I'm told who to love
Jesus knew about dealing with difficult people.
'The Last Supper'
Da Vinci
more below...
"I am tired of my parents (and the church) telling me who I am supposed to love and how
much.
Who am I obligated to care about, and to what degree?
There are some people that I, as a man, in an emergency, should be willing to die for.
"If I am to die for a child i don't know, how am I to treat the cousin that no one in my family loves but his own mother?"
I too, have experienced others trying to manipulate me into loving or trusting a person more than I wanted to.
Yet, the Bible says we should love everyone. How does this work?
Jude warned us not to become so enmeshed with them, that they can pervert our souls.
And in John 2:
23 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing.
I spoke in another article here about family cults. If your family tells you who to love and tries to preset your level of devotion to them,
Sidebar:
We can see from the Book of Revelation how terrible it is to be consigned to the eternal Lake of Fire.
They think they can carve me to fit into in a nice
little socket they have pre-designed for me."
Okay. Good topic. I am going to tackle this topic that intersects Christianity, DNA, marriage, work teams, neighborhoods and school playgrounds.
Okay. Good topic. I am going to tackle this topic that intersects Christianity, DNA, marriage, work teams, neighborhoods and school playgrounds.
Who am I obligated to care about, and to what degree?
There are some people that I, as a man, in an emergency, should be willing to die for.
Women, by social
standards, have a shorter list,
Teachers
and caregivers are expected to die for the kids they oversee.
Fire and police
personnel also have greater obligations.
You get the idea…
You get the idea…
"If I am to die for a child i don't know, how am I to treat the cousin that no one in my family loves but his own mother?"
I too, have experienced others trying to manipulate me into loving or trusting a person more than I wanted to.
No group-setting is exempt. Blood
families, stepfamilies, in-laws, worksites, school classrooms and churches are all prone to this
problem.
Many families have a creepy relative that no child should be
left alone with.
.
I’ve seen situations where, a young woman brings home a husband and everyone
is expected to love him, no matter his obvious lack of character.
She separates from him a couple of years later, just because. Then
everyone is supposed to sympathize with her and hate him.
Then... she
misses his rogue personality, and they make up.
Then they come to the
next family dinner, and everyone is supposed to be enthralled with him
again.
Hmmm.
.
That woman (or her mother) will not be the one who decides what
I think of him.
That doesn’t work with me. We each have the right to decide who we will trust.
.
DNA often perverts trust.
Look at court trials where defendants' families are indignant about their family members being on trial,
even when publicly available evidence weighs heavily against them.
Your mama may love her
younger brother, who is essentially worthless to this planet, but growing up, he was
your mother’s babydoll.
You don’t have to
think of him as your mother does.
And when you marry, you certainly
don’t have to admire a spouse's untrustworthy relatives.
The
Book of Proverbs has several warnings about associating too closely
with people with defective characters.
Yet, the Bible says we should love everyone. How does this work?
I interpret this as meaning that we
should care for their eternal souls, and recognize that we too, are
incapable of Heaven without the Blood of Christ. We need to have enough contact to steer them toward the
Gospel.
Yet, Jude 1 says,
“Be merciful to those who doubt, 23 save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear
“Be merciful to those who doubt, 23 save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear
– hating even the clothing stain
by corrupted flesh.”
Jude warned us not to become so enmeshed with them, that they can pervert our souls.
And in John 2:
23 Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing.
24But
Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew
all people
25
and
needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was
in man.
This is one reason God expects us to love Him more than we love anyone else,
This is one reason God expects us to love Him more than we love anyone else,
because He can be completely and utterly trusted, for He does not
turn away anyone who sincerely comes to Him.
I spoke in another article here about family cults. If your family tells you who to love and tries to preset your level of devotion to them,
you may be in a
family cult and need to set proper boundaries with them.
Sidebar:
What confuses me
most is people who have left God.
They have some sort of romantic partner and have children.
They claim to love them, but don’t tell them
about Jesus.
How do they think this will all end?
How do they think this will all end?
We can see from the Book of Revelation how terrible it is to be consigned to the eternal Lake of Fire.
Could anything be worse? Yes, I’m sure of it.
.
What’s worse, is
raising one’s children without God, only to watch them be condemned
too,
because the kids were never introduced to God, and then they never sought Him out on their own.
What kind of look will the
children give their mom or dad, former church kid,
when they
realize that the parent once knew God, but refused to share the Gospel
of Christ with them?
An eternal tragedy with unending woe and torment.
An eternal tragedy with unending woe and torment.