It’s Valentine’s Day, and everybody is talking about love so I thought that I would as well. Recently, I have felt this topic really pulling at my heart, and I hope you enjoy reading this!
Some of you may know that Lauren Daigle, a Christian songstress, recently performed on the Ellen show. When I heard that there was a lot of people criticizing her performance, my initial thought was that non-Christian fans were upset with Ellen for bringing a Christian artist on the show, but I was shocked when I heard that other Christians were mad at Lauren for performing on a show with an openly gay host. Lauren responded to her critics by saying “I think the second we start drawing lines around which people are able to be approached and which aren’t, we’ve already completely missed the heart of God.” She said, “I don’t have all the answers in life and I’m definitely not going to pretend like I do, but the one thing I know for sure is I can’t choose who I’m supposed to be kind to and who I’m supposed to show love to, and who I’m not, because that’s the mission right?” She went on to say “Be who Christ was to everyone.” I could not think of a better, more true response.
In the book of Mark Jesus was asked, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”Jesus responded by saying, “The most important one is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no greater commandment than these.” (Mark 12: 29-31) As Christians, we often find ourselves trying to live in such a small box; we see sin and think stay away, and proceed to run in the opposite direction. We don’t even realize that behind the sin there is a sinner, and aren’t we all sinners? Don’t we all still sin? We stay in our tiny box, we show our friends and family love, because it’s easy; they love us, we love them. It’s hard to love the people outside of our box; people like addicts, prostitutes, thieves, murderers, and the list goes on. The one thing that most of these people have in common is that they don’t know God’s love. Shouldn’t we show them that? Jesus did. Jesus didn’t hang out with a small number of the same kind of people. No, Jesus hung with the outcasts, the lonely, the misunderstood, the weak, the impulsive, people who needed him. Jesus didn’t put lines around certain people; He loved EVERYONE, even His foes. Jesus didn’t love within the lines.
I would like to encourage you all to focus on loving the people around you, no matter who they are or what they have done. Before people can know God’s love, they need to know love.
On another note, today marks 145 days until training camp! I would love it if you guys would continue to partner with me in prayer. Please pray for my team and I that the Lord would prepare our hearts for what he has planned for us, and please pray for the people we will meet throughout this trip that they would be open to receiving God’s love! I am still in need of financial support; any donation you feel lead to make would be greatly appreciated!
If you would like to receive email updates when I post a new blog click the subscribe button!
Thank you for taking the time to read this!
XOXO,
Kimbo!
Happy Valentines Day and LOVE FIERCELY!!!
