Unreasonable hate vs. Unreasonable love

I've found (far too often) in this life, that certain people I meet will hate me for no discernible reason. Some I've just met and hardly know them at all yet they vehemently hate me. Others, I can think of no words or deeds on my part to deserve their ire, yet there it is. My question is - if they can hate without a cause, why can't we love the same way? Why can't we love people for no apparent reason? Why don't we love our enemies as Jesus commanded? Love, not like. We were not told to like them, that would be weird, but why should need a reason to love them? They don't need a (logical) reason to hate us! When they hate us, let's not hate them in return, let's not "despitefully use" them when they despitefully use. Instead, let's forgive them and love them though it makes no sense to our carnal minds. Let's rise above the hearts gripped by Satan and allow our hearts to be captured by God, possessed by Him because we were all His enemies once - yet He loved us, though we despised Him. He prayed for and He died for us, therefore "We love Him, because He first loved us". "But God demonstrates His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us". He suffered for our offenses, while we were yet his enemies - so should we bear the sins of those who sin against us. Just as we were transformed from being His enemy to becoming His friend, perhaps those who hate us will one day become our friends, if we show them the kind of love that says - "I will continue to love you no matter what you say or do to me", not the love that says "I will only love you as long as you love me, as long as I think you deserve my love". Unreasonable? Yes! Thank God His love for us is unreasonable, so should our love be for others. Selah.

It's quite natural to expect kindness in return for kindness. As a general life principal, this is usually the case. But some people return hate for kindness and they expect hate in return for hate. They expect your heart to be just like theirs. Do not shy away from or seek to avoid these kinds of people - they above all need to encounter Christ filled hearts, they need to see that not everyone's heart is like theirs. They may hate you all the more for it but match their hate with love. Enough love will eventually erode and extinguish their hate. As confounding as it is to have people that hate you when all you do is love them (welcome to my world, says the Lord), it's equally confounding to have people love you when all you do is hate them. "But when sin abounded, grace did much more abound"....if I may alter this verse slightly, i believe it apropo....."But when hate abounded, love did much more abound"......Amen. 

The older you get the more you value each passing day.
You're more aware there is an end to your time on earth than you were when you were young - And this is the lesson i would pass to the young -
Value and treasure each day for it may be your last.
Even if you live to a hundred or more it's but a blink of an eye in light of eternity....every day you were granted was a gift from God...don't waste them, use them wisely.
Love, love, love as much as your heart can bare.
Give, give, give far more than you take.
Listen at least as much as you speak.
Let God walk the earth again in your flesh.
Celebrate and love Him each day and He will celebrate and love you forever...

Over the years I've come to suspect
a truth my heart must not forget
You might say I've seen the light -
my wife, you see, is always right.
When I'm in the flesh, she's in the Spirit.
In my stubbornness, I refuse to hear it,
but if I'm honest with myself,
I can always tell -
she's right, I'm wrong,
if I'd just admit it, we'd get along
much better than we sometimes do
cause humility ain't my strong suit.
Yea, you might just say I've seen the light
cause my wife, she's always right
(and even when she's not,
I'm much better off,
just lettin' her have her way,
so I can live to breathe another day).

Let's say you're lonely. Let's say you're starving for human affection. Let's say you've gone through life unwanted, alone, rejected. A member of a cult comes up to you, smiling a big, warm, smile. They take the time to greet you. They take the time to speak to you and most importantly - they listen to you! You are so touched that when they invite you to a meeting, you think, why not? What else do I have to do? No one's invited me to join them in anything for so long. You accept. You're excited! Could someone in this world actually care for me? Dare I think, even love me? You go to a meeting. Everyone is so friendly. Everyone seems to genuinely care about you. It's a dream come true! And they care for your eternal soul! They've discovered how you can live forever in paradise - it's all right there in the Bible! How could God's Holy Word be wrong? They know how to please God! By pleasing Him you'll go to heaven with them, where you can all be together forever! All you have to do to please God and reap eternal rewards is join them. They are, after all, the only ones on earth who know the truth, whose revelation of God is pure. This is because their leader is a true Prophet of God, or, as some claim, Jesus himself returned to earth in the flesh again. Why not? It happened before, can't it happen again? Now you have friends! Now you have a family that loves you, unlike your family after the flesh. And now, your soul is lost to God forever.
"Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, behold I have told you before. For is they shall say to you, behold, he is in the desert, go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers, believe it not."
According to Christ, you don't need to go to them, to any group or person, to find and know God. Where is God? Where can he be found? "To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the gentiles; which is CHRIST IN YOU, THE HOPE OF GLORY." (Col:1:27). You don't need to go to a church to find him or hear him or meet with him, if you've invited him to live in you - in your heart and your body is his temple. It's him you're following and when he leads you into fellowship with other believers like you, rejoice! But, if they do not extend their friendship with their fellowship....
Celebrate Christ in you, and in them but do not submit to anyone who uses Christ to control or replace your personal relationship with Jesus - telling you what you can and cannot do and leading you to believe they are essential to you if you want to make it to Heaven - you cannot please God without them! Submission to them equals submission to God. This, children, is to be avoided at all cost. Fellowship with Christ in one another. Serve one another the bread of life in you and the wine of his blood, full of forgiveness and hope of a better world yet to come. Serve one another - only submit to and serve those who are submitted to and serving you. No man is to be exalted over another. (cue John Reuben's "God is love").
Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the traditions of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. Churches today are full of the commandments and doctrines of men which indeed appear to be wise to the immature and soulish. Their worship seems sincere but is designed to be seen by men, to show how much they love God and adore him. They appear to have humility but it's all for their glory, not God's. Jesus pointed out hypocrites, how they love to pray standing in churches and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. They love to be seen giving money. They make a great show of their giving of their money, creating elaborate ceremonies and spending an inordinate amount of time taking up their offerings, all so they may have glory in the eyes of men. Jesus told us to pray in secret. He told us to give our money to the poor secretly, yet churches make all of this - praying and giving and fasting, a public spectacle. Why? To be seen of men. To impress each other, to prove to each other how godly and holy and humble they are. Do it not, my children. Seek to impress Our Father, who alone sees what you do in secret, hears what you pray in private. Teach your heart to seek to glory in God, not in man's attention or praise. Selah. 

Learn the lesson of Jonah - Do you care more for your own kind, your own people, your own church, your own denomination, than you do for others? Do you care more for those who are blessing you than for those who forsake you, care not for you, curse you? "But I say to you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully (maliciously) use you, and persecute you. That you may be the children of your Father which is in Heaven: for He makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust (on the tares and the wheat). For if you love them which love you, what reward have you? Do not even the Publicans do the same? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more than others?"
Throughout our New Covenant, God insists the hallmark of His own is love. But not as the world loves - as He loves - a radical, passionate, raging love for those who do not love him in return! Jonah cared only for himself and his people. Denominations segregate their love, caring only for their own, churches love their own, not those in other churches - we tend to love those who love us while shunning those who hate us but it's those who hate us that need our witness of God's love the most! Furthermore, give your love away freely to those who cannot return it, just as we are to give money and goods away to those who cannot repay us "when you make a dinner or a supper, call not your friends, nor your brethren, nor your kinsman, nor your rich neighbors; lest they also bid you again, and a recompense be made you. But when you make a feast (church supper), call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: (those beaten down and abused in this life - those unloved, unwanted, shunned) and you shall be blessed; for they cannot recompense you - for you shall be recompensed at the resurrection of the just."
We, of all people on earth, need to obey these commands (not suggestions) of Jesus because we are the ones he's invited to feast on his great love for us and we are the poor in spirit - unable to recompense him for all he's given us. We were not his friends, his brethren, his kinsman, when he invited us to feast in his kingdom. When we invite the poor, the stranger, those unable to recompense us - we are emulating him. We are not to give in order to get in return but that's exactly what many prosperity teachers and pastors preach and teach. They encourage us to give to God in order to get from God but he says "freely you've received, freely give". Besides - if we really want to give to God, we should do it by giving directly to people, He says if you give to the least of these my brethren....he says if you love me, feed my flock (not just his word but actual, real food for the body as well). His flock is all the poor, lost souls throughout the world that his heart is breaking for. We are not to give to others to then decide where to give, unless of course God leads us to do it. But I ask - is your Pastor, is your church, giving your money to the poor? To the widows and orphans in your community? (not just in your church, most churches will bless their own) Your church may even have a program to feed and clothe the poor but it isn't enough when it doesn't bring them into fellowship on a regular basis. They will feel they are not a part of your family, if they aren't invited to your feasts on a regular basis - both your services, which should be a time of feasting on God's love, and the actual feasting on natural food. It's easier to invite them to a food pantry, where most congregants have no contact with them - out of sight, out of mind, no real sacrifice on the part of the congregation (except those volunteering to serve) because we've been taught to let the church we're attending to do all the work for us - we feel good that we gave some money or canned goods so others can do the dirty work of coming into contact with the poor and needy, while we can go about tending to our own busy lives.
In this sense, our churches become our spiritual surrogates, doing the works we've been called by God to do. All through scripture we are encouraged to minister to the poor, as our God does daily, and in James we are not to differentiate between the rich and the poor. We are not to be respecters of persons, yet so often in churches around the world, the rich are given more honor and respect than the poor. I once heard a pastor declare from his pulpit he only wants rich people attending his church. He said if you live in a trailer or drive an old car, you're a failure as a christian because (he said) God will bless you with lots of nice things, if you just have enough faith and if you give enough money to God (well, not to God directly, give it to the pastor instead, he will accept it on God's behalf, to give it directly to God you would have to give it to the poor of which Jesus said "as you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me".
This pastor of whom I speak never preached in India, I suspect. His message would not be appropriate there or welcome ( it shouldn't be appropriate anywhere). In fact, that's a good measuring stick - any message you teach or preach should be just as applicable in any country on earth, not just in the USA. Truth is truth, no matter where you go, unless you're teaching about the ill effects of pursuing worldly wealth on our souls. So many scriptures warn us about the folly of lusting after worldly treasure, money, expensive things, yet still so many pastors set their hearts on worldly wealth. Worse, they teach people to do the same. I'll take Arthur Blessit over Kenneth Copleand any day of the week.
"There is that makes himself rich, yet has nothing; there is that makes himself poor, yet has great riches. Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven. Lay not up for yourselves treasures here on earth. My brethren, have not the faith of our lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment, and you have respect to him that wears the rich clothing, and say to him, sit you here in a good place and say to the poor, stand you there, or sit here under my footstool - are you not then partial in yourselves? (showing partiality)? Has God not chosen the poor of this world rich in faith? BUT YOU HAVE DESPISED THE POOR. Verily (truthfully) I say to you that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven and again I say to you - it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. Take no thought for what you will wear or eat (or where you will live or what car you will drive) for your father which is in heaven knows you have need of these things".
Lives fly by at the speed of life.
Some cause joy, other's strife,
but each one, whoever they may be
help to form Christ in you and in me.
Our enemies are just as important to us as our friends,
if we wish to become like Christ in the end.
So don't curse your enemies, thank them instead
for providing your heart and soul with this test -
to learn to love as our God loves, is best.....

Why is religion so successful? One reason is, Satan knows this, there is a powerful urge within most people to belong to a group, the larger the better, because if enough people believe something, if enough people follow someone, the crowd can't be wrong, can it? Think on this - Satan is so persuasive he convinced one third of the angels in heaven to join with him in rebellion against God. These are beings who dwelt in Heaven, beholding God in His eternal glory, turning from Him and deciding Satan was more glorious. He persuaded Eve (who in turn persuaded Adam) to disobey God, to turn away from Him and he is still persuading multitudes today to follow him in rebellion to God by using God's own word and God's own name. He appropriates them for his own personal gain and agenda. Hmmm...reminds me of some preachers i know!
Satan knows how much people need to be accepted, he knows our deep need to be loved (we were created by and for, love), if we can't get a healthy form of love from a healthy source, we'll turn to any kind of attention just to feel that we're important to someone, that we're needed and loved - even if the love we're shown is a false form of love....looking good on the outside but with no real substance to it. This is why gangs thrive. Most gang members come from broken homes, single parent homes or grandparent homes. This is what our pop culture is all about - following cultural icons with millions of others fulfills this deep need inside us.
It's much easier (socially) to belong to a group than to be an outcast, alone, shunned, unwanted and abandoned. Cults thrive on this - preying on the lonely, the least, those who don't fit in with the rest of society. Jesus told us to "ENTER YE IN AT THE STRAIT (narrow) GATE: FOR WIDE IS THE GATE, AND BROAD IS THE WAY, THAT LEADETH TO DESTRUCTION, AND MANY THERE BE THAT GO IN THEREAT: (this broad gate is religion, a false form of Christianity millions choose to follow) BECAUSE STRAIT IS THE GATE, AND NARROW IS THE WAY, WHICH LEADETH UNTO LIFE, AND FEW THERE BE THAT FIND IT".
The simple fact is the crowds are usually wrong. All through scripture, every prominent figure had their own wilderness experience - they each learned how to draw apart from people, from the crowds, and draw near to God. This way, when they did return to the crowds, they weren't swayed by them. They did not give in to the temptation to follow with the crowds or have the crowds follow them. When they went to the cities, their hearts had been captured, enraptured by God, so the crowds did not sway them, no, they swayed the crowds. Abraham gave Lot a choice - go anywhere you want, I'll go in the opposite direction. Lot chose to draw near to the cities, the twin cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and ended up living in Sodom, surrounded by sodomy, and it cost him all he had along with his wife's life and his daughter's souls.
Abraham stayed in the wilderness. Moses fled to the wilderness and found God in a burning bush. And where did he lead God's people after they fled Egypt, with it's grand and glorious cities, like he had done years before? Right back to the wilderness he had come to love, where he had encountered his burning, passionate God, years before - now intensely desiring his people to encounter him as well, in the same way. Would to God all God's people were prophets!
David fled to the wilderness from his personal Pharaoh, Saul, and long before that he'd come to know his God as a protector of the weak and helpless, by tending to his father's sheep. As king later, he would be tasked with tending to his Heavenly Father's sheep.
Paul spent fourteen years in the desert, unlearning religion, purging himself of all it's ill effects and learning the ways of his true father, the Holy Spirit. Jesus himself had an abbreviated wilderness experience - 40 days, one day for every year his people had spent there. He too was tempted by Satan with the same temptations they had faced in the desert, but of course our Lord did not succumb. But when he says he knows what it's like to face the same temptations we are faced with, believe him! From then on, Jesus would periodically withdraw from the crowds, even from his own heart-picked disciples, to go back to the wilderness to be alone with his Father. It was a crowd that killed Jesus. It was the same crowd that Peter denied Christ to. Crowds will blindly follow one another to Hell, drowning any voice or opinion that they don't agree with, with their discordant noise. Cities are just large crowds and nations form the biggest crowds of all, but as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be when the Son of Man returns. All the nations with all their cities, full of crowds, full of the majority of people on earth, all perished in the flood of God's judgment on their wickedness. So shall it be, so it is, today. The crowds will be eating and drinking (attending to their fleshly lusts and desires), marrying and partying when sudden destruction will come upon them. As they celebrate and mock God's chosen, his anointed, the Samson's of our age will rise up and destroy their houses of idolatry, built upon shifting sand. Remember this - God always gets the last laugh. It may seem as if Satan has triumphed but he is far from triumphant. His kingdom shall be shown for what it truly is - a farce, a kingdom that CAN BE SHAKEN, a house of cards, built on lies that will not last as the Day of Judgment of our God finally dawns. Light trumps darkness every time. One whisper from God can drown out all the shouts of the enemy - till all that remains is all that belongs to, willingly, our loving Savior and Lord, Jesus, our Christ. All the Father has given him will remain while all others will perish. It's a hard word to bear, this burden of Babylon, but bear it I must. Selah. 

All sin is selfish. Exalting self over God is the origin of all sin. The original sin was Satan exalting himself above God - he's taught mankind to do the same. All sin is the result of placing our will before God's. This practice of putting self first in our hearts is what promotes offenses. We get offended when we think of ourselves too much. Jesus taught "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink or yet for your body, what ye shall put on". If I must sleep on a mat on a dirty floor in India with no AC, so what? If I complain, if even just in my heart - I'm thinking of myself too much, exalting myself above due measure.
If someone mistreats me in anyway, whether by insulting me or speaking lies about me or worse - ignoring me, if I'm offended I haven't crucified self - I'm still listening to the whisper of Satan telling my heart to take offense at even slight provocations. If we are to be witnesses of Christ, of His abundant life, we must first be witnesses of His death - working in us, crucifying selfishness - and when self is dethroned in our hearts, sin will no longer abide in our own "Holy of Holies" and Christ will take His proper place in our inner sanctum.
The truth of it is - in this world, we are the least, the unloved, the unwanted, poor in worldly standards of wealth but in the next world we're God's royalty, ruling and reigning with Him forever....but in this life we are as Israel was - "Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter" (Psalm 44:22). Paul quotes this very scripture in Romans 8:36, but oh how Jesus rejoices over the soul that dies for Him - the soul that will endure tribulation, or distress, or persecutions, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword - the soul that is "killed all the day long" by the hate they spew, by the words they speak or by the casting out of their friendship, is the soul that will never be separated from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Yes, they may use the sword of their spirits - their tongues, to slaughter us, to slander and curse us but we will respond as the psalmist - "For I have heard the slander of many: fear was on every side, while they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life, but I trusted in Thee, O Lord; I said You are my God, my times are in Your hand, deliver me from the hand of my enemies and from them that persecute me".....but if it be Thy will O Lord that I am chosen to suffer for Your great names sake, then I will respond "Father forgive them". I do not say "I" forgive them for "I" am now buried with Christ - if "I" must forgive them from a place of being offended by them then "I", "self", hasn't died yet. When we commend our souls, our bodies and one day our spirits into His hands, we relinquish the right to be offended, we trust Him to take up our cause and by faith we believe that all things work together for our good. "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath (leave room for the wrath of God, not your own) for it is written: Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, saith The Lord". He is our defense, our shield, a strong high tower we may flee into. He is our shelter from the storm of wrath of the wicked as they choose to go to Hell rather than accept Him - and all who are of Him. He cannot judge them if we do so ourselves. If we reprimand someone for their sin - it is not now because they've sinned against us - for we are now seated in Christ at the right hand of the Father - we are His now, so when we forgive them it is so that the Father will forgive them - so when we who are dead in Christ rebuke someone for their sin, it is never to be done from a place of hurt or anger but from a deep love for the welfare of their soul. We want them reunited with their Father, as we have been. Know you not that when you are hurt - in any way, especially wounds of the heart, He feels it too? He sees it, He knows it even before it happens? He will avenge us but it is not our desire for Him to do so. As Jesus did - we intercede  on behalf of the ones wounding us and by doing so we rise above our wounds, we transcend them.
Our scars no longer define who we are but rather his scars do. Our scars define who we belong to, who we follow. We do not just cry out for and receive His mercy for our own souls, we do so for others and we freely give His mercy to others that it may triumph over judgment (we choose to give mercy rather than judge them). We gladly bear the wounds of the fallen ones, that by our witness they may rise with us - even as Stephen graciously bore the sins of those stoning him to death, with his last breath crying out "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge". Paul looked at this witness of the glorious grace and love of Jesus Christ pouring out of the heart of Stephen and Paul's own heart was pricked and a seed was planted. He went from Saul (literally means "a ditch, death" to Paul (literally means "humble"). He went from arrogance, which leads to death, to humility, which leads to life. Humility is the journey every believers heart must embark on, and finish. How we respond to offenses is the clearest witness of the Gospel we will ever preach. If we correct someone, we do it as a good parent would - out of love for them. We are about our Father's business, which is making crooked paths straight. We want all to experience the Father's forgiveness as we have.
Please allow me to end this sermon by stating quite clearly - wisdom will not allow us to continue to be abused, used, taken advantage of again and again - though we respond to abuse with loving forgiveness, we still cry out to the Father to rescue us, and trust Him to do so. We follow Him when He leads us to a place of peace and safety. Though some are called to become martyr's for Him, others are called to endure unkind words, or tribulations both physical and mental, but in it all - we follow Him, never leaving or forsaking Him. We give him thanks IN all things, not FOR all things, knowing any suffering we may endure in this life is for a light moment, a twinkling of an eye, and suddenly, we are in His arms forever. Selah.

So stay or go, as he desires. There are times when Paul was beaten, even stoned, and times when he escaped in a basket over a wall. He decides it all. Amen.