Number 6 don’t get
your kicks from killing one another.
This week has been a hard one at best. Hard in the things He has been calling me to look at, to write about and put out there. It's not an easy thing to just lay it all bear, but we must. In order to let healing come, for ourselves...for others. It's through our pain and trials that most people can relate to us. Accomplishments and successes are easily applauded, but the failures....the times we make the worst missteps and fall so very short, usually are the ones that make others take a second glance and draw them to us, and most assuredly to Him, when we let them see how we all are in need of a Savior.That being said we end up here, at Number 6....
We all have our own vision of what this verse means. Don't kill. Don't take a human life. Easy enough? We can at least get this one right...but not so fast. The Bible has a different view on what is considered murder...it's not just the taking of a life.
1 John 3:15 (NIV)
15 Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.
Matthew 5:21-26 (NLT)
Teaching about Anger
21 “You have heard that our ancestors were told, ‘You must not murder. If you commit murder, you are subject to judgment.’[a] 22 But I say, if you are even angry with someone,[b] you are subject to judgment!
Murder. To hold anger within us is death, to spew angry words at another is death...Murdering ourselves slowly and at the core of who we are. I have been guilty of this. My heart condition was slowly killing my spirit and also those around me.
I will also share that I have been guilty of taking a life. The life of a child that I carried, before I understood what exactly that meant and how it would impact me for the rest of my life. It would be just after I was saved that God revealed to me the destruction of my choice and what the reality of it was. And that moment is where my journey really began....it changed me. It molded me, it sent me in a direction that would allow me to begin healing and then in turn help others to heal. It gave me the most beautiful of friendships. It gave me an empathy and an ache for those who are hurting from the same choices made.
We like to put degrees of how righteous we are on the levels of sins we think we have or have not committed. If we have held hate in our hearts, we are guilty of the same sin as those who have taken a life in whatever form. It makes me ever mindful to remember we have ALL fallen short. It reminds me every time I want to hold that rock in my hand to throw at another.....when I look up, I'm really looking into my own eyes. Without His grace, His sacrifice, I should be standing beside her, just as guilty...but God. Thankful.
No comments:
Post a Comment