Christians, Be Careful With Your Words!

Matthew 5:44

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you…

Luke 6:27

But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you…

1 John 3:15

Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.

1 John 4:20

If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God Whom he hath not seen…

I have been reading on social media for the last week quite a bit of vitriol directed towards the President of the United States. And though it has been disturbing, this is nothing new; people are always saying cruel and untrue things about the President. I make it a point not to read most of it. I don’t have much of a tolerance for that kind of media. I prefer to interact and associate myself with people who are positive, at least, and pleasant, at best.

What disturbs me so much about what I have been reading is not that it is cruelty towards the President; it is that it is cruelty towards the President coming from those who claim the Name of Christ. Believers in the LORD Jesus…people who have the Name of the LORD and passages of scripture plastered all over their social media profiles are the ones who are calling for terrible things to happen to our Commander In Chief.

Believers, hear me: you cannot be the light of the world while walking in darkness! Hating the President, wishing that the virus would take his life, rejoicing at seeing him admitted to the hospital…these are things that the wicked one would do. The Bible is clear when it tells us to “...love your enemies...” You may think that the President is the worst person in the world. You may look at his past and be able to count every one of his sins. What you cannot do is hold within your heart hatred for him, and continue to think that you are walking according to the Spirit of God.

For eight years, we were under the authority of a man named Barack Hussein Obama. To be honest, I cringe when I even have to say his name. His name reminds me of a person that exacted great atrocities against America and the world, and his name was Saddam Hussein. Barack Obama had to be the most undeserving President who has ever worked in the White House. He attended a church for more than 20 years with a Black Liberation Theologist as its pastor. He criticized the state of North Carolina, my home state, for voting in 2009, that marriage was between one man and one woman. He said we set civil rights back 50 years with our vote. He was awarded the Margaret Sanger award at a Planned Parenthood facility for his work in keeping abortion legal for women. He sent US taxpayers’ dollars to other countries to fund their abortion centers. He started the race war in which we are embroiled right now when he made statements concerning the death of a young man in Florida named Trayvon Martin. He treated the Prime Minister of Israel like he was something you scrape off of the bottom of your shoe. He gave our military men and women pink slips while they were on the ground in Afghanistan. He defunded the military! He started the whole “defund the police” movement.

I watched these and many other things that he did for eight years. Almost every day of those eight years, I prayed for Barack Obama’s salvation. I talked to the LORD about him regularly. I asked the LORD to change his heart and bring him to the saving knowledge of the LORD Jesus Christ.

Please don’t think that I think I am the standard. I am not. Paul said in 1 Timothy 1:15, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.” If we could re-write scripture, I would have to demand that Paul put my name in that verse! I only use myself as an example because I did not like any of the things that the former President did before he got into office or while he was there. But never once did I rejoice if I heard that he was sick or not feeling well. Never once did I wish death on him. As a matter of fact, I did not want to see him die in his sin because he would spend all eternity in a flaming hell. I know that eternity is a long time and I don’t want even my worst enemy to suffer those consequences.

Do Christians in 2020 afford Mr. Trump the same courtesy? NO. Christians go on social media and say some of the most hateful things about him and in response to his posts. Christians who are reading these words, if you are guilty: STOP IT! The Bible is clear that if you hate your brother, you are no better than a murderer. You are, in essence, just like the world which you are here to evangelize. They are walking in darkness and you are supposed to be the light. How can you show the light of Christ to someone and you are the same as that person?

I heard this story many years ago. A lady at my church said she was caught in bumper to bumper traffic in New York City. She was going to make a right turn, but traffic in front of her hindered her from turning. The man in the car behind her obviously became frustrated, and started blowing his horn as loudly as he could. She said she instantly became frustrated and put her hand out of her window, extending to him her middle finger. She said as soon as she did it, she felt guilty. She said she drew her hand back in the window and started asking God to forgive her. She said she thought about it, and knew that if she encountered that man on the street somewhere, and tried to give him the gospel, he might not listen to her if he recognized her from when she gave him the finger at the traffic light. And she is right. The world does not want to hear from us when we behave the same way they do.

I have no expectations of ever meeting Mr. Trump in person, but in the event that I do, I want my witness to be such that if I have the opportunity to share the Gospel with him, he will be happy to listen to me because there is nothing to make me seem like a hypocrite in his eyes. Each one of us should want the same kind of witness with everyone we encounter, because we may be the one who has to give the Gospel to that person.

I know I have rambled on in this post, because I am passionate about this topic, but let me conclude with this: Mathew 5:16 says “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” Let the light of Christ shine in you when you are in person or on social media. Give the world something to aspire to…try to be the magnet that draws someone to Christ. Let the words you speak and the words you post be salt and light…