Scripture

Love them??

/ rustyreeder / 3 Comments

I can think back over my life and make a list of 3 or 4 people that I never would like to see again. I am at the point in my life where I no longer wish for them to burst into flames. I just would not like to be reminded of the situations that caused these feelings. I forgave them years ago and I wish them well. However, do I love them? Wait a minute, love them, do I have to? Forgiving was fairly easy over time. Forgetting is more difficult. Loving them would take more grace than I alone have. Most of these people live 400 or more miles away from me, so I don’t have to deal with them on a regular basis. What about people that we deal with daily? Maybe there is someone at work that we just don’t see eye to eye with. We all have a neighbor that we could live without. There is a grumpy, rude, unpleasant individual that works at store where I buy lunch. I don’t really have anything to forgive these types for but, do I love these people?

In Matthew 5:43-44 Jesus says to love them and pray for them! Ok, now I have to love them and pray for them? Not just the people we don’t want to be around, but our enemies also. Just for the record Jesus doesn’t mean that we pray for their brakes to fail or anything like that. But wait….there is more. Proverbs 25: 21-22 says that I have to feed and give my enemies water. Now I have to feed him and give them water also? We not only have to do this but we have to do this with a pure heart. We have to want to do it. Wait for it….there is more! Leviticus 19:18 says some stuff about not seeking revenge or holding a grudge. OK, so we have to forgive them, love them, pray for them, feed them, give them water and do this without holding a grudge???? And we have to do this because we want to not because we have to????

No problem (sarcasm)! I said earlier that loving them would take more grace than I had alone. I need to pray for myself also. Pray that my own pride, resentment, selfish issues be moved out of the way or better yet taken away. I will never do this perfectly. I’m so thankful that God forgives me, loves me, talks with me, feeds me, gives me water, doesn’t seek revenge, doesn’t hold a grudge and does it all because he wants to!

John 15:12

Why didn’t I see that before?

/ rustyreeder / Leave a comment

I’ve been attending church since I was born. My grandmother made sure that the 6 grand-kids were in church…..even if she had to take us herself! I was raised Southern Baptist. Like any good Southern Baptist I was in Sunday school very regularly. I have heard all of the standard, more popular Bible stories at least 1 time a year for the first 13 years of my life. You know the “well known” Old Testament stuff like Adam and Eve, Noah, David and Goliath and Moses leading his people out of Egypt. I know the stories very well. Those are just stories that are historical or metaphorical. At least I thought that is all they are…….

A few years ago Angela was teaching the 3 and 4 year olds on Sundays at church. On Saturday nights she would go over the lesson to prepare for the next day. She would read it out loud and I would usually listen because she is so animated, that she makes it fun. Not to mention she is really cute also.  Anyway as she would read these stories, I would almost always see some kind of symbolism or alternate reason for the story. Something that I hadn’t seen before was revealed regularly!  I began to see how things would point to our Savior or the need for Him. I had been avoiding some of these stories or glancing through them because I knew them already. Was I having these revelations because I was more “educated” scripturally? Was I more mature in my relationship with Christ so I could see things that I wasn’t ready to see before? Was it because the Bible is God’s living word, and that is how God talks to me? Or was it because I was finally paying attention? The answer is yes! Yes, to all of those questions.

There are some things that a 9-year-old just isn’t ready to understand. The Bible is full of things that this 41-year-old isn’t ready to understand! My desire to have communication with God has caused me to pay more attention to His Word! It has been a blessing to reread some of these stories. The Bible is God’s inerrant, living word. As we mature and go through different seasons in our life, He will speak into our lives through His Word. Do yourself a favor, go back and reread the story of Adam and Eve (Genesis 2 & 3). Before you do, go someplace quiet, ask God to reveal more to you, more than you have already seen, as much as you are ready to see. Do this whenever you read His Word. I promise that you will see something that you have never seen before.

2 Timothy 3:16