
Each individual must make the personal choice of whether or not to love someone. Christians first and foremost should carry and display love for others in their hearts.

Each individual must make the personal choice of whether or not to love someone. Christians first and foremost should carry and display love for others in their hearts.
To be at peace with all people looks nearly impossible. But that is what a Christian should try to do.
Followers of Christ should try to become like Jesus Christ and come to love God and love one another like he loved his heavenly Father and those people around him. There is no way to be at peace with others without loving them.
Being at peace with all is that we are to live in harmony with others, not allowing any oppressive thoughts or emotions to take control of our feelings toward them. In other words, we live in love.
We are to accept one another in love and respect the fact that God is working in different ways in people. Just because it is not what we are used to does not mean it is not of God.
It is expected from lovers of God that they respect the creatures of God, be it plants, animals or human beings. Even if we do not like some, it is up to us to set ourselves over the negative thoughts about others. We have to come to see the good in each person around us. We are to accept them for who they are. If we think they should be different, we always can pray to God that He will teach us and guide us in the way we are to go.
An Orthodox Christian got confronted by a friend who recently posted a link to an article on anti-Semitism which claimed that anti-Semitism of the left was more dangerous than anti-Semitism of the right. He found the article biased and tendentious for several reasons and writes
For one thing, the author seemed to characterise “the Left” in much the same way that antisemites characterise the Jews — with stereotypes based on innuendoes. Just as for antisemites there is no need to substantiate any accusations against “the Jews”, so for those authors there is no need to substantiate any allegations against “the Left”, because those are something that “everyone knows”.
Anti-semitism from which site it may come in whatever country it may be uttered is also something which is wrong and should not be accepted. the writer of the article may have been writing about the “the Left” in the American sense, which means still a very conservative group, because the left for Americans can be a group which belongs to the Democrats.

Steve Hayes aged 9
The writer of Khanya, Steve Hayes considers himself a a liberal who believes that theological liberalism leads to political conservatism and vice versa. According to him there is primary an ascetic struggle as part of the training and discipline we need in order to engage in other aspects of the struggle. {Thoughts on Spiritual Warfare (synchroblog)}
The primary aspect of spiritual warfare, therefore, is the struggle against the passions leading to theosis (divinisation, godliness). {Thoughts on Spiritual Warfare (synchroblog)}
When we look at today’s society we can see al lot of ungodliness and it is just because so many people are so far away from God’s rules that there are so many problems in this world.
Soon after seeing the anti-Semitism article, someone posted one of those quizzes on Facebook that purport to show whether you are left or right. Hayes questions
Is it accurate? I don’t know, but I thought it would be interesting to do it to see what the quiz authors regarded as “left” or “right” characteristics, which can itself be revealing of social trends.
Funny to see I had exactly the same result as him, getting following result:
You can take the test here,and compare your results with ours.
I can assure you I am not for Tax-increases but I am for a better distribution of wealth and a better differentiation for the wages and a better performance related pay.
Hayes is anti-war, anti-abortion and anti-capital punishment and writes
Most of those who claim to be pro-life are less than solidly so, and are rather full-of-holes pro-life. If you want a more accurate test to take your political temperature, try the Political Compass.
Having tried it myself it showed my Political Compass
Economic Left/Right: -6.13
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -4.67
My position plotted against the UK parties in the 2015 general election would be
which I think would not be a bad picture.
Hayes remarks
Be that as it may, very few of the characteristics ascribed to the left, either in the test or in the antisemitism article, appeared directly in the quiz questions. There was nothing about intersectionality (whatever that may be) or “identity politics” (which sounds like a pretty right-wing thing to me). But there were quite a lot of questions about Christian values. One of a group of four that I opted for was “kindness”, because it came closest to the Christian value of love, though whether the test counted that as “left” or “right” I’m not sure, but I noticed that it does place the Christian value of forgiveness on the left. {Anti-Semitism, anti-leftism and anti-Christianity}
I consider Jesus a “communist avant la lettre” and have seen several tests where the agapè love is considered to be “leftish”. The Christian value of forgiveness is also many times placed on the left.
Though what shocks me and troubles me a lot is that several people in the U.S.A. who call themselves “Christian” or “Born again Christian” have not much feeling for other people and or not much interested in sharing with those around them. Many of them oppose anything what has a smell of socialism or systems where is demanded that people help each other or provide money in a fund or system like Obama Care to help others. Lots of those so called Christians have also a very averse attitude to true or non-trinitarian Christians, Jews and Muslims. All that worship the Only One True God and not their Trinity seem to be people they would like to see to “burn in hell”.
Clearly when hearing lots of North Americans talking on the little screen, they give an impression all those who do not belong to their Christendom are disgusting people which should be thrown out of the country. Some have such weird ideas about other faiths that we in Europe can wonder if they did not learn about them in their schools and if the media does not give any good advice. Looking at some TV-station , like Fox, we see lots of de-information and no objective information.
In the American media we see a lot of anti-black racism and a lot of Islamophobia, plus the choice of many to consider those with a “white” skin (I would say an light tainted orange skin) superior to those with an other coloured skin. As such the Jew comes into the picture as well, having not the Caucasian looks. Jews all over the world comes in all shades — from blonde to black. In Israel the conflict between Jews and Palestinians isn’t about race. Nor are the tensions between Jews from Europe and those from the Muslim world — though activists and academics sometimes import the terms “black” and “white,” in defiance of their lying eyes. But on many American platforms the looks of the Jews bring sayings against them which I would prefer not to hear in a civilised country.
Already in the preparation for the previous American election we could find several lies about Obama his origin and birthplace. This was for us already an indication that there was more brewing and that a significant portion of Americans felt horror that an Afro-American could become president.
Race is the most pervasive reason that some Americans believe they can discriminate against and despise others. When you see certain Jews their body clearly shows certain marks, which are good enough a sign for those so called Christians to call them murderers of Jesus and to hate them.
Some may think anti-Semitism just isn’t as bad as other forms of racism, but it is. Worse is it when there is an attitude of
Jews don’t count as a group worth protecting.
Jonathan Taubes, a student activist at Binghamton University who worked with progressive campaigns in Binghamton, on and off campus, writesJewish people face bigotry in this country, and the history of institutional anti-Semitism here is real, but today we find ourselves mostly free of persecution. We should recognize that privilege and use it to fight for the vulnerable. {Dear Allies, Don’t Downplay Anti-Semitism in Trump’s America}
In August, ADL recorded a “meta-event” rarely seen in America: the white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., which featured shocking and violent expressions of anti-Semitism and racism, including the display of swastika flags, chants of “Jews will not replace us!” and other overt anti-Semitic acts.
There seems such a fear that they would replaced by Jews and Muslims or that their world would become Islamic. Though then why do they not question their own religion and their own religious members. In case they would be strong believers there should be no fear that they would leave their faith. When they are standing strong in their faith they should even be able to come to witness to Muslims and Jews and have them to come to Christianity.
Anti-Semitic incidents spiked on and immediately following Charlottesville. Of the 306 incidents reported in Q3, 221 took place on or after the August 11 rally.
The Charlottesville rally was one of at least 33 public white supremacist events in the U.S. so far this year, which were supplemented with 188 incidents where white supremacists used fliers to spread their message to new audiences, especially on college campuses.

Police departments and human rights groups across the United States of America and all over Europe show that there is a dramatically rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes. When the president’s chief counterterrorism advisor, Sebastian Gorka, was found to support a violent anti-Semitic militia in his parents’ native Hungary, there showed a situation where the left talks about white supremacy as if Jews aren’t affected and anti-Semitism is just a distraction from real issues – when, in fact, anti-Semitism is at the core of the white supremacist ideologies today’s leftist movements seek to upend.
The anti-Semitism article Hayes encountered, also has a significant comment on the Christian worldview — How Anti-Semitism’s True Origin Makes It Invisible To The Left – The Forward:
In addition to the belief in a shadowy group with the power to affect large-scale outcomes, conspiracy theories also reflect a worldview in which reality is the product of a timeless and cosmic struggle between good and evil. These kinds of dualistic narratives are especially enticing to groups that view themselves to be under existential duress, and as Elaine Pagels has shown, this has profoundly shaped Western culture. Jews under Roman occupation and early Christians under Jewish ostracism and gentile persecution developed theologies of the oppressed in which the devil and his demonic host squared off with God and his angels.
Hayes believes that there is a cosmic struggle between good and evil,
though I’m not sure that it is timeless. The Christian take on it is that in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ the decisive battle was won by good, and we live in the last days of mopping up operations.
That we live in a time close to the end-times we may see in the signs given in the bible, which we can recognise clearly. But that should not have to mean we should let everything happen like it goes now.
Hayes thinks that
Western Christianity tends to be legalistic, to share the values of the Right rather than the Left, preferring punishment to forgiveness, and justice to kindness (in the left-right quiz mentioned above).
but than he forgets to see what real Christians preach.The real lovers of God recognise what the Nazarene Jew has done and do now that there is no such place as a hell to torture people for ever. Real Christians keep to the bible teachings and not to the human doctrines and human fear-mongering to have their flock under control. though Hayes recognises the appalling falsehoods that several Christian denominations
smack of perversity even to attack its perverseness.[1] And the conclusion is altogether evil. {Love the sinner, hate the sin}
For him is in his Orthodox theology the Church a hospital where sinners can be healed rather than a courtroom where they are to be judged. He should know that it is also in other Christian denominations, like the Christadelphians for example. In the Christadelphian faith it is even so that we consider no man to judge others, except those in function as judge, but still it being up to Jesus to give the end verdict.
He rightly says
if we are Christians we must love the sinner but hate the sin.
We must
Love the oppressor but hate oppression
Love the corrupt politician and businessman, but hate corruption
Love the warmonger but hate war
Love the exploiter but hate exploitation
and I would add that we should protect all those who have no voice and should come up for all those who are discriminated or done wrong.
Lest it seems that Hayes is saying that the line between good and evil runs between Eastern and Western Christianity, making “us” superior to “them”, he quotes a Western Christian, G.K. Chesterton, on this:
The whole case for Christianity is that a man who is dependent upon the luxuries of this life is a corrupt man, spiritually corrupt, politically corrupt, financially corrupt.
There is one thing that Christ and all the Christian saints have said with a sort of savage monotony. They have said simply that to be rich is to be in peculiar danger of moral wreck. It is not demonstrably un-Christian to kill the rich as violators of definable justice. It is not demonstrably un-Christian to crown the rich as convenient rulers of society. It is not certainly un-Christian to rebel against the rich or to submit to the rich. But it is quite certainly un-Christian to trust the rich, to regard the rich as more morally safe than the poor.
A Christian may consistently say,
“I respect that man’s rank, although he takes bribes.”
But a Christian cannot say, as all modern men are saying at lunch and breakfast,
“a man of that rank would not take bribes.”
For it is a part of Christian dogma that any man in any rank may take bribes. It is a part of Christian dogma; it also happens by a curious coincidence that it is a part of obvious human history. When people say that a man “in that position” would be incorruptible, there is no need to bring Christianity into the discussion. Was Lord Bacon a bootblack? Was the Duke of Marlborough a crossing sweeper? In the best Utopia, I must be prepared for the moral fall of any man in any position at any moment; especially for my fall from my position at this moment.
In the daily Bible readings our chapter in Matthew today unfolds to reveal powerful personal lessons – principles we must live by, though in the chapters of the first book of Samuel we also see that it was not always easy for the preferred one of God, David! He also was victim of human jealousy [v.8-12].
In these summer-months we do have time to examine ourselves and the situation we are living in at the moment. We can check if we kept to Jesus his sayings or if when we had certain needs or wanted to receive knowledge if we did ask like Jesus advices us. Often when we are at work we do not have time enough for God’s Word. It might not always be easy to have us every day to pick up the Bible and to read in it and to take time enough to let our thoughts wonder over the Biblical text. Now when the Summer holiday comes to us we have no excuse. Now we should have enough opportunity to read in the Bible but also to talk to others bout different things, including the Word of God.
Summer time often gives us opportunities to come at other places, where nobody might know us, where we do not have to fear talking about our faith and to show others how we love God.
We can ask God to help us to get insight ourself but also to give us strength and opportunities to give others insight in His infallible Word. We might be assured when we dare to ask Jehovah God will provide, when our heart is in the right place with Him.
7 “·Ask [Keep asking], and ·God will give [L it will be given; C the passive verb implies God as subject] to you. ·Search [Seek; Keep seeking], and you will find. ·Knock [Keep knocking], and the door will open for you. 8 ·Yes, [L For; Because] everyone who asks will receive. Everyone who ·searches [seeks] will find. And everyone who knocks will have the door opened.
9 “If your children ask for bread, which of you would give them a stone? 10 Or [L which of you] if your ·children ask [or son asks] for a fish, would you give them a snake? {Matthew 7:7-10 Expanded Bible (EXB)}
When we long to have knowledge in the Holy Scriptures God is not going to withhold it. He is not going to detain us and leave us without Biblical knowledge if we really want to have such knowledge. Though in such circumstance God wants us to open our mind and when we encounter matters which we have learned at school or in the past in our religious environment, but which are based on human doctrines, God wants us to choose for the Biblical doctrines and to put those human and false teachings aside. We have to show to God that we are willing to learn what He wants to say to us and what the Bible puts openly in front of us, words black on white and no misty myths of the world.
For many it may not be easy to put away all such false human teachings, but that is what God requires, not to be of the world but to belong to the world of God.
Knowledge will be given to you when you are prepared to seek honestly and with the will to learn Godly Truth. When you open your mind, ask God to help you, He will provide and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you.
Keep Pursuing What You Need From God. He Will Give You Good Things
7 “Be asking, and it will be given to you; be seeking, and you will find; be knocking, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone asking receives; and the one seeking finds; and to the one knocking, it will be opened. 9 Or what person is there from-among you whom his son will ask-for bread— he will not give him a stone[a], will he? 10 Or indeed he will ask-for a fish— he will not give him a snake[b], will he?
- Matthew 7:9That is, something useless.
- Matthew 7:10That is, something harmful. {Matthew 7:7-10Disciples’ Literal New Testament (DLNT)}
For everyone, also you, who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds. So you only have to be prepared to be willing to find and to ask God to help you find it. But you too should help others to find it. So what you have uncovered may not only be your secret. Even when we will realize our failure to see the Biblical truth because we wanted to hold fast so much to denominational teachings, noticing it so late in our life, we better accept it that it is better late in life than never, to come to the Biblical truth.
Out of compassion and love for the other, we should try to let others know the Word of God and show them what is really written in it. One of the tasks given by Jesus was to go out and preach. When we do understand what the Nazarene man Jesus has really done, we should tell others of this incredible act of self-renunciation. We should tell others about his self-sacrifice and how he is not the God we should worship but the Way to God, the Only One True God of gods Whom is the Only One to be worshipped and praised above all.
Jesus expects everyone who hears these words of him to do them!
24 Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and is doing them will be-like a wise[a] man who built his house upon the bed-rock.
- Matthew 7:24Or, prudent, sensible. {Matthew 7:24Disciples’ Literal New Testament (DLNT)}
Let us be wise in the Lord and show the world how we want to be partakers of the Body of Christ and follow the same God as Jesus had. In the knowledge that the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, we should be aware that though salvation is given to all the world also shall have to see that those who find that entrance to the Kingdom of God shall be just a few. We should know and let others know that wide is the gate and broad and easy to travel is the path that leads the way to destruction and eternal loss.
13 “Enter through the narrow gate. [L Because] The gate is wide and the road is ·wide [broad; spacious; or easy] that leads to ·hell [L destruction; ruin], and many people enter through that gate. 14 But the gate is small and the road is ·narrow [or difficult; hard] that leads to true life. ·Only a few people [And there are few who] find that road. {Matthew 7:13-14Expanded Bible (EXB)}
For those few we have to invest our free time and do what Jesus expects from us, making sure that we are not a foolish person in his eyes, because he shall watch us and in the end days shall judge over us. Let us listen to Jesus his words:
Matthew 7:25-29Disciples’ Literal New Testament (DLNT)
25 And the rain came down, and the rivers[a] came, and the winds blew— and they fell against that house. And it did not fall, for it had been founded upon the bed-rock. 26 And everyone hearing these words of Mine and not doing them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand. 27 And the rain came down, and the rivers came, and the winds blew— and they struck-against that house. And it fell, and the falling[b] of it was great”.
The Works of The King: Divine Power In Action28 And it came about that when Jesus finished these words, the crowds were astounded[c] at His teaching. 29 For He was teaching them as One having authority, and not as their scribes.
- Matthew 7:25 That is, rivers of flood waters.
- Matthew 7:27 Or, collapse, downfall.
- Matthew 7:28 Or, overwhelmed, amazed, astonished.
{Matthew 7:25-29Disciples’ Literal New Testament (DLNT)}
When having found Jesus his words and having gone deeper into them, finding the Words of his heavenly Father, we should build our own life on them and create the foundation for ways for others also to come closer to God.
There are many ways – travel in our world has never been more readily possible, but whether nearby or further afield, we must, as we read two days ago in Matthew 5,
16 In the same way let your light shine ·before others [for people to see], so that they will see ·the good things you do [L your good deeds/works] and will ·praise [glorify; give honor to] your Father in heaven. {Matthew 5:16 Expanded Bible (EXB)}
Take some time this holiday to have some work done for Jesus and his God that they and the world may see your good works and glorify your Father in the heavens.
Let us also make sure that we tell others what is in the Word of God and have us honestly trying to have our faith in God shine as a strong light before others, so that on that day when Jesus returns we do not have to be ashamed and do not have to say like many who will say to him
… Lord, did we not prophesy (preach) in your name…?”
Having Jesus to look at them and responding that they have to depart from him because he does not want to know of them.
22 On ·the last day [judgment day; L that day] many people will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, ·we spoke for you [L Did we not prophesy in your name…?], and ·through you we forced out demons [L cast out demons in your name…?] and did many ·miracles [L mighty works in your name…?].’ {Matthew 7:22 Expanded Bible (EXB)}
We do not have to show extra-ordinary things to others, not doing miracles. We only have to honestly tell them what we believe and show them what the Bible says.
These days when we might have more free time, let us make sure that we take some free time for God and to show our love for God to others.In the knowledge that “many are called, but few are chosen” let us belong to those “few” that will hear the words we read today in Isaiah 62,
Isaiah 62:11-12 Expanded Bible (EXB)
11 The Lord ·is speaking [announces]
to ·all the faraway lands [L the end of the earth]:
“·Tell the people of Jerusalem [L Say to the daughter of Zion; Zech. 9:9],
‘Look, your Savior is coming.
He is bringing ·your reward to you [L his reward with him];
·he is bringing his payment [his recompense/reward is] with him.’”
12 ·His people [L They] will be called the Holy People,
the ·Saved People [Redeemed] of the Lord,
and Jerusalem will be called ·the City God Wants [L Sought After],
the City ·God Has Not Rejected [or Not Abandoned; Deserted]. {Isaiah 62:11-12 Expanded Bible (EXB)}
If you knew how much God loves you, you would be happy to receive and share His love with others and would be pleased to have others also coming to know Him and His great Love.

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Preceding articles
Facing our existence every day
High time to go out telling the world about Jesus
7 Ways To Become A Better Christian
Daring to speak in multicultural environment
Crisis man needed in this world
To proclaim the day of vengeance
Proclaiming: a task given to Christians
Scriptures and Thoughts about: Proclaim
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Additional reading
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