Guns and Love

How can guns and love go together? How can we kill people we are called to love?

Jesus calls us to love all people like he loves us. This includes, specifically, our enemies. How can killing someone be remotely close to loving them? I pray for the people of all nations; civilian and military, that they may see the light and love that is Jesus Christ.

What kind of image are Christians propagating when they are killing people? They are not only harming people that they are called to love in direct conflict, but other people see Christians killing and don't want to be a part of any Christianity that says killing is ok.

A lot more value needs to be put into the power of prayer rather than the power of man's killing machines. Trust in God that he will answer our prayers to save our enemies. We are not called to fight with earthly weapons to save souls, we are called to fight with spiritual weapons such as prayer.

Thanksgiving?

Woo... Tis me blog debut...

This is perhaps too late a thought to be applied to Thanksgiving this year but maybe it can be something you look back to when we come upon Christmas, Easter and hopefully Thanksgiving of the coming year. As I was reading through the Old Testament, I came across an interesting verse.

“Ask all the people of the land and the priests, 'When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for me that you fasted? And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves? Are these not the words the Lord proclaimed through the earlier prophets when Jerusalem and it's other towns were at rest and prosperous, and the Negev and the surrounding foothills were settled?” (Zechariah 7:3-5)

This verse really jumped out to me. This was God's question to His people in the Old Testament and I think it can also be applied to Jesus' followers today.
In the Old Testament times and even within modern day Jewish communities they have certain months that are designated for feasts. We as Christians also have similar dates designated for community and family meals. When we get together for feasts, potlucks, Thanksgiving dinners, Christmas get-togethers, Easter meals, and all those other events, are we doing it for God? Are we meeting together to worship God and to get closer to Him? Or are we simply getting together for ourselves.
Now, there is nothing wrong with family gatherings or meeting with friends during that time but we should be doing these things for God and not only for ourselves. If we are only doing these things for ourselves we are not fulfilling what God wants us to do. We are either bieng greedy about our purposes or we are simply going through the motions of meaningless rituals.
I don't think that it is enough to simply pray before a meal, or pray once or twice during our gatherings. We need to be doing much more. We need to, within our hearts, our minds and our actions direct our focus to God. When we meet together for Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, or any other event we need to make God the focus. As Christians, should we not be doing these things, as we should be doing absolutely everything, for God?