Love All - Yes, ALL

Well, in the spirit of homecoming - Go Cardinals! I wish I could make the football game tonight, but I will be 4 hours away with my family… But going along with the idea of winning the homecoming game tonight, today I'm going to write about loving your "enemy" or those that we sometimes consider not worthy of God's grace and love (truly, remember that none of us on our own are worthy of his grace and love).

Today, trying to find inspiration for what to write, I randomly opened my Bible and fell upon the book of Jonah. I was shocked, because I'd never realized that the book of Jonah is only 4 measly chapters that only take up 4 pages in my Bible! Even with how "small" this story is, it's one of the most well known stories from the Old Testament. Within these 4 short chapters - a lot of information is given. It begins with Jonah being called to Ninevah, and Jonah running away from the Lord's call. Of course, whenever you run away from what God calls you to do…God is still going to win. You can't hide from God - and sooner or later - if you are actually trying to follow the Lord, his path for your life will catch up with you...even though the circumstances surrounding the path may change a bit...

But Jonah's refusal to do God's will and God's force to get Jonah to Ninevah through the belly of a whale is not what I am going to touch on today…although for me, the whale is the part I remember most about this tale... Instead, I am struck by how Jonah was upset that God had chosen to forgive the Ninevites - God's forgiveness can be seen in Jonah 4:10 - "When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened." Jonah was actually angry with God for not giving the Ninevites the punishment they well deserved…and I sometimes wonder if this is how we feel with our enemies also.

Are not our enemies sometimes the people who could most benefit from God's love? If you were able to share the gospel with your enemies, would you rejoice once they had accepted God? Or would you not believe that their conversion was true? Would you be angry with God for showing the same love for this person who may have performed many evil deeds? Or would you rejoice that their hearts had been changed?

I am not sure how I would feel if an "enemy" was suddenly sitting beside me in church worshipping. I hope that I would feel a bond with that person over our shared beliefs, but I cannot be certain that I would feel that way. My only guess is that I would instead feel like we were different, that we were not the same - maybe I could at least consider us equals, but I'm pretty certain I would consider us equals in very different ways - different ways that would still probably make me feel superior.

I think that this idea of loving our enemy can only really be found through prayer, trust, and time - time is needed for us to learn to rejoice at all who seek God, even when the person seeking God we may deem unworthy through our clouded vision. It is only human to judge (unfortunately), but God shows his love to others through us, and if we can feel this love, it can help to subside our own judgment - we are better able to put aside this judgment when we are seeing the world through God's point of view - and every person on this earth is a son or daughter that God loves. So we should push away our preconceived notions of who we think deserves God's love, and always strive to see these people with God's love rather than our own distorted views.

So tonight, as you're sitting at the football game and thinking about how much you want to beat New Ulm in football…look at these "enemies" or opponents as your brothers or sisters in Christ. Who knows, maybe one day one of those New Ulm students will be your new best friend at college…sometimes all we need is to gain some perspective in order to remember that those we may sometimes view as our enemies are sometimes those most in need of our love as well as God's.

I can only hope that all of our 'enemies' (and friends for that matter) will one day be saved, and maybe after they accept their new life in Christ, their hearts will feel the way of this quote from Jonah's prayer: "'But you brought my life up from the pit, O Lord my God.'" - Jonah 2:6b

(p.s. I encourage you to look up the verse listed on today's image! Also, if you want to receive these blog updates straight to your email - send a note to sjvyouthministry@gmail.com)