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In this blog post, I will comment the commandment “love your neighbour”. This is a special one that I thought was necessary to write this article in the light of recent events, namely the Charleston shooting. A person has been arrested and is, of course, to be considered to be innocent until proven guilty.
This post will not mention any names of neither the alleged perpetrator nor the victims for this reason and I do wish to add that the only assumption I will make is that it was one attacker and not multiple.
I know that I was supposed to write about what I can help you with as a dating coach. Still, that article has been postponed until next Saturday since I felt it was more urgent to comment on this hate crime and that it is not just against a specific congregation but against all Christians.
Love Your Neighbour Is A Commandment
Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour commands us to love our neighbour as we love ourselves after telling us that your first love should be God.
This is a commandment from the Old Testament (Leviticus 19:9) and is also the first and foremost commandment we are told in the New Testament (Matthew 5:43, Mark 12:31 and Luke 10:27) and even a pharisee (!) agrees with Jesus on this matter (Luke 10:25-28).
If you know your Bible you know that for the most time they disagreed on many things with Jesus, who always preached to the masses that God is a loving Father that wants to take care of all His children, even when they are lost. God is like a good shepherd that is looking for a lost sheep and returns it to the rest of the flock. This parable says everything about God.
God does not care about who you are, He is interested in having a relationship with you and He accepts you as you are as long as you keep His word in your heart and lives by it. God does not care about how you look on the outside but focus on your inner qualities.
The Charleston Shooting Were A Hate Crime Towards Christianity
Now, I will use this small comment on this particular quote from the Bible and explain why I consider the Charleston Shooting to be a hate crime not just targeted against a specific Methodist congregation in Charleston, South Carolina, United States but towards the entire worldwide Christianity.
I really think so because any attack made by anyone a congregation, it doesn’t matter which colour of the skin people that belongs to that church has, is an attack on all Christians.
The person that launched this horrific attack against the congregation showed a total lack of compassion, love and care for his neighbours. To attack a Bible-study group is an act of Christianophobia. The Bible is the Holy Book of Christianity and an attack on any Christian group studying the Holy Bible is an attack on all of us, no matter which congregation we belong to.
Anyone that goes in with a weapon in a church and fires it against the members of that congregation, either participating in a study circle, a gathering or attending a service or mass in the name of Jesus are for a moment united with him and with all the saints and martyrs and everybody else that already is enjoying the divine grace in Paradise as well as every now living Christian whenever we participate in the same church-related activities in our local church.
They are the property of God and if they are attacked it is an attack against God and the entire worldwide Christian community. To attack, a praying person is an act made by a coward.
This only shows who he serve, who his master is. We that calls ourselves Christians believes in a loving God that sent His only Son to save the entire human race (John 3:16-17), period.
We should not judge the attacker since that will be up to the court to decide his earthly punishment and to God his divine judgement.
What we should do is pray, for the victims, for the attacker, for the entire congregation, for everyone that knows someone, either a victim or the attacker and we should forgive him for what he has done. It is not an easy one, I know. When we turn to the Bible we should focus on forgiveness, not revenge and most certainly not avenge this horrific shooting.
We should love our enemies and pray for our persecutors (Matthew 5:11). This is what Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount. It is especially when horrific acts like this occurred that our faith is tested but we should never allow hate to prevail over love.
No, we should always remember that God is good and for this reason we should forgive him for what he did. We should never accept the deed but we should forgive the perpetrator for his actions. Still, we need to pray for his soul and for the souls of the victims.
Even though they are with God already in His kingdom, it is still hard for the loved ones that are left behinds but here we need to remind ourselves that God will wipe the tears one day when we all meet again to face the divine judgement on Judgement Day.
We need to pray and help them in every possible manner, no matter which church we ourselves belongs to. For this reason, this post will end with a small prayer:
Special Prayer For Charleston:
God, our Divine Father,
Help us to heal the wounds we afflict and to forgive each other,
as You have forgiven the entire human race,
sending Your only Son for our salvation.
You, who has created each and everyone in our mother’s wombs,
help us to recognise each other, as brothers and sisters,
saved by Your grace alone.
Teach us Your ways, so that we may show each other love instead of hate,
kindness instead of fear and always doing Your will to honour You.
We pray for all that were murdered in one of Your houses,
in Charleston, South Carolina a couple of days ago.
God, take them by Your right hand and lead them into Your land,
send Your Holy Spirit to empower everybody afflicted,
still remaining among us on Earth,
give them strength and endurance for the coming trial.
Show them Your light so it will shine even brighter now in this dark hour,
In the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ.
Amen.
Next blog post
My next blog post will be published on June the 24th 2015.
It will be a review of a new dating product.
See you then,
Rickard
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