....
You're not supposed to hate people.
Doesn't matter if you disagree with them. Doesn't matter if they vote differently, believe differently, love differently.
You can disagree with them....but you're not supposed to hate them.
That love thy neighbor thing.....kinda a huge deal.
The only thing more important, in the Christian faith, than loving your neighbor is loving God. And Christ, very God of very God, who from the cross, after being tortured and while dying an unbelievably horrible death, loved and forgave those who inflicted such things upon Him.
If He could do that....and if He could put Himself through such a death for the likes of us...fallen, faulty us.....if He could show us such love...
Then why can't we love our neighbors?
Every time someone who claims to follow Christ picks a certain group of people (be it by their politics, beliefs, ethnicity, sexuality, whatever) to hate, incite others to hate towards them, lies about them or defames them....they show that they don't have the love of God and the Holy Spirit within them.
And they make the work of those who do love Christ all the harder. For now that hatred has to be combated with love and overcome, and wounds have to be healed.
It's okay to disagree with people. But do so with gentleness, respect and love. Go out of your way to be kind to them, to uplift them, to raise them in prayer and befriend them. Then God's love will show in you, and Christ's compassion will flow through you to them.
But if you want to preach hatred....if you want to call names....if you want to try and make people into less than human....do it in your own name, not in Christ's.
You're not supposed to hate people.
Doesn't matter if you disagree with them. Doesn't matter if they vote differently, believe differently, love differently.
You can disagree with them....but you're not supposed to hate them.
That love thy neighbor thing.....kinda a huge deal.
The only thing more important, in the Christian faith, than loving your neighbor is loving God. And Christ, very God of very God, who from the cross, after being tortured and while dying an unbelievably horrible death, loved and forgave those who inflicted such things upon Him.
If He could do that....and if He could put Himself through such a death for the likes of us...fallen, faulty us.....if He could show us such love...
Then why can't we love our neighbors?
Every time someone who claims to follow Christ picks a certain group of people (be it by their politics, beliefs, ethnicity, sexuality, whatever) to hate, incite others to hate towards them, lies about them or defames them....they show that they don't have the love of God and the Holy Spirit within them.
And they make the work of those who do love Christ all the harder. For now that hatred has to be combated with love and overcome, and wounds have to be healed.
It's okay to disagree with people. But do so with gentleness, respect and love. Go out of your way to be kind to them, to uplift them, to raise them in prayer and befriend them. Then God's love will show in you, and Christ's compassion will flow through you to them.
But if you want to preach hatred....if you want to call names....if you want to try and make people into less than human....do it in your own name, not in Christ's.
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