Well, It’s another Sunday morning. “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (ESV)
Out of all the people I knew in my life I honestly believe my grandmother had the greatest reason to walk this earth (or roll this earth in her wheel chair) with a chip on her shoulder as any one else I have ever known. She was crippled at birth, she was hunched over with a hump on her back. She was looked at her entire life as if she was on display for others’ entertainment. and people would talk about her as if she wasn’t there. People could be mean to her for no other reason other than she was different from them.
Here’s the truth though, she was the kindest, most loving, patient person I knew without a single mean bone in her body. She had a heart for life and compassion for every living thing. King Lemuel wrote words that his mother taught him about a woman that loves the LORD, He wrote this in Proverbs, 31: 25-26 and 30 (ESV): “Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.” “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.”
I think of my grandmother and her brothers and sisters, and I think of all the love and kindness all of them had for others. I know that this was taught to them from birth. They were raised in a household that taught the value of all people is much more precious than jewels or silver or gold. They were taught, the love of Christ Jesus and the promise of eternal life is worth more than revenge and resentfulness. They lived their lives according to what they learned and that alone made them better people.
I look at this world that we live in and I wonder where we lost those family teachings? I wonder where things went astray with the children today? I wonder where Christ took a back seat to greed and love for earthly possessions? We read in James 4:1-3 (ESV) This truth, “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.’
I believe we lost all of this when parents became too busy with the love of money and lost the love of Christ and they lost the love of family values. I believe they sold everything to Satan for their families’ earthly possessions and for the love of money today. They became transfixed on what others had and didn’t realize just how rich they were with whatever they had right then. Matthew 6:19-21 (ESV) tells us this truth, Jesus said, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
I am saddened that our youth want to trade other peoples lives for their fifteen minutes of fame. I am hurt that the parents of these children failed them and now they are look for something else to blame their children’s actions on.
Even when our youth are in the middle of a smash and grab, some people are quick to blame guns for the issues we have these days. It truly is not the guns fault. I’ll call it like I see it, it’s lazy parenting. It’s the way we raise our children, it’s the values and morals we teach them. It’s the love for God and others we instill on them that makes them the person they are going to be. When a child is born, they are not born with the “I’m going to be a mass murderer” gene, there is no such thing. They are taught and raised and nurtured into being an instrument of destruction by the lack of love and morals they are not given. Proverbs 22:6 (ESV) says this, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
I am going to close today with this, when I say God truly loves you, I mean that. He really does. When I say He loves each and every one of you, He truly does, and He loves each one the same in equal portions. When I say I love you too, that is the honest truth, I really do. My heart is broken that we have lost so many children to Satan’s promise of fame and glory in exchange for violence. Here is what I ask of you, spread the word of the Lord, share his love with everyone, it might be just what someone needs that very minute. Always remember, God truly loves each and every one of you, and so do I.
