Quote:
Originally Posted by Christian_Rover
Thus says my favourite Bible passage, 1 John 4:19-21:
We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
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I stand-- in loving solidarity -- with my brothers in Christ.
What shall one take the phrase "preach hatred" to mean?
We do not preach that we, the Body of Christ at LBC, or anyone else, should hate people of any sort.
We preach the Word of God in which His hatred of certain sinful behaviours and those who practice such has been set out in black ink upon white pages for many thousands of years.
Sure, the pages may have been animal parchment or papyrus in centuries past. And who knows where they got their ink before office superstores came around. But the words have been forthrightly scribed by generations of pious believers.
It is God who hates homosexuals; they merely make me nervous when I can't tell what I'm talking to.
It is God who hates lukewarm Christians; they make me mad or sad depending on the direction of their hypocrisy. But I try not to get too worked up, because I figure that God know His own and doesn't need me to hurry anyone into hell. He needs me to pray and keep faith.
My faith is not in hate. My faith is in unmutable truth. I have a theory that truth "leaks". No matter how hard some choose to deny it or hold it back, or cover up it, truth seeps out.
Truth will be revealed. God will be revealed in all His truth. There are some who will not see this Truth until the moment of their deaths. But that is a moment I no longer fear. Which is why I harbor no hatred in my heart.
May your heart be similarly filled with Truth and emptied of hate.
Soulfully Yours,
Handmaiden