Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

• John 13:34-35

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

• Matthew 22:37-40

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

• Matthew 5:43-48

“Over the past few years a number of spiritual daughters reached out to me.  They didn’t come to me for connections or speaking engagements. They invited me to speak into their lives on matters of love and life. There was no reason for them to make all the mistakes I already had. To that end I used any understanding I’d gained to lift them higher. Love lifts the heart … without blowing up your head. Education and experience are not badges of merit that give us permission to make others feel like they are less than us. That is how the teachers of the law and the Pharisees wore knowledge.  Knowledge without love has little merit.
“A greater knowledge of who we are in Christ works its way out in us as we lift others. The dynamic ‘to know as we ought to know’ means loving others in the manner that Christ loves them.
“Love never demeans.
“Love never shows off.
“Love attacks the stronghold that holds the captive.
“Love does not attack the captive; love sets the captive free.
“We can know about love without being loving, just as we can embrace the concept of love without embracing people.
“We are called to love everyone. We cannot choose to love just those who look and act like us. We must love those who disagree with us. This does not mean we compromise our beliefs or confuse others with our actions. Somehow our culture has equated loving with approving. There are times that the most loving thing we can do is lovingly disagree. This is the tightrope of our day. We must daily choose to live with a sensitive awareness of other people.”

• Lisa Bevere, Adamant

Ms. Bevere takes a second look at love.  Not only does God love us, He wants us to love one another.  The backyard lawyers could say that Jesus was talking to the disciples when He said that, but He was not talking to a disciple when He said that the second commandment was as great as the first and we should love our neighbor.  Jesus really quotes Leviticus 19:18 for the commandment of loving your neighbor.  Jesus explains a bit of Levitical Law in the Sermon on the Mount, speaking to a large crowd, saying we should love our enemies.

This chapter in her book begins with this quote:

“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.”

• Martin Luther King, Jr.

It is odd how the recent protests for “equality” have no element of love in them at all.  It seems that when COVID hit and we locked down the world, everyone began to distrust every other human.  They seem to have decided that every other human was the enemy, and the enemy should be trampled under foot if at all possible.

Regardless of the protest, there is intense anger with no thought of constructive conversation, compromise, or concession.  In Revelation 6, the seals are opened and with each of the first four seals, a horse emerges.  The White Horse brings conquest.  The Red Horse brings hatred between humans and their neighbors.  And the Black Horse brings famine.  A scholar pointed out that when the world wars, and other widespread global conflicts occurred, famines followed for you could not grow crops in fields that had become battlefields.  Besides, the farmers had gone to war.

But are we in the time of the Red Horse?  One might argue that the White Horse was the COVID lockdown.  That event probably adversely affected more of humanity than did the world wars.

I think matters can and will get worse, but the anger in the world, and distrust among neighbors, is a foreshadowing of what is to come.

And I like the last paragraph.  We cannot allow the Woke Culture to demand acceptance, approval, and even celebration of their views to be a requirement for love.  Indeed, we must not do that.  For God calls us to repent, and celebrating sin is tantamount to consigning entire generations to eternal damnation.

In reading that paragraph though, some of the words reminded me of the words Jesus used in explaining the concept of loving one’s enemies and the words of my senior year ROTC instructor. The media had just covered a protest where the Army Reserve was lined up to protect something. The Hippies approached and relieved themselves on the boots of the soldiers. The Major reminded us of the news report and then he turned to the class and asked, “Would you stand your ground?!” He told us that we had sworn an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States. And defending our freedom of speech is easy when the protestors say something we agree with. But when they say something that we do not agree with, that is the true test of our commitment to protect and defend the Constitution. That was hard to hear and harder to put into practice, but these days colleges have safe spaces so that the students only hear what they want to hear. Within a couple of generations of not hearing opposing views, we will be totally brainwashed, willing to throw away the Constitution and our freedom as well. And that is the enemy’s goal.

We must find a way to love while distancing ourselves from the insanity of this world.  As Jeremiah 7:28 states in part, “Truth has perished.”  To lead up to this statement, Jeremiah states that the people had turned from God, which leads to truth perishing. We must stand firm on God’s firm foundation, but we must do so in love.

Lord, guide me.  You are Love.  No greater love is shown than when One gives His life for another, and Your Son did that for us, for me.  We praise You every day.  Help us to praise You more.  And help us to show love to those around us.  Love is the only force that can bring peace.  In Your name I pray.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.