Valentine Thinking

Love
Romans 12: 9 Love must be honest and true. Hate what is evil. Hold on to what is good. 10 Love each other deeply. Honor others more than yourselves. 11 Never let the fire in your heart go out. Keep it alive. Serve the Lord.
12 When you hope, be joyful. When you suffer, be patient. When you pray, be faithful. 13 Share with God's people who are in need. Welcome others into your homes.
14 Bless those who hurt you. Bless them, and do not call down curses on them. 15 Be joyful with those who are joyful. Be sad with those who are sad. 16 Agree with each other. Don't be proud. Be willing to be a friend of people who aren't considered important. Don't think that you are better than others.
17 Don't pay back evil with evil. Be careful to do what everyone thinks is right. 18 If possible, live in peace with everyone. Do that as much as you can.
19 My friends, don't try to get even. Leave room for God to show his anger. It is written, "I am the One who judges people. I will pay them back,"—(Deuteronomy 32:35) says the Lord. 20 Do just the opposite. Scripture says, "If your enemies are hungry, give them food to eat. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. By doing those things, you will pile up burning coals on their heads." —(Proverbs 25:21,22) 21 Don't let evil overcome you. Overcome evil by doing good.

A Valentine for the church, with a message of love.
Verse 9 says, "Hate what is evil." The problem here is that we love to hate what we think is evil, without actually identifying evil or knowing what it really is. Hate is the opposite of love and evil is the opposite of love: so we should hate hate. Osama binLaden "hates" evil, and yet employs it to please God. You can't use any kind of evil or hatred to please God. God is love.

Hatred doesn't belong in Christianity. The minute we hate anybody we have joined sides with evil. Jesus even said we are guilty of murder. But what many Christians think is "hating evil" is really being hyper-conscious of sin. What this tends to do is cause us to focus on sin as our cause. Our cause is not exposing sin: our cause is to love as He loves, which is total. When we love, we overcome sin. Sin is dismantled by love.

We often preach a message of strife, both in the church and to those outside. Why? Because we are focused on being right: we are trying to prove something. We are trying to "get even." But that isn't God's justice: getting even. God is patient, kind, putting up with evil in order to bring redemption to those destroyed by it. His whole operation is based on pulling people up not putting them down.

Verse 10 says, "Love each other deeply." "Each other" is those who believe and those who don't. But this is not what we often see. We often see favoritism for those who are like us and exclusion of those who aren't. It is because we don't really understand what God is like. He doesn't have any favorites.

We should look deep into our hearts and see what festers in there: see if we feel superior to others, see if we are peacemakers or dividers, see if we, in the name of resisting evil, actually promote it.

Happy Valentine's Day.