Paul had an ailment. He called it a “thorn in his flesh”.

So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Paul discussing his illness with God, 2 Corinthians l, 12:7-9, ESV

Paul’s ailment clearly bothered him. It bothered him enough that he repeatedly asked God to heal it. But, God said “no”. Sometimes “no” is God’s answer to our prayers. It can even be the answer given to the greatest leaders of the church, leaders like Paul. If anyone ever deserved……earned…..an answered prayer, it was Paul. But, God denied Paul’s prayer…….over and over. And Paul accepted God’s answer…….and he was content.

How often does God answer a sincere, honest, perhaps desperate, prayer from you…….with “no”. God says “no” and we ask “why”? At best we decide that we don’t understand, and we trust God. At worst we lash out at God. We may even reject God altogether. Have you ever heard something like this, “I refuse to accept a God who would let my child die.” It happens every day. God says “no” and we try to punish him by rejecting him.

Back to Paul and his “thorn”. Instead of healing him, God sent Paul a physician. This physican became a close friend and traveling companion of Paul in addition to being his personal doctor. In return, Paul was likely a mentor in the faith for the physician.

The physician’s name was Luke.

Yes, that Luke.

A decade or so after Paul’s death, Luke wrote two books, “The Gospel, according to Luke” and “Acts of the Apostles”.

Together, Paul and Luke wrote over half of the New Testament. This happened because of a friendship and collaboration that grew out of God’s refusal to heal Paul. God had a better idea. Perhaps, God knew what he was doing after all.

The moral of the story is this:

God is working out his plan…….not ours. We cannot see the whole plan. We cannot expect that everything that God does will make sense to us. We cannot expect that everything that God does will satisfy our short term needs and appetites. What we can expect is that God loves us and is building something fabulous for those who accept him, honor him and love him.

We must be like Paul. We must trust God and be content.

The Bible is full of answered prayers. Elijah prayed for drought and it didn’t rain for 3 1/2 years. Then he prayed for rain…….and it rained. We love the answered prayers on the Bible. They give us confidence. There are precious few unanswered prayers in the Bible. But, those unanswered prayers are the most important prayers in the Bible.

I believe that the most important prayer in the Bible was unanswered. It was Jesus’s prayer, in Gethsemane, that he be excused from the crucifixion. He repeated it three times……just like Paul. In the Bible, repetition means “PAY ATTENTION…..THIS IS IMPORTANT”. And God was silent. By his silence, God said no to the prayer of his son.

Think that through:

If God had answered the repeated prayer of Jesus…..there would be no crucifixion.

No crucifixion……..no resurrection

No resurrection……..no reconciliation

No reconciliation……..no forgiveness of sin

No forgiveness of sin………means that we are all doomed.

The simple reality of the denial, by God, of his son’s prayer, is this:

The only reason that I have the hope of paradise……….is that God said NO…….to another guy’s prayer.

Something to ponder……the next time God says no to you.

And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”

Jesus……the greatest unanswered prayer……ever,
Matthew 26:39, ESV

Jesus began his ministry in about 30 AD.

He was crucified in 33 AD.

Paul, as Saul, viciously persecuted Christians from 30 AD to 40 AD.

Paul had an encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus in about 40 AD and began his ministry.

Paul wrote his letters between 50 AD and 60 AD.

Paul was executed in 65 AD.

The four gospels were written between 70 and 100 AD.

Let that sink in.

Paul’s entire ministry occurred before the Gospels were written.

Paul wrote his letters between 50 AD and 60 AD. In addition, he mentored Luke. Indirectly, he was responsible for the gospel of Luke and of Acts. Together, these letters and books constitue just over half of the New Testament. This means that most of the New Testament was either written by or inspired by Paul before the Gospels were written.

Paul (Saul) was a passionate enemy of Christianity. He had never read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. He had obviously heard about Jesus and was familiar enough with the fledgling Christian faith to persecute them mercilessly.

Then, one day, out of the blue, he became an itenerant preacher and the first author of what would become the New Testament. He did this without having read the Gospels.

He never recanted his teaching about Jesus, and he was imprisoned and beheaded for it.

A few days after his resurrection, Jesus appeared to His supporters and the apostles. Six or seven years later, he appeared to Paul (Saul), arguably his greatest and most dangerous enemy. This was clearly a very special, “one off” event.

Paul’s conversion from persecutor of the Christian church to the second most important founder of the Christian church, after Jesus, occurred in a 3 day encounter on the road to Damascus. More importantly, it did not come from a study of the Gospels. Paul’s conversion came about as a direct, first person, revelation delivered by Jesus himself. Nothing quite like it had ever occurred before. Nothing like it has ever occurred since.

Of millions of people, Jesus chose Paul. Jesus chose his most virulent enemy to be his spokesperson…….to author most of the New Testament.

What was Jesus thinking?

I can only speculate; but, I think that Jesus saw Paul’s talent and his passion. I think that Jesus chose Paul to initiate the writing of the New Testament. Jesus orchestrated a catastrophic event in Paul’s life in order to “turn Paul’s head”,

The history of Paul’s ministry, in particular, the three days on the way to Damascus, is more than just another “Bible story”. It is one of the most compelling pieces of evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. As such, it is one of the most compelling pieces of evidence supporting the truth of the entire Bible.

I can imagine no other experience that would lead to such a drastic change in Paul…….no experience short of a first person encounter with the resurrected Jesus Christ.

I, too, will someday have that experience.

So will you.

But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.

Luke, relating a conversation between Jesus and Paul,
Acts 9: 1-5, ESV

So…..what is the opposite of freedom?

Enslavement
Restriction
Loss of control

Nope………the opposite of freedom……….is safety.

I know a guy.

He has made his way through the last 40 years without a regular 9 to 5 type job. He makes his living through tens of thousands of small individual transactions. He gets up in the morning, has his coffee, and decides how he will spend his day. This guy understands freedom. He lives it. But, he doesn’t have a clue as to where the money will come from next month. He doesn’t have a pension. He never has carried a lot of insurance. He has survived cancer and multiple hurricanes without it. In a word, he has freedom; but, he has given up a lot of safety.

I am the polar opposite.

At age 12, I chose a career path that would guarantee me a good stable income, respect, and prestige. I worked my fanny off. One summer I worked a job that was 36 hours on and 12 hours off…….all summer long. I have almost no memories of college. I slept during the day and studied at night. I did this to avoid the distractions of a social life. And it worked. I had a fabulous, extremely successful career. I live a liberal retirement. But, to get here, I have thrown away freedom by the truckload.

Freedom vs. Safety

It occurs to me that one of the most important choices that we will make in our lifetime is a choice between freedom and safety. It is the choice between secular humanism and Christianity.

Secular humanism offers us freedom. We can do whatever we want. If you don’t like being a man……identify as a woman. If you have an unwanted pregnancy….abort it. If you disagree with a law…..ignore it. Ultimately, you are in charge. Nobody can tell you what to do. You live freedom……every day. But, you are going to die. At that point, the lights will just go out. And, that is the best possible case scenario. The worst possible case is hell. Looking at it from a long-term perspective…….you have no safety at all.

You are on a tight rope with no net. And…..sooner or later…….you are going to fall.

“No one gets out alive”.

Jim Morrison

Christianity, on the other hand, is a way of life that imposes expectations on us.

Love God
Love everyone else
Obey the 10 commandments
Accept Christ as your leader……your saviour

These expectations will restrict everything that you say and do for the rest of your life…….if you do it well. You will give up freedom by the truckload. In exchange, you will gain ultimate safety. No matter what life sends your way…….you will spend eternity in paradise with a creator who loves you………a creator who made you for that one purpose.

Freedom or Safety.

And here is the amazing part.

You get to choose.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

Invictus, a poem by Henley

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.

Psalm 23: 4-6, ESV

I am, by training and career, a scientist. My career was in medicine, radiology to be specific. When I was in residency, I trained with a guy who was really, really smart. I know this because he never missed a chance to tell me how smart he was. One day he explained to me, in some detail, why it was mathematically impossible to perform an MRI scan in less than an hour.

This morning I had an MRI. My scan began at about 7am and I was out of the building at 7:10am.

So, what does this have to do with theology?

Scientists are constantly telling us what is impossible:

Creation in 7 days

God

The resurrection

Heaven

Hell

Eternity

An MRI in 12 minutes

But, there is a disclaimer that they never mention. This disclaimer should follow every pronouncement that any scientist makes:

“This statement is based on the one one millionth of the universe that I understand at this instant.”

For example: Dark matter and dark energy make up over 90% of the universe. Scientists cannot find either of these, much less understand them. And that is just matter and energy. Scientists cannot tell us how big the universe is. In fact, they cannot even tell us how much they don’t know.

When asked to explain anything, an honest scientist would say, “I am, for the most part, ignorant; but, here is what I understand today. Come back tomorrow for an update.

“It would be tragic for you to run your life based on scientific evidence that tells you that heaven and hell are not possible only to find out at your death that the scientists just hadn’t discovered them………yet.

The point is this:

Don’t plan your life based on things that scientists tell you are not possible. Because, the thing that was impossible today may be entirely possible, perhaps routine, tomorrow…….like a 12 minute MRI.

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

Paul, Romans, 11:33, ESV

Self esteem

The libraries and bookstores are full of texts telling us about self-esteem. If they are right, then self-esteem should be one of our highest aspirations. When was the last time you heard some expert say, ” Always remember that you are a tiny, almost insignificant blemish on the face of the universe.” Sounds silly doesn’t it?

But, in fact, we revel in our self-esteem. Comparing ourselves to our fellow man and promoting ourselves among our peers is in our nature. And self promotion is not necessarily a bad thing…….in its place. The problem is that there is a place where self-esteem is destructive. That place is in our relationship with God, our creator. God lives and operates on an entirely different plane. When we inflate our self-esteem to the point where we are co-equals with God…….or worse…….when we assign ourselves the position of supervisor of God, we commit a grave error. This is the world of the secular humanist. This is the world of the atheist and the agnostic. Unfortunately, I frequently hear Christians taking issue with some point of teaching from the Bible……from God:

Jesus was a nice man…….no more.
Hell is just a metaphor
All faiths lead to God
Fear God means respect God……not fear God
God used Darwin to build his creation
Your sexual identity is a personal choice.

What is going on here is that we have allowed our self-esteem to grow to the point where we listen to God and then apply our intellect to decide if God is right. In practice, we give ourselves veto power over the word of God.

If we are honest, it gets even worse. Because, we don’t limit our oversight of God to our intellect. We also apply our appetites. Show me a Christian who rejects a part of God’s teaching, and I will show you a Christian who wants to do something that God has clearly told him not to do. The Christian who does this has a mantra that I often hear.

“But, I’m a good person”

And that is usually true……..as far as it goes. But we are also “bad people”. Every one of us. From Billy Graham to Adolf Hitler, every one of us has a thread of evil. This is where self-esteem goes off the tracks. We become so fixed on our goodness that we deny our evil. This leads to the fatal failure of many Christians…….the belief that “I am good enough” to earn paradise.

Let me be clear.

I am not “good enough”…….and neither are you.

The moral here is humility. How can I, a created being with a streak of evil running through me, pass judgment on my creator, my God, who is by definition perfect? There are only two ways to pull this trick off:

Inflate my self-esteem to the point where I can effectively oversee God.

Denigrate God until he is more flawed than me.

Both of these intellectual exercises are dishonest. Both are wrong. Even worse, both are profoundly self-destructive.

But, that is where a huge segment of our culture is today.

A highly inflated self-esteem may be holding you back from a properly formed relationship with your creator.

if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

God, speaking to Solomon, 2 Chronicles, 7:14,ESV

As Christians we are told…….we are expected…….to pray. We pray prayers of praise. We pray prayers of petition. It is not surprising that the bulk of our prayers of petition are for the benefit of ourselves, our family, and our friends. This is human nature. Put out the fire that is closest to you…….then worry about the fire that is further away.

In my Bible reading today, we are taught to pray for kings. There aren’t a lot of kings around today. They have been replaced by presidents, prime ministers, senators, and representatives. I think that it is fair to conclude that we are expected to pray for the political leaders in our world. This is where it gets sticky.

Some of the world’s leaders agree with me….with you…..with us. Some of the world’s leaders disagree with me….with you….with us. Some of the leaders in the political realm are good……some are simply evil. Most of them……like us…..fall somewhere in between. Current political thought is that we should hate the leaders who disagree with us. We are taught by our leaders to demonize anyone who disagrees with them. Donald Trump recently gave a speech where he proudly said that he hates his opponents. The leadership of the left casually throws out terms like Nazi and Fascist. I hear talk like this every day from people who tell me they are Christians.

But, “hate your opponent” and “slander your enemy” are not what the Bible teaches. That is not what Jesus taught. Both Trump and the left, while many of them identify as Christians, have clearly missed the point.

Jesus and the Bible are crystal clear on this topic.

We are told in no uncertain terms to pray for the leaders of governments. We are told in no uncertain terms to pray for our enemies.

Christian conservatives are told in no uncertain terms to pray for:

 AOC
 Schumer 
 Maxine Waters
 CNN

Christian liberals are told in no uncertain terms to pray for:

 Trump
 JD Vance
 Charlie Kirk
 Fox

Both parties are told to pray for:

 Putin
 Xi
 Hamas
 Netanyahu 

I think that you get the point. But, how do we pray for people with whom we disagree? How do we pray for people who are evil?

We can pray for wisdom.
We can pray that they will turn to Jesus.
We can pray for repentance and healing.

In short…….we can pray that they will hear Jesus……and respond.

We can pray that they will turn to God and align themselves with him……..not with us…….not with our favorite politician “du jour”.

Can you imagine a world where all of the “kings” consistently followed Jesus?

Instead of you and me.

That’s a prayer worth praying.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers,[a] what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Jesus in Matthew. 5: 43-48, ESV

Ruth is my favorite book in the Old Testament. It is unlike any other book in the Bible. Chapter 3 is my favorite chapter in Ruth. What is so different about Ruth and why do I like it so much?

At its heart. Ruth is a love story. It is all about faith, obedience, generosity, grace, and especially redemption. Ruth is an outlier. It is just different from the rest of the Bible. The most important fact in the New Testament is the Gospel of Jesus. Much of the Bible is historical……who did what and when. Much of the Bible is guidelines to living a righteous life…….rules. All of this is good and terribly important.

And then there is Ruth.

So, why is Ruth so important…….so different?

Ruth is important because it tells us why.

Ruth tells us why God did it all.

Here is the condensed version of Ruth. Ruth was a refugee, illegal, undocumented. She was a widow. She was destitue. She followed her mother-in-law to an alien land because she loved her and because she had nowhere else to go. She hoped to build a better life in an far away place. While there, without permission, she gathered scraps of food in the field of Boaz, a righteous man. One night, while Boaz was sleeping, she crawled under his blanket. He awoke and found her there. She asked him for his care and protection. And Boaz did just that. He used his resources to support Ruth and her family. Then, he bought, redeemed, and married Ruth. She became a great-grandmother of David……and ultimately…….of Jesus. Ruth was destitute; but, she was brave, bold, even audacious. Boaz was rich; but, he was kind, righteous, and generous. Both of them were remarkable human beings.

Ruth was a refugee. She had nothing material to offer. All she had was the woman that she was…..kind, loyal, loving. Boaz was rich and powerful. He paid for Ruth. He protected her. He loved her. All he got from Ruth was their relationship. And that was all he was after from the moment she crawled under his blanket…….from the moment she asked for his protection.

In her audacity, Ruth traveled to a foreign land and sought out a powerful protector. She had nothing to offer except herself. She had nothing to offer but relationship. Her protector, her redeemer, rescued her at a significant cost to himself. He did it because he, too, wanted a relationship. Ruth did not earn Boaz, she did not deserve Boaz. Ruth did not earn redemption. The redeemtion of Ruth was an act of grace…….by Boaz.

Any of this sound familiar?

The story of Boaz and Ruth is the story of Jesus and of me, and of you. We are destitute. We live in a broken culture and we seek safety in Jesus. We crawl under his cover and ask for protection…….for redemption……for a future. And Jesus pours redemption and blessing over us. We didn’t pay for it. We didn’t earn it. We don’t deserve it. It was and is an act of grace

All we can offer is relationship.

That is all Jesus wants from us.

But it goes even deeper.

I am not only destitute and in need of redemption. As it turns out, I too am refugee, a foreigner, an alien………… an illegal. I come from a harsh, hostile culture. I flee and search for a safe place. I have nothing material to offer. So, I find a kind powerful man in Jesus. I crawl under his cover and ask for protection……..for redemption……..for grace.

Am I really any different from the “illegal” at our southern border?

All I can offer………is relationship.

But, just like Ruth, that is enough. Relationship is what my redeemer wants from me.

At midnight the man was startled and turned over, and behold, a woman lay at his feet! He said, “Who are you?” And she answered, “I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings over your servant, for you are a redeemer.” And he said, “May you be blessed by the Lord, my daughter.

Ruth 4: 8-10,ESV

Isn’t that what most parents want? We want our children to grow, to succeed, to thrive. We want them to be happy……all day…..every day. We are proud of them when they succeed. We are proud of ourselves when they succeed. We brag about our children when they succeed. My father was proud of me and wanted me to take over the family business. My mother was proud of my achievements. She repeatedly asked me how much money I made. This was the metric she used to measure my success…….and, indirectly, her success. For most of my life I have used my mother’s success scale. I suspect that most parents do: a good high paying job, a stable career, recognition by our peers, a good wife, a suburban house with a white picket fence.

By my mother’s calculation, my children were abject failures. Two of my sons died in their 20’s. The third is in prison. Ask a hundred observers to score the sucess of my family and we would not do very well.

But, are we using the right metric? Was I using the correct yardstick to measure the success of my children?

I think not.

I’m not kidding myself. My sons took a long tortous route to get to where they are now. They did not score well on my mother’s scale. I remember sitting in my house one Christmas eve with a Boone County deputy discussing how to deal with a smashed mailbox. I remember posting bail on multiple occasions. I didn’t tell my mother. Only recently, have I realized that my mother was using the wrong scale. So was I.

The Bible offers us some guidance. You probably guessed that corporate position, community adulation, and net worth are not part of God’s metric for a successful life.

The Bible teaches that success is defined by spending eternity with our creator…….God…….who loves us and wants us to succeed even more than our parents. How do we go about acheiving that?

The guidance from the Old Testament:

“What does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

Micah 6:8, ESV

The guidance from the New Testament:

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

Jesus explaining eternity, John, 3:36, ESV

This changes everything. My mother’s metric for success was worldly and temporal. It applies, but only to the brief period of our physical life. God’s metric, like God, is eternal. It applies to both our temporal physical life and to our eternal spiritual life.

My mother wasn’t wrong. But, neither is God.

Both metrics are valid. The key point is in understanding their period of validity. My mother’s metric works during our physical life; but, becomes completely irrelevant at death. God’s metric is eternal. You can follow or reject my mother’s metric. The consequences are extremely limited.

But, if you reject God’s metric, the consequences are eternal…….and they are catastrophic.

I have no doubt that my mother would have called my sons a disappointment. They did follow a pretty twisted path and to a degree still are. But, in the end, they recognized and accepted Jesus. By God’s metric, my sons were successful.

By God’s metric………I have been a successful parent.

And that is all that counts.

During the past few weeks, I have watched an extraordinary outpouring of hate. It began with a hate filled assassination. And then the talking heads in our media stirred the pot with comments, some true, others blatantly false. Their object was to grow the hate. Finally, the hate spread to the grass roots level on Facebook and other social media outlets. Millions of people were in pain over the death of Charlie Kirk. All the while, voices on the left denigrated him, his family, and his supporters. All the while, voices on the right attacked the left over their reaction to the assassination and over their reaction to the memorial service.

Here is the heart of it.

A very bad man did a very bad thing…….nothing new there. He caused an enormous amount of pain…….nothing new there.

And now we react.

But, how should we react? I can see only one response that lines up with Christianity. We should be sad. We should be sad because of the evil and because of the tidal wave of pain that radiates away from this evil act.

Anger will try to work its way into our reaction. But, here is the problem with anger. Anger is outwardly directed. Anger has, as its goal, the attempt to punish others, the attempt to change the behavior of others. And guess what……the people whom we are trying to punish and change are angry too. This will not work. Anger attacking anger cannot grow peace and love. Anger attacking anger can only grow more anger. Anger attacking anger can only grow hate. And there is no question that hate is growing in our culture.

I have always taught my children that, when faced with a problem, first, you must accurately identify the problem. Then, focus on the part of the problem that you can control.

So…….what is the problem?

Hate.

What is the part of the problem that I can control?

My hate.

And there it is. In order to get the hate out of our public conversation, I must first replace my hate with sadness and with love. So must you. We must stop trying to hate the other guy into submission……it has never worked before……there is no reason to expect that it will work now. Instead, I must respond to the haters around me with love. Let’s face it, we’ve given hate a fair shot……and hate has failed to fix the mess. Now, it’s time to try love.

That, my friends, is the heart of Christianity. We are clearly told to love the haters into submission. This will be hard, time consuming work. It will take the rest of my life.

But.

God expects nothing less.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Jesus teaching the sermon on the mount, Matthew 5: 44-48, ESV

Darkness cannot drive out darkness……only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate…….only love can do that.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I am returning to a topic that I have addressed before.

I have been deeply saddened by the murder of Charlie Kirk. He was a great man. I am satisfied that he was spending his life doing God’s work. I am satisfied that he spent his life doing God’s work.

He was killed by a lesser man. The killer believed that he was silencing a fascist. He believed that he was performing a noble act. My first observation is that the killer was wrong on both counts. He did not silence Charlie, he amplified him. Going further, Charlie was not a fascist. I doubt that the killer could even define the word. But, the killer believed that Charlie was a fascist. And that was all it took. He believed that Charlie was a fascist because he had been told that Charlie was a fascist. Charlie was a pretty big deal. But, he was not big enough to be on the radar of the politicians and talking heads who casually throw the term fascist around. The killer thought that Charlie was a fascist because the people in his local social circle told him so. They, too, were wrong; but the killer believed them. And there is the problem. A group of people hate someone because he disagrees with them. They attach a hateful, untrue epithet to the guy they hate and then they spread the hate among their friends. A weak man, like the killer, absorbs the hate and then acts on it.

I am sure that the killer’s local social circle did not consider the low level hate that they were spreading to be important. But, it contributed to a murder. They were complicit. This problem is worse on the left than on the right….but it crosses the aisle. Donald Trump and Maxine Waters do it regularly.

Here’s the thing. There is no such thing as little, unimportant hate. Hate is like cancer. A cancer cell that is so small that your doctor cannot find it will grow into something that will kill you or someone you love.

There are way too many haters out there.

Are you one of them?

I know a lot of otherwise fine people who casually throw around hateful terms like fascist, Nazi, and Newscum. This low level hate is a cancer growing in our culture. Our leaders use hateful language in a crass attempt to increase their political power. And we believe them…….just like the killer believed his friends. So, we spread the hate. And one day, some weak man believes us and acts on it.

And we are complicit.

Were you outraged by the assassination attempt on Trump but silent about the assassination attempt on Gabby Giffords?

If so, you don’t hate the hate…….you hate the politician.

Were you silent when Letitia James was charged with mortgage fraud but happy when Donald Trump was charged with he same crime?

If so, you don’t hate the hate. You hate the politician.

By your low level hate, you fuel the fire. If you indulge in low level, conversational level, hate…….you are complicit. If you indulge in low level, conversational level, hate, you are a cancer cell trying to grow in our culture.

This is not what Christianity teaches.

Christianity teaches love.

Even harder…….it teaches us to love our enemies. It even teaches us to love the guy who killed Charlie. Not many of us can live up to that level of love. But, that is exactly what God does. That is exactly what God expects from us.

Not many of us are willing to let go of our hate.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Jesus, on how we should love, Matthew 5: 43-48, ESV