ForgottenWoman

Genuine Love Can Disagree

As someone who is passionate about truth and hates controversy…

As someone who believes what God says is truth, regardless of how I feel…

As someone who has faced intense anger this week because I questioned why a friend believes what she believes…

My heart and mind have been working in overdrive.

Did I mention that I hate controversy?

We live in a world of information, both true and false information at our fingertips.

We are bombarded with opinions daily – not only opinions of facts but opinions concerning what our beliefs say about us.

We are also surrounded by flying attacks from every angle, various agendas and passionate groups expressing and demanding that we agree with one another.

Unity is a word we often hear. Peace is another. Oh, and we can’t forget the big one: Love. Unbelievably, sometimes Jesus’ name is even thrown in the conversation – someone who disagrees with us demanding that Jesus would agree with them.

I realize that by posting the thoughts on my heart this morning, I’m setting myself up as a possible target for attacks, for assassination of my character, for belittling criticisms, and more. But, as I mentioned earlier, TRUTH has to be more important.

Ministering to others, offering help and Biblical counsel, working to provide comfort, companionship, and genuine love to others brings with it some challenges. How does genuine love respond when someone comes to you with ideas that are contrary to God’s Word?

I’ve seen it here on social media. Some who are believers go into attack mode, using the same tactics as unbelievers. Can we all agree that this is not genuine love? According to Scripture, I have to address the false ideas, but I need to do so compassionately, lovingly, and as clearly as possible. However, not everyone will receive it. The Bible tells us to “test the spirits.” In other words, we MUST question what we believe is of God. We MUST be able to back up what we are claiming to be from God with His Word. Not a single one of us has reached a spiritual level where this isn’t necessary.

So often, in my daily walk, something crazy will happen, something that seems miraculous will take place, and God will answer a desperate prayer outstandingly. Some of these things I can with certainty attribute to God working. (And I happen to believe that God is always working where I cannot see.) However, in my life, there will also be things that I think I see, that I think are the work of the Holy Spirit directing me… Some of these things I can not be so certain about – I may be creating ideas of my own. Does God work in mysterious ways? He certainly does. How do I know? Because He says so. 🙂 Are there things that happen in my life that I cannot explain other than, “God did that!”? Absolutely! BUT: some things happen in my life that are of my own making. There are circumstances in my life that are brought about because of coincidence or even my vivid imagination. When I want to tag something as “supernatural,” I must be willing to open God’s Word and determine if God’s Word backs up my thinking. If I ask you to do the same thing, I’m not asking you to do anything that I don’t require of myself, because God requires it of us. Supernatural happenings are things we believe are happening in the spirit world. God says, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” Am I saying that if you are claiming supernatural visions or knowledge, you are listening to Satan? No, I am saying that you may have been drawn into false teaching that is confusing your understanding. God is the one Who tells us that we MUST ask the questions and seek the answers in His Word.

What I know for sure is that God is not a God of confusion. He does not do things to confuse us. He does not tempt us to sin – again, He says so. He has given us the Holy Spirit to convict us of sin, to help us to understand His Word, to comfort us, and to guide us. He has also given us His written Word to communicate to us, where He used prophets in the days of old. We can study, fill our minds with it, and allow it to teach us what is true and what is not.

The bottom line is that if I genuinely love you, of course you are safe with me. You are safe to share your thoughts and your ideas. But if I genuinely love you, I will ask you why you believe your thoughts and ideas are from God. If I genuinely love you, I won’t support your lifestyle if I believe it is contrary to God’s Word. If I genuinely love you, I will lovingly explain to you why, while offering you my love, but withholding my support for your choices. I’ve done this for many years with my children. Because I genuinely love them, I never supported or cheered them on when they were doing wrong! Otherwise, they would have celebrated their wrong instead of correcting it.

I know this is a lot. My desire is to communicate to any of my readers that love between believers and love between unbelievers and believers, if genuine, is honest. If genuine, it encourages a pursuit of truth. If genuine, it offers love and understanding while kindly pointing to the truth. If genuine, it does all of this, realizing that showing genuine love sometimes comes at the price of hatred in return.

Scripture talks about iron sharpening iron. It talks about loving one another enough to discuss things that we don’t agree on. Not doing so leads to shallow relationships, connections that aren’t doing anyone any good and frankly, a waste of time. Don’t you want your interaction with others to have eternal effects?

Yes, I hate controversy, but I’m passionate about truth. And yes, I genuinely love you. If you are my brother or sister in Christ, I may sometimes disagree with you and ask that we both check our ideas against Scripture! If you are celebrating what you are calling Pride Month, I love you, and because I love you, I cannot support or celebrate something that I believe is wrong. And no, Jesus wouldn’t be celebrating either. And yes, He died because He loves you.