The best response to the atrocity in Paris I have heard is an indirect quote supposedly said by a survivor of the massacre who said something like:
We’ve got to love loving and not love hating . . .
How like Jesus that sounds! Recently a friend told me she was terrified of anyone wearing middle eastern clothing, male or female. My response was that she desperately needs to make friends with someone who is a Muslim. They are not all terrorists! Some of the most wonderful people I have known are Muslim. I believe their theology is wrong and that they need to see Jesus in a new way, but they are still people God loves and Jesus told us to love them!
One American response to Paris will be to buy bigger and better guns and demand that they be allowed to carry them everywhere. Some will even store vast quantities of food in a basement or storm shelter. In my opinion, that is not the kind of hope a Christian has. Jesus told us that BEFORE end times, the world would be full of wars and rumors of war. And we’ve read the Bible; we know how it ends! Our hope is in Him, not guns, money, military, politics, or in hating.
So my simple response to the Paris terrorism is: We need to start loving people more, especially our enemies as Jesus taught, that is the only way our world will change. Possibly the biggest danger from events like this is that we begin to love hating people – bad people, people who did this, people who look like the ones who did it, who dress like them, who have middle eastern names, etc. When we love hating – we do as much harm to our world as the rascals who killed people in Paris. So my prayer is that all who call themselves Christian will react to the horrible events of Friday by “falling in love” with the act of loving people, all people! -Charlie
Jesus in 1 John 3:15The Message (MSG)
The way we know we’ve been transferred from death to life is that we love our brothers and sisters. Anyone who doesn’t love is as good as dead. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know very well that eternal life and murder don’t go together.
–
Jesus in Matthew 5:21-22The Message (MSG)
“You’re familiar with the command to the ancients, ‘Do not murder.’ I’m telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder.
Disclaimer/credit for quote: I did not see/hear the interview in which a survivor supposedly said the above quote I am using, but heard it in the down-streaming sermon by Frank Lewis of First Baptist Nashville today, Sunday, 15 November 2015. He also used Scripture about the end times from Mark 13-14 and 2 Tim. 4:5. I hope he approves of my giving further life to this one idea in his sermon, or as I interpreted it.
