Terry Nelson's Post on Loving Our Enemies

<----More on this picture in another post but I took a picture of this young lady (and more of her companions) on my way to the commuter rail.

A walking billboard to sell bitterness, anger and pain as a lifestyle.

Sweet.

Some thought-provoking reading today at Abby Roads about loving our enemies and forgiveness.

Terry having an I think I'd rather be Mother Teresa moment is he?  

Been there done that.

If you love those who love you, what recompense do you have?  Even the tax collectors do that.  If you greet your brothers only, what's so unusual about that?  Even the pagans do that. 

Amen to that!

But, if you've taken up the role of evangelism or a prophet (meaning the kind that can see the impact of sin and testifies - not the kind that sees the future), enemies are not people who hate us or want to harm us.   Those are blips on the radar screen.

Our enemies are the people doing something harmful to others - people who point the public in a direction of personal or spiritual destruction.   God is constantly stoking the fire of an evangelist so that righteousness and justice are not under the bushel.

Everyone is promised the chance to to choose.

It's the been there done that calling of the consciences.    The snap out of it and don't follow the individual on the road to perdition.  The get on the Ark and when the floods of your life come, you'll be safe.

The trick is keeping the you and all your passions and flaws out of the fracas.

I loved this from Terry's post:

"Sin passes itself off as something good, what we mistake for virtue or zeal is at times vice."

Isn't that the truth.

Sometimes something we think is virtue is self love and/or cowardice.  False compassion.   Just plain old tiredness.

Was it the prophet Jeremiah who saw the effects of sin and after being frustrated said he was sick and tired of the whole thing but when he tried to keep his mouth shut, it only served to build the intensity until it all came blowing out like a volcano?

"And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body go into Gehenna."

When it domes to the Mystical Body of Christ, why would the Lord ignore His own advice?

 Maybe some people can be excused, you never know.  Been there done that too.  What looked like refuge turned out to be three days in the belly of the whale and the next thing you know, you're vomited onto another shore.