Why We Must Refuse to Hate those that Behead Children. UNITE

I see them in the desert, the wandering ones. Those caught up with nothing but sky to cover them. No earthly possessions…Just the feet of oppression carrying them to places unknown. 

And we all know, evil reigns and attempts to destroy us when children are be-headed, women savaged, and the cross itself becomes the instrument Christian brothers and sisters are put to death by.

I see them hanging.  On the crucifix’ in the park.  Public demonstrations, radicals used as fear-weapons to drive other believers to denounce their religion of holiness, purity.  Denounce their faith not in a church, but a Jesus that threatens nations like Iraq and their ruling tyranny.

And isn’t it funny how in one world death and hate can drive a people to think they can get heavenly benefits by murdering people…While another religion sits silent in love, giving up their lives, even hanging on a cross like The One they believe in.

And while many grip fear, turn a blind eye to the death and murderous rampages going on in Iraq….Somehow I see God, there in the clouds leading a people who have been driven away, opening the heavens and greeting each martyr as they hang, in quiet, for His great name.

And when did we ever entertain the idea that we have a God who forsakes His people?  Did we ever think that blood can shed from His precious people and He would not see it….He would not grieve over it….He would not avenge those who suffer for His Great name?

What parent would sit back after hearing the cries?  Or turn their back to their own sons and daughters suffering?  Walking away?  Or saying, “I am just too busy to not cry out and call the angels to recompense everything stolen from those I have lived and died for…My family?”

And though scripture teaches love and peace, somehow we forget that God is still Just and that He is mandated to repay back those who do the persecuting, unrepentant.

Yes, can’t we just see Jesus hanging there, dying at the hands of His haters and evil doers?  Yet, we forget that God’s wrath is real, apparent, and that without the blood of Jesus…none of us are exempt from paying the price for our evil.

I see the hate in the eyes of one who holds the severed head of a child in his hands.  I see the bleeding, the weapons drawn on children.  I see those driven, searching, seeking for a God they can’t see.

But am I surprised?  No.

Do I hate them?  Absolutely not.

Do I allow fear to ravish my body the way they have devoured others with their in-furious and a murderous spirit?  Never.

Why?  Because the enemy would love to drive us to fear, panic, hate, anxiety that stocks us like the Jihad with their swords of persecution.  Yes, the enemy would love us to hide with doubts from tormenting questions like…“What if the knife was at my own throat?  Would I renounce my relationship with Jesus?”

And what have we got, if we cannot see that evil doesn’t start with shooting and chopping up and slaying the innocent?  Evil dances around all of us…looking for an opening, a door, an entry, a way to plague us with so much worry that we cultivate seeds planted in our minds, resorting to vengefulness, anger, ragging, guilt, or fear that drives us to do things that lean on something other than the Sovereignty of God.

And I will not live my life running from the lies.  Driven to the desert in my own soul, away from where “danger” can strike…

Because friends, we should not be surprised when trials of all sort come upon us…the Bible says.  The apostles were tortured, God’s people have always been the target since the serpent filled lies into the heart of the very first creations.

And call me foolish…But since Jesus, we can long for more than evil, hope for more than pain, reach for a heaven here on earth where God is not only crucified but rules and reigns in our lives, in every ne of our circumstances….

Yes, death might take our family.  The enemy may come here and drive us and hurt these rags of flesh that hold our souls….

Still oh the joy…Nothing and no one can destroy this Spirit living in us.  Nothing can separate us from the love of the Father resurrected and burning through us…

So, I choose to love. 

I choose to cling to this Christ within me.  I choose to pray for the persecuted, weep for those who are weeping.  I choose to lavish love over the souls of my enemies…

Yes…

• I see Him there in Iraq even now as I close my eyes.  
• I see heaven open, angels of the Lord ministering in ways that we cannot even begin to realize. 
• I see a God who is alive…even there in the desert. Though we can’t see His footprints, He is a God who can be trusted.  
• I see a people whose reward in abundant, not just because they lives full of grace…but because they died as martyrs.  

And oh how great are those who die a martyrs death without recounting His Great Name. 

And oh friends, during this persecution in Iraq, and Israel, and Ukraine, and North Korea….and all throughout these lands we see and hear about through social media….Let it do a few things for us…

• Let it make us crave the Word of God as much as our very breath.  Let Scripture rid us of the lies that we are all going to disappear before persecution comes.  Let Our Black Book purify us from the false doctrine that says we are all going to be wealthy and prosperous and will never face trials because we are Christians. Let scripture give us confidence in our testimony, so that in times of suffering, we may be ready to give a reason for The Hope we believe in. 

• And oh, might these horrific tragedies drive us to pray, drive us to burn with a passion to pray more fervently than we have ever have before. Getting past those ritualistic prayers, dropping to our knees and yearning for the healing power of a God who died for more than the silencing of those who have a reason for the hope they cling to.  For God didn’t create us to hide in a box, put a bubble around ourselves, simply because we are Christians.  He didn’t exempt us from suffering, or isolate us from the evil that lurks around us.  He died that we might hold the key to freedom, declaring the promises of a Lord who shed His blood for us…

• So, let’s not be quiet.  Let’s not let fear grip us, the enemy’s tactics work, anxieties filling us, doubts lurking, telling us, God isn’t good, He is not Sovereign, and that He cannot be trusted.  For, He sees.  He is near.  He is watching.  And just because we don’t understand it…doesn’t mean we get to point fingers and dethrone a God who is not foreign to the same suffering we see, One who was also driven to the desert, and crucified like those we watch on our laptops or t.v.s.

• And oh, that we might train our children up in the ways they might go. Less worried about scholarships, and sports, and how successful they might be when life turns decades from now.  But that we might raise them as children who know their God, children who accept Christ early on, and children who own their walk with God from a very young age.  Children that aren’t dependent on their parents “religion”, on a church, or a leader, or on any other person to keep them standing when suffering comes knocks on their door…

Because it will come knocking on the door.
And who can attest?  Our feet must be planted on the rock strong and long before the storms come.

For let’s face it.  The sands of temporary idols will never hold us, or our children, or religious doctrine.  Or self-righteousness.  Or prideful perfecctionism.

Only Jesus is our hope when the sword of adversity come upon us.

• But most of all friends….in that secret place, the one holy, and sacred, and set apart place for Jesus, may we not fill it with the same Wrath of Hate found in the hearts of those who kill people in the name of Allah.

For we are of those where love reigns.  We are of those marked by the seal of His promises.  We are of those who stand and look our accusers in their eyes, and are willing to die for the Hope that is Christ in us…

We are of those who love. 

• Love when it feels so good to hate.  
• Love when even the most leaniant of governments might want to hang those who hang others.
• Love when we cringe inside, or look away, or mourn for the children who lost their innocence at the hands of others who burn with evil…

For what keeps us different?  What keeps us pure?  What keeps us set apart and holy for His purposes?

It’s not the turning away.  It’s not the, not-looking.  It’s not denial, or excessive grieving.  It’s not sinking into a terrible depression because it looks like Satan is on the lose and He is not stopping anytime soon.  It is not hyper spiritualizing in this life, living as if on a bubble and that nothing evil could or would ever happen to us.  It’s not, needing excessive knowledge and intellectualizing to comprehend life’s difficulties.  It’s not running out and doing good deeds as if somehow our behavior will save us from anything bad happening…

The only hope we have is in one name, Jesus.  And that God is love.  His name is the embodiment of His words as He hug on the cross for sinners like us who drove Him to His crucifixion.

And there was no hate in his words, “Lord, forgive them, for they know not what they do”.  The Father of Love simply willingly died to reverse all our sin, abolished hate, sacrificed for the pain resulting from a driven people who deserves hell, nothing more, nothing less.

Yet, let’s face it…

I don’t know how to love like that.  How to forgive like that.  How to live redeemed or see eternity with such pure and Christ-like eyes…

But, He does.  And it is not anything we have in and of apart from us that sanctifies us anyway…

It’s only Jesus.

“Then I heard further [perceiving the distinct words of] a voice from heaven, saying, Write this: Blessed (happy, to be envied) are the dead from now on who die in the Lord! Yes, blessed (happy, to be envied indeed), says the Spirit, [in] that they may rest from their labors, for their works (deeds) do follow (attend, accompany) them!” ~ Revelation 14:13

Photo credit: The Guardian

 

UNITE LINK PARTY

In a very somber week of many international crisis, we stand come here today to stand together for hope, love, and in UNITY in a God who, no matter what it looks like, STILL hold s the world in His hands.

UNITE is a non-exclusive blog hop where YOU are welcome to link up, add a link back, and read and comment on, at minimum, the post before you!

Thanks for joining us and for sharing in this dream to UNITE the bloggersphere…in a world filled with far too much division.