Hate is a damaging thing. If I am honest I have been filled with hate for much of my life and that is fueled directly from my pride. Hate like a lot of things, promises things it can never live up to. Hate makes you think you can get ahead and push people down as you go. Hate whispers it is you against the world.
Recently I started working part time with an after school program. Last week we were picking up the kids and one of them informed us he couldn't come if one of the neighborhood kids was going to be there. I thought he was bluffing so I drove him home to see what his mom had to say. I pulled up to the house, he exited, and then his mother appeared out of the doorway. From the porch she shouted, "I don't like that kid (referring to the kid sitting right behind me in the van) and I don't want mine around him!" This honestly broke my heart and shook up the rest of my day. How could this mindset fix anything? Hate is the thing that separates us from things that are different. It builds walls, burns bridges, and promises and edge against our opponents. I would even say hate is masked by sarcasm. It doesn't take much searching to see hate in our world. It seems very cliche to say but the news of today is exhausting. I can't read it too often and it weighs me down. We are just so used to reading stories of awful things happening. Hate stunts our growth. I think the reason hate is so easy to fall into is because we don't understand love. Hate is easy to go to. It is easy to tell people off. Cutting someone off in our car doesn't take much thought. But love, that is another story. Love takes time, thought, effort, and work!! Love sometimes takes us sitting in peoples mess with them and loving them where they are. 1 John 3:16 tells me, "We know what real love is because Jesus gave his life for us." The verse goes on, but can we just chew on this for a bit? It says that we KNOW what real love is. Jesus who is God came down to this speck of a planet floating in the endless space of.. space. God chose to lower himself to our level and sacrifice His life for ours.. This type of love is unheard of. We are so used to seeing hate take life away, but love always gives life. The people we encounter daily need this dose of love to inspire them and to comfort them! "Don't just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good." Romans 12:9 Hate takes life, so if we read the verse above that means we must take life from the things that are evil. Don't indulge in gossip, pride, or the hatred that rots away our joy. We must cling to what is good, which is Jesus Christ!! I live in the North Austin area and currently over 300 churches are going through an Art Of Neighboring series. It is extremely challenging and convicting to me. If you only follow me on social media it probably seems like I know a good amount of people, but in reality I don't know a single one of my neighbors. Not one. You see this series is challenging us to take the commandment to love our neighbors literally. It is really breaking down my walls and opening my garage door. In the book that we are reading through with this study the authors are stating that love takes time. You see Jesus had an agenda and He did a lot of stuff, but a lot of His ministry was Him loving people right where they were. He was never hurried. People could interrupt Him and Jesus would look them in the eyes and love them. This is crazy for me because I am always looking to what is next and probably skipping right past so many people.. You see love and hurry never work together! Love takes time and with it we need to be open to being interrupted. Too often I am reading or choosing the perfect instagram filter instead of looking someone in the eyes and telling them, "I love you" with my time. Earlier I stated that love takes work. I don't think I ever knew what love really was until this last year. My whole life things have been handed to me and I haven't had to fight for honestly a single thing. But I have been slapped in the face and have been just reading and soaking in what Jesus has done. I have always heard the stories of Him, but after just really reading and looking at this amazing individual you can't help but see love in Him. I encourage you to just read through the Gospel. It is so weighty. Love takes an extensive amount of time and energy. But it will always be worth it. To be loved is to truly be free. Jesus died for us when we were fully happy in our filth. I was beaten down and exposed, but He sees me! Jesus is the only way that I know what love is. Love is sacrificial and hard. But if we really saw people where they were the world would be significantly different. My prayer is that we can be interruptible. We can love and people would feel safe around us. Love doesn't just sit around. It acts and completely changes things!
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AuthorMy name is Andrew Berry! I am just living my life chasing after Jesus and trying to point others to Him. Archives
January 2017
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