Monday 13th

1 John 2: ⁹Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. ¹⁰Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. ¹¹But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.

 

You can’t live in the light, and walk in the shadows. You can’t live a life of love, if you hold hate in your heart. You can’t follow the path of Christ, if you ware walking the path in darkness.   The darkness has a nasty habit of coming out at the worst possible time, you can hide it, push it down, camouflage it, but you will never successfully suppress it. You have to let it go. You can’t miss it in today’s world. How often do you go to Church only to step outside and hear, “oh I hate that” or “I hate so and so”. ate has become a word we are so comfortable with We have become so comfortable with the word hate that we seldom think twice about using it. Oh I know you are saying well it is just a word….no one means it like that…..but we do…..all too often we do mean it. As a result we often wonder why our world seems so dark. Our words have meaning, they can cut like a knife or mend the deepest scars in our life, and the life of others. We have to choose….will we walk in the light, or live in the shadows. Will we choose to strike the word and emotion hate from our life, or will we continue to view it as only a word, only a fleeting emotion? As if it carries no weight, as if no damage is done. Funny how once again we return to loving our brother. It is threaded through out the Bible, and it is tightly woven throughout the New Testament. Love or hate, light or darkness? There is no gray area, there are no frenemies (thank you to my daughters for that word, it is a friend that you are also enemies with brings a whole new meaning to the love hate relationship) We love or we hate. You might say well I do neither, I am just indifferent…….what if Christ had said that?  No my friends, there is no real indifference, I would say that indifference is one of the greatest evils we face. Indifference is nothing more than muted hate. It is as caring as the word “whatever” it is as damaging as the word I do not care. If one thing is important….then everything is important.  We walk in the light…..we love in the light. We live in the light. Choose to live outside of the shadows. Take the well lit path of Christ, so that you will not stumble in the darkness.

 

God Bless,

Brian