“For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” – Galatians 5:14

On any given Sunday, you can come to a Christian church in America and see some of the best and most Jesus-centric people you’d ever want to meet. It feels great when we’re there. However, I’ve seen those same people get red faced angry at supposed fellow Christians in the parking lot because of bad driving. Honestly, they don’t even need to leave the building to get angry at their fellow man. Try sitting in the seat or pew of a regular attendee. What was to be a joyous day can almost come to blows, all because we get a little inconvenienced.

Jesus said that others will know we are followers of Christ because of our love for our fellow man. Plain and simple, anything you do should be done for the Lord and with reverence to Him. When you show love and respect to your fellow human being, you show it to God. When you harbor hatred and contempt, you are holding that anger and that grudge against God Himself. Jesus said, “’Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” Matthew 25:40

We are supposed to be on the same side, but when we fight amongst ourselves, we are allowing the enemy to overcome us. We must all be of one mind and one body, the body of Christ. Abraham Lincoln in one of his famous speeches said that a house divided cannot stand. He took that right out of the Holy Bible, right out of Jesus’ own mouth. All Christians together constitute the army of the Lord, but when the army is running in all different directions, they can’t fight effectively. Seemingly simple things like a wording choice or revering Saturday versus Sunday has broken apart what should be the strongest alliance ever. As Christians we serve God, but we can’t serve Him when we are putting our own feelings and our own comforts above our fellow man’s. When we are good and faithful servants of Jesus, our comforts and our needs shall be met. I say that our needs would be met so much more abundantly if we would just serve Christ with a pure heart rather than trying to ensure our own wellbeing.

It’s unfortunate, but truly we are our own worst enemy. Forget about the devil and his minions, we constitute a greater threat against ourselves than Satan ever could. Read the Bible and show me one place where the demons are so busy fighting each other that they forget about trying to steal our souls. It doesn’t happen. They are of one mind and one goal. They don’t start following someone else because they used grape juice instead of wine in a ceremony, but we Christians sure do!

Granted, we will not like everything that our brothers and sisters do, but there needs to be a certain amount of understanding that goes into everyday life. We are all sinners and fall short of the glory of God. Jesus left Peter in charge knowing that he had messed up before and will mess up again. Jesus knew that Peter and all of the people who would lead the church would mess up, but that didn’t stop him from still establishing the church. We aren’t always going to get it right. Even if you do happen to find a perfect church, please don’t join it because it will cease to be perfect the moment you walk through that door.

In short, please be kind and understanding with your fellow human being, especially ones in positions of authority. Parents and priests, teachers and police, we are all bound to make mistakes now and then. However, when we can honestly say that what we are doing honors Jesus, we will be more likely to do better in our lives. It still won’t be perfect, but we will at least be fighting for the same cause. You don’t hate someone because they get cancer. You hate the cancer and love the person. The same goes for sin. Love thy neighbor no matter what and fight mightily against what Jesus considers a sin in all of its forms. Hold each other up to the Lord instead of knocking each other down, and together we will be victorious.

God’s blessings to you.

DH