Christian Living

---

John 13:34-35 records Jesus saying “A new command I give you: love one another. So you must love another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Christians are supposed to be marked by our love for God, and pour love for each other. However, in today’s society Christians are mostly known for what they oppose instead of their love for one another. What most Christians oppose are not bad things to oppose, but if we are not known for our love then we are not obeying Jesus’ command to love one another.

Let me explain what I am trying to say by using example from my personal life. Being a person with a disability, I am a huge proponent of disabled rights. It is my belief that people with disabilities are one of the most, if not the most, discriminated group in the world. Most people with disabilities face discrimination every day. I feel the need to shout from every roof top I can find that people with disabilities, my people, deserve the same rights and respect as all other people do. I want to march on Washington and chain myself to the White House gates if that is what I have to do to get people to listen and understand that discrimination against people is real and needs to stop. However, if I try to solve this problem with anger, I will not only not get very far, I will also not be obeying Jesus’ command to love and to be known by my love.

I have yet to figure out how this is going to look, but when I die I want people to say that I fought for the rights of people with disabilities with love. How do you fight with love? That is a very good question. Like I said, I am still trying to figure out what this looks like, but I think I know where to start. I think one begins to fight with love by first showing compassion and forgiveness to those who oppose you. Even though people who make rude and thoughtless comments make me angry, I cannot respond in anger. Ephesians 4:26 says “In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry.” This verse tells us that anger in itself is not a sin, but it is in our reaction to our anger that we often sin. In my case, this means that when someone tramples on the rights of people with disabilities, I must not sin when I respond to them. I must respond in love. Does this mean that I just forgive and move on? NO!! This means that I must find ways to lovingly point out where the ones who discriminated people with disabilities have wronged my people, and work with them to make things right.

So let me start here. I want to publicly forgive those who have made fun of me, stared at me, made rude comments to me, and/or discriminated against me. I know that is often fear and/or lack of knowledge of disabilities and how they affect those who have them that leads to different types of discrimination of people with disabilities. It pains me that our schools, churches, and parents have not done a good job teaching society the people with disabilities are valued parts of society, but that does not give me the right to respond in anger. I am sorry if I have ever responded in anger to any insult of act of discrimination. I am a follower of Christ, and I should have found a way to responds in love. Please accept my apology, and join me in working together in forming a society where everyone obeys the new command that Jesus gave. Let’s move on from our painful pass and create a society that is based on love and mutual respect for one another.

You may think that I am living in a dream world if I expect to make our society a society of love, but I really just want Christians to obey the command of Jesus. I believe that if all Christians obey this simple command, we can and will change society as a whole. If you think this is impossible, please remember that all things are possible with God!

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE