The Enemy Within

Something amazing happened to me today.  Before I go too much further let me confess a couple things.  I am a geek/nerd in disguise and I have some neanderthal tendencies in life.  Clash of clans is a borderline addiction for me.  I fell into a great group of people who love Christ and enjoy playing this game together.  As part of the game we play against other teams (clans) on a regular basis.  The last team we played made it quite clear they were not too fond of our faithful stance on life.  Using their bases to communicate some pretty strong messages.  So foul in fact I had to report them.  In our group we have teens and pre-teens and what the other clan was communicating was clearly not appropriate.  

We lost the game against these neanderthals and they continued to taunt us…something about Jesus being on their side.  So I left our clan and joined theirs.  Before I left we had one guy cursing them in an unintelligible language, we had people battening down the hatches, pulling up the draw-bridges, and closing off the castle.  It was a hunkering down isolationist type of attitude…keep the enemy out mindset.

The first thing I want to address in this…when I jumped clans…those neanderthals welcomed me with open arms.  Chatted me up like I was the best thing since sliced bread.  Laughed with me, chided me, and accepted me as one of their own after they deemed me “cool”.  

What bothered me most in this and what I found so amazing is the Christians were acting like the neanderthals…and the neanderthals were acting like Christians.  Full confession…I was one of the neanderthals posing as a Christian.  The past 24 hours I have spent time in 1 Corinthians 13.  Love.  Love Love. As Christians we have to lead with love.  God is quite clear that we we are nothing to him but an annoyance unless we lead with love.   Even though we may have differences of opinion on the standards of life…those who have a different (and by different I mean lower) standard should not be seen as the enemy.  In fact if you do a deep study of Matthew 5:38-48 you can discover this truth that works hand in hand with 1 Corinthians 13.  The Christian does not have an enemy.  There should be be no us vs. them mentality in the Christian.  Those that are not yet followers of Christ are still God’s creation (kids)…and if they do not see themselves as His own,the Christian is called to an even higher standard of being Christ to them.  So no matter how we consider people who are not followers of Christ, no matter how their behaviour and how low their standard…"Enemy" is never a description nor attitude we should put on.    

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