Hey y’all. Tonight I am going to do something a little different … I am going to paraphrase or downright plagerize some things from my pastor’s sermon this past Sunday. I have made no secret of the fact that I like, admire & respect my pastor. In case you don’t know him, his name is Eric … here on the blog, I normally refer to him as mr. preacher man. If you’ve never met Eric, he does not look like one’s typical preacher. Don’t get me wrong, on Sunday’s he sports a suit nicely (his beautiful wife, Anita, has excellant taste in clothes) but if you see him thru the week you would probably not think to yourself “there goes a preacher” simply by how he looks. But this part I really like, there is such a difference in being a “preacher” and truly being “a man of God” in my humble opinion, Eric is the latter. I could probably preach you a good sermon, you might even believe part of what I say, in fact, I think most people preach alot more than they might like to think. Being a man of God is a completely different thing. I’ts living what you say from the pulpit, it’s being a leader in your church & community, it’s loving your family & your church family even on their ugliest days & so much more. He’s got those things covered. He is not perfect, he doesn’t pretend to be (luckily for him, Anita makes up for a lot of his imperfectness). I don’t say any of those things to make him or anyone else say “well how nice” I say them because they are true & I am a big fan of truth. So here is some truth for ya … straight from our Sunday sermon … God has commanded us to love one another. NO melinda, surely not! I lie you not, He did. You can find that thru out the Bible, but Sunday we concentrated on 1st John chapter 4 starting in verse 19 … let me just tell you what it says “we love because he first loved us. If anyone says “I love God” yet hates his brother, he is a liar”. Well there ya have it. I have looked & looked & for the life of me cannot find the part where it says “if you don’t agree with your brother than it’s ok not to love him, or if he is tall, skinny, short, fat, bald, straight, gay, ugly, foreign, purple, blue or black or any other condition”, that it’s ok for you to not love him. Maybe there is a Bible scholar reading who is way smarter than me, which would not be a huge leap, who can point me in the general directon of those verses in the Bible cause I seem to be overlooking them. Btw, I said those things, not Eric, he is much too kind. So here is the gist of the sermon, how can I say “I love God” (replace I with you or we, either will work fine) if I hate other people? Or maybe not even hate them but do not show love toward them or for them. How will anyone know I am set apart as a Christian? If I use bad language (and I will openly admit I still struggle with this one on a daily basis) how am I expressing brotherly love toward other people, & please note I said other people, not exclusively other Christians. If I gossip & purposely or unpurposely cause discord among others, how am I showing brotherly love? If I encourage hate or discrimination toward others, how am I showing brotherly love? If I simply sit on my overly fed fanny & do nothing for people around me that I know need help, how am I showing brotherly love? I could go on forever about things I (we) don’t do that we are Biblicaly commanded to do. If I (we) are being honest … we all struggle with at least some of the things mentioned above & if I (we) continue to be honest, the truth is … it’s just much easier to take care of me & mine (yours & yours) than to reach out to our brothers. Why is it easier to do nothing? It’s a simple answer, because it takes effort on our part to step out of our comfort zones, we might have to associate with people we consider to be less valuable than ouselves, me might get dirty they might rub off on us. But if you pay close attention to what the Bible says, you will see that Jesus, Himself, spent the majority of his time on earth with sinners & what the people of his day considered the less than desirable crowd. So now let me be very honest, I am as guilty or maybe more guilty than any one I know of not showing brotherly love on a vast basis. Oh, I am good at the easy lovin’ stuff, like my family, my friends … but I pretty much suck at the over all showing of some brotherly love. That being said, this week, I want to challenge myself (and you, if you’re brave enough) to do something completely out of the ordinary in the relm of showing brotherly love … it is my goal to commit some random act of kindness toward someone else. I do not mean you need to go join the peace corp or move to India to be a missionary, unless you feel lead by God to do so, what I mean is … take some food to a food pantry (if your church doesn’t have one, mine does, bring it by work & I’ll gladly drop it off), offer to babysit for someone who just needs a break, send someone a nice card or call an old friend or a new one. Volunteer or donate at our pregnancy crisis center or a soup kitchen … you are smart peeps, you can think of something. But mostly, this is what I want you to think of this week, right along with me, when I open my mouth at work, to my family or the telemarketer who calls me at dinner … be kind, say something nice & try your best to mean it. Who knows what might happen? Maybe the world will implode, maybe the sky will fall or maybe you will make someone’s day just a bit better, maybe someone will not go to bed hungry or cold tonight because of your kindness. I don’t know, but I can tell you this much … I plan to find out!

and just for fun, what verse is the title of this post a portion of?

me.

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