“Show Some Love!”

“Show Some Love!”
I have been exposed to some gruesome stories concerning racial discrimination and the looking down of some people as being less human. It needed a “Papal Bull” wherein the Pope declared that Mexicans were human beings. This was at a time when Mexican civilization was far advanced than what obtained in Spain! It took inspired people like Bartholomew De La Casas to preach a bold sermon telling his Spanish countrymen that the Mexicans were as human as the Spaniards. Then followed the slave trade when it was discovered that the black Africans could be more resistant to hard manual labour under harsh conditions! With the abolition of slavery came racial segregation in the Americas to be followed by the discriminatory forced government of apartheid in SouthAfrica.
The bad side in all these was the hypocritical use of the Bible to justify all these inhuman treatment of others! Imagine that at the slave castle in Cape Coast, Ghana, underneath the chapel where white slave dealers gathered for worship, was a dungeon that contained hundreds of slaves, though the unventilated thick stone room should normally contain just a triple score of persons. While the preacherman was preaching from a text like, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar…” What hypocrisy!
The other day we said we cannot fulfil the commandment to love your neighbour as yourself if you live like an island. Love is not lip service, displaying “crocodile’s tears!” (The crocodile is said to be shedding tears while eating its prey).
Love is lived practically on a daily basis. Take the case of Lazarus and the rich man. The rich man would have lost nothing if he had taken good care of Lazarus. He neglected Lazarus, but his wealth did not stop him from dieing. Rather his lack of love contributed to his going to hell(Lk.16:19-31).
The faith we profess is motivated by love, generated by love, conditioned by love and must be lived in love.
Whatever protestant reasoning consider as Kantian moral basis being foundational to protestant thought, John first postulated it and gave it to us as a yardstick to live our faith. “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God lives in him… We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother”(I Jn.4:16b-21).
The world would’ve been better than it is if the practice of love was like a pandemic and contagious! We belong to one another and must be one another’s keeper.
Imagine that you may go to hell because you failed to correct a wayward brother and he died in his sins (Ez.3:16-21).
My friend, until you live and practice love, do not profane the name of the Lord to say you love God. God is love and to love him is to love your neighbour. Your actions reveal your thoughts and your thoughts show the world whether you love God with your lips or from the heart!
Prayer: Holy Spirit help me to demonstrate my love for God through actionable love to my brother/sister. Amen!
Have a blessed Sunday full of love in action. Peace be with you!