By PRCA Rodeo Photographer, Dave McKissick
Psalms 119:71 It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.
This verse has been a staple in my life the past few months. It has reminded me over and over that when afflictions or adversity come, the Word must always be the first place I look for answers and my guide on how to respond.
While I don’t enjoy the adversities, I greatly enjoy the opportunity to grow in my intimacy with Father through it.
For the past year I have been developing some discipleship material. Because the concept and principles of discipleship are so broad and interconnected it has been a very slow process. However, I believe that I am finally narrowing in on the true concept of discipleship, LOVE!
John 13:34-35 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
The mark of Jesus’ disciples is love. Obviously, we are to love God, (Deut 6:5), our brothers (1 John 4:7-21), our neighbors (Lev 19:18), but we are also to love our enemies (Luke 6:27-36)! The world tells us that we have many enemies and that we are to turn our backs on them or try to destroy them, but Scripture commands us to love them! No options, no exceptions!
Scripture tells us that our words and actions come from our hearts (Pro 23:7 and Mat 15:18-19). Therefore, the first step towards discipleship must be guarding our hearts, filling it with godly thoughts and allowing the Spirit to control our responses to the world. Apathy and inertia (I don’t care and if I did care, I wouldn’t do anything about it) are not love and they may actually be the opposite of love. Either way, they are tools that Satan uses to keep us from loving. He fills us with the hate of the world and convinces us that it is right to hate “them” because of what they have done or because they are different from us. But that is not how Jesus tells us to act.
We all have “those people” who we don’t want to love but we must, WE MUST, overcome those biases and prejudices that allow us to be comfortable in our apathetic inertia, or actual hate towards them.
Seeing people as anything other than God’s creation, someone who God loves and Jesus died for, indicates a prejudice/bias towards that person. That is not love. Let us not forget that at one time, we were all enemies (haters) of God. How did He respond to us? (Rom 5:8-10)
The Christmas story is the best love story in history. May this be the year where we start embracing God’s example to love our enemies and to love like Jesus loved.
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