Test everything. Hold on to the good. 1 Thessalonians 5:21.

You have hard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Matthew 5:43-45.

“Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip?” John 14:9.

I listen carefully to what God the Lord is saying, for He speaks peace to His faithful people. But let them not return to their foolish ways. Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him, so our land will be filled with His glory. Unfailing love and truth have met together. Righteousness and peace have kissed! Psalm 85:8-10.

And continuing our 351 Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in Jesus Christ, we come to number 11: The Lamb of God promised. Genesis 22:8: Abraham said, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” So the two of them walked on together. And, John 1:29: The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

Last night in a Home Group Bible Study, we talked about the verse in Matthew where Jesus was telling people how to live radically different from the way they were currently believing was good and necessary and had been taught. He was upending everything. You have heard that it was said. And how easy it is to hate those who we deem personally or collectively to be enemies. And today we hate others because of their politics, their ideology, their religion. And what do we gain in our hate for others? Fear. As we talked about last night, whose authority do we ultimately come under – because that’s a question we must answer. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Jesus made it personal. I say to you. In the devotional for Women by Ann Spangler cited above, I love this psalm…I listen carefully to what God the Lord is saying, for He speaks peace to His faithful people…unfailing love and truth have met together…righteousness and peace have kissed! In the body of the devotional, she said, “I ask the question because the priceless peace we seek comes only from following the ways of God, which may not always feel easy.” And the difficult and uneasy part she spoke to me? “The woman who is worried about her children will need to learn how to surrender them to God’s care.” Until we realize that Creator God – Father, Son, Spirit, is as real as are our own children and everyone else’s children, how can Jesus the Son not say to us, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me?” When we take God’s hand and read His word with His help, and sit with Him in sacred quiet to listen as He speaks to our spirit, everything shifts. God is no longer an idea or a being far removed from us. He came down to live with us as one of us and never stopped being God. He needed to. Look at how far removed we are from all that Jesus Himself taught the people then – and teaches us today in His word. There is no room for politics in the love of God. There is no room for ideology we create in the love of God. There is no room for religion that crowds out what God Himself teaches us in the love of God. And He speaks to each one of us because we each of us need to hear and understand. Loving God is how we are removed from the pull of hate. Others may hate us. Pray for them for God’s love to touch them personally. Everything goes back to God and our need for Him. Every day. It is possible to let go of hate and to let God’s love begin its needed work in us. Test everything! Hold on to the Good! Unfailing love and truth meet together and righteousness and peace have kissed! We will not find that in our fractured world. We find that in Creator God and His love for us. He is the authority on what is Truth and what is Love and for all that is needed.