What Should We Do To Muslims,Illegal Alliens, Gays, etc. Because We Love God?

What Must I do To Go Into Heaven?

"Teacher," he said, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" He said to him, "What is written in the law? What do you read there?" He answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." (Luke 10:25 -27)

The man had no issue dealing with the "love God" portion from the Bible, but the loving my neighbor part was hard to swallow. So he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

It's Easy To Say I Love God

You see, it's easy to say I love God, but it is another thing to actually love Him.

A person can say, "I love God so much that for that reason I hate Muslims. After all, Muslims hate Christ and they hate Christians. So for the love of God I will kill every Muslim out there. They deserve to die. My love for God tells me to get rid of them."

Another may say, "I love God so much that I can't stand people who do not belong to my denomination. They do not worship God like I do, they are wrong and they don't even love God. So I must reject them, I must deny them opportunities to succeed at work and in life because they don't deserve to succeed, after all they don't love God…

What about those people that sneak into our country illegally? They break the law don't they? As a believer of God I would never lie like that. Since they sneak in and lie like that, I must loathe them, they are less that what I am. You see, I love God and my love for God forces me to punish these "illegals", for they are lawbreakers, so I must persecute them and get them all out of here.

And gay people; don't even get me started. They hate God so much that they want to fornicate! But I love God so much that I will make sure everyone knows how disgusting they are.

What about those who say they are Christians but all they do is say hateful things to others. They hate everyone, so I should hate them in return. Besides, God says "I desire mercy", so they will have to deal with God eventually for not being merciful."

Who Is My Neighbor?

Loving God is easy; everyone in his or her right mind knows that! The people across the street, the ones who look and act just like me, they have no problem understanding that. I don't see why the people from across town don't get it. But hey, they live across town, so technically they are not my neighbors, so I do not have to love them. They are not my problem. Right?

"Oh, thank you Jesus that those ‘illegals', that those ‘Muslims' and ‘them people' aren't my neighbors. Imagine if they were, I would have to love them. The horror!"

Who is God?

Something that we who want to love God with all our hearts shall always remember is that God is love. We should always remember that God is mercy.

We must also remember that to love God we must be about His business, and God is in the business of loving people, regardless of who they are and what their station in life is. Sometimes we forget that "… God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16)

So God loves human beings, not just some, not only the ones who love Him back, but all! Now, loving the ones who love Him back, that, we can understand, that makes sense. But loving the ones who do not love Him? Now, that does not make sense.

But God is so merciful that He remains with open arms even to those who reject Him. God loves Muslims; He loves Catholics, Pentecostals, Baptist, Anglicans or whatever denomination a person belongs to. God loves poor people, those on welfare, those who come to this great country of ours illegally. Even if we feel that for whatever reason they don't deserve God's love, God loves them. He even loves us! For the love of Christ "transcends knowledge" (Ephesians 3:19)

How great and wonderful is our God that He wants nothing but the best for His entire creation! How merciful is our Lord Jesus that he loves us even though we do not deserve it!

Heavenly Father, have mercy on us and let us experience loving like you love us. Gracious Christ, as you provide us with opportunities to share in your mercy, remove from us the veil that keeps us from seeing that everyone who walks on this earth is our neighbor, and that we should be merciful and loving towards them. In Christ we pray. Amen.