Love Your Neighbor?

My heart is heavy today.

This week is the Chik-Fil-A controversy.  The COO, Dan Cathy stated:

"I think we are inviting God's judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say, 'We know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage,'" Cathy said. "I pray God's mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about."
Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/chick-fil-a-president-says-gods-judgment-coming-because-of-same-sex-marriage-78485/#ppDvEpIFDBs5MayC.99

As a Christian, I think I understand where he is coming from, but I believe that this sin isn't any greater than my own sin.  We can point to so many other sins in our lives that we are in essence saying, "We know better God, just stand back and let us live our lives the way we want to."  I am so guilty of that.

Earlier this week I was reading in the book of Psalms and came across this verse.

Psalm 36:1-2


"An oracle is within my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked:  There is no fear of God before his eyes.  For in his own eyes he flatters himself too much to detect or hate his sin."

When I judge someone, I'm standing in the place of God.  I'm flattering myself so much that I can't even detect my sin of pride, let alone hate my sin!  And certainly I'm not fearing the Lord at that moment because I'm believing that I'm in the right.  I'm the "wicked" one talked about in this passage.

I agree that God's judgment is coming to our nation.  I've felt it for awhile.  But I believe it's because we are ignoring Him.  We ignore Him when His Spirit convicts us of our sin, we ignore Him when we ignore our neighbors, we ignore Him when we don't stand up for those who need us, when we could be taking care of the orphans, the homeless...loving our neighbors.


In the book of Romans, Paul writes:

"Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law.  The commandments, 'Do not commit adultery,' 'Do not murder,' 'Do not steal,' 'Do not covet,' and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'  Love does no harm to its neighbor.  Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

And do this, understanding the present time.  The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.  The night is nearly over; the day is almost here.  So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.  Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealously.  Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature."

I have friends that are gay, friends who have committed adultery, friends who have had abortions, friends who struggle with pride, friends who are jealous...friends who ignore God.   I am not outside this list.  My sin is the same.

Paul says that love can be summed up in this one rule : "Love your neighbor as yourself."  I think about myself a lot, what does my hair look like, have I sufficiently covered up my wrinkles, :) what am I going to eat during the day.  I want to talk about myself.  All of us do.  We spend the majority of our day concerned about ourselves!  Paul says to love our neighbor as ourselves.  I can't imagine how different my life would be if I thought of others as much as I think about myself.  It's a huge change to our selfish ways.

Jesus' own life demonstrated how much the Lord loves us:

Romans 5:8 "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

Ultimate love.  Jesus' death for our sin. 

Listen to this song by Gungor  While this song and video may be a cute picture, the truth behind Michael Gungor's lyrics is what God calls us to:  LOVE.

Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ.