Hate is easy, love is hard.

Charlie Brown was asked why it is that people didn’t mind you asking them why they didn’t like you but why they did mind if you asked them why they did like you? He replied that it was because the latter was a harder question to answer.
Disliking someone is easy, it takes no effort. I once heard a movie character say that she was now free to hate, unburdened by the ties That Force us to love she felt the freedom of being allowed to hate. It’s a terrible sentiment, and yet it almost makes sense. As Christians we are demanded to love, it’s not a suggestion, it’s not a request, it’s a rule. Jesus said ‘and the greatest of these is love,’ and spoke on love being the sign of your Faith over ten times in the Bible, He also speaks against hating others several times, it is not a request.
Why does God demand it? Because it’s a sign of Him, He is love. Why does He repeat this demand over and over? Because it’s hard to follow. There are so many people that would be so easy to hate, having to love them may even cause you to feel ill or in pain. There are really awful people out there. Think of Corrie Tenboom speaking to the crowd and having that German soldier from the prison camp she was in come up to her and ask for forgiveness, what nerve! He had no right to do that after all she had gone through, right? No. He had the same right to ask for forgiveness that we all do because of Jesus. Because God forgave us we must forgive eachother. Love forces us to forgive the unforgivable, to help those who have hurt us, that’s why love is so hard. If we do not love we are not Christian, love is a sacrifice for Christ, and sometimes loving one another is our way of bearing our cross up to the Place of the Skull. Love is pain. Hate doesn’t hurt in the moment,-though it may hurt in the long run- but love hurts often, that’s why it’s a sacrifice, that’s why so many give up on it, and it’s what separates us from the rest of the world. It’s easy to love your friends, but what kind of crazy person loves their enemies? The kind who is crazy about Jesus and knows they have to love to serve Him.  

How do I tell Jesus to the boy sleeping in the cardboard box?

Lately I’ve been reading and re-reading some of the old classic novels. What are the three main things I find in all these novels? 1.poverty is rampant. 2. God is mentioned often. 3. Faith and perseverance are what cause the main character to win.
Poverty. It’s not a word often stated involving North Americans, though many experience it still. Back in the day, however, (and I mean back around the 30s and earlier) poverty was simply a life style. It was just how it was. You read about the little kids smoking and chewing tobacco because back then it was cheaper than food and quenched hunger; kids, worked in the streets and the sweat shops and the ones that didn’t work stole to survive, sometimes the ones who did work still had to steal. And it was a world wide problem. From the kid in Asia hitting the traveler with a rock and searching the body for food or something to trade for food, to the kid in the old factory in the US, hiding because his dad beats him and he can’t risk going home, poverty ran the streets and that was just how it was.
In these novels God is often mentioned as someone that the adults have learned to trust in despite their hardships, but the kids are still learning and they don’t understand. How can God take my family away? How can He let me go days without food so I dig in old gardens to find three year old dead roots to eat, just so I can have something? How do you explain God to them?
You meet them on their level. There was a time when all sidewalk a preacher did was read the Bible and people came to God without needing what they heard explained, that’s what God can do. But you can’t take a kid off the street, fill them full of rules and say ‘that’s God’s will so do it right or you don’t go to Heaven.’ It’s too much. You need to start on where they are at that moment. Tell them of Jesus’ love and how He is there with them, explain how Faith in the hard times will get them through. Most of all, show them love. Don’t look sideways at the dirty kid with barefeet who just entered your Church, take them and get them a water and let them sit with you so you can explain things to them when asked. We preach too many words, we need to live like we were listening to Jesus’ word more. The kid who had lived in moccasins her whole life can’t be expected to suddenly wear shoes, you can’t demand that she dress like you just to hear the word of God! What part of the Bible says ‘thou shalt wear suits to chapel’?
The kid who has run the streets his whole life with no one caring what he did can’t be expected to sit quiet and not fidget, he can’t suddenly be told to pray and receive but not be told what that means, he might pray for a toy truck and never get it and think God doesn’t care. Explain. But keep it to the Bible, not your opinion.
These kids in the stories learn to fight hard, with the right help they learn to trust God, then they win the battle. But if we try to break them to be in our image, they may never learn how to live in God’s image.
Oh, and all the books I’ve been reading are based on true events, so, how many of those true event kids found Jesus and how many were sidelined by people who wanted them to be respectable, but didn’t care if that stopped them from becoming Christians?
How many people have missed out on Jesus because the Christians got in the way?
And how many people met the right Christian? The Christian who wanted to help, the one who was Jesus’ hands and feet and therefore that person was able to guide the lost to Jesus?
I’m saying get out of the way, I’m saying that we need to pray about our approach before speaking. I didn’t think I could ever find a way to speak to a kid who had been mislead by false teachings and show them Jesus, until I prayed about it and God gave me the words to say, and in the end the biggest thing I could do was love and trust God to give me the words. I didn’t say ‘go change and then try again because God won’t see you when you are like this.’ I said what everyone at my booth said, ‘we are all sinners and make mistakes, but Jesus loves us and is our friend.’
Because that’s the Jesus people will respond to, and that’s what Christ Himself preached and that’s how He lived.