Love and Forgiveness

It is no surprise that our world is full of sin and evil and sometimes the bad may seem to outweigh the good in our world. Humans take advantage of their free will and choose to engage in whatever they "feel" is right or good. The issue with that is that feelings are misleading; rather than turning toward the word of God for what is right and true, they turn toward themselves or what the secular world is teaching. As Christians we need to recognize what those truths are and live them out. It can be easy to rebuke those who's lifestyles we disagree with or turn a cold shoulder to those who are living an unholy life, but one of the greatest commandments we are given is to love our neighbor has yourself. I think that sometimes we choose to not take that as far as we can, we remain in our comfort zone loving those who we are close to or see good in. However, I think that the bigger picture is to learn to love those we disagree with and/or choose to live a life completely different from our own. Personally, I look at it like this: Jesus loved sinners, he spent most of his time with them. He chose to love and engage in those who were outcasts or seen as unholy or un-pure. Jesus showed the unconditional love of his Father to everyone, thus him dying on the cross for our sins. The second part of this is forgiveness; because of His unconditional love, God was willing to send his son to die for his sin-filled people. If our God was able to forgive all of the sin in our world, we should be able to forgive one another for the minor wrongdoings. C.S. Lewis said "To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you". There is so much truth in that because we are imperfect people who were created by a perfect God, we are not deserving of His forgiveness but because of His unconditional love we are able to spend eternity in Heaven with Him. I was on the phone with one of my friends from high school last night and we were talking through some things going on in each of our lives and we got on the topic of forgiveness. He made the point that although someone may not be deserving of forgiveness, we are still called to forgive them because that is one of the few ways to express the grace of God to those around us. There are multiple campaigns about how if we all loved each other then the world would be such a happy sunshine filled place, and yes we do need to love one another but it needs to be a Godly love full of patience and accountability. Sin and hurt is inevitable, we are not perfect people and our world is not perfect but we can answer the call from the Lord to go out and show how wonderful it is to bask in his love. WWJD is like the "basic" Christian slogan but it is so true and can really help lead one to live as an example of Him. I encourage you to follow the mindset that everything you do, say, and think should be a way for you to show the love of Christ to everyone around you. Ask yourself if what you are going to say is going to leave a negative or positive mark on those who hear it and think of all the ways being selfless and loving to everyone can not only impact them, but yourself as well. This is not something that will change over night, but the way that God can and will use his people is incredible.