Christianity Is ONLY About "Love and Peace"? Not Quite...

As I grew up in the Christian faith quite often I heard my pastor and Sunday School teachers say that "God is love".  I also learned early on one of the most famous Bible verses of all time: John 3:16, which says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son..."  Whenever I had conflicts with other kids at school my parents would tell me to turn the other cheek and love my enemies as Jesus loved those that persecuted him.

After a while I wondered if God ever got angry, jealous, or maybe even sad.  With so much talk of "love" I felt like I was sinning if I ever became furious with others or felt indignant at injustices that I saw.  Often I found myself thinking that if God created us in his image why did I have such a wide range of emotions?  I began exploring the Bible to see if I could gain a better understanding of God and learn about his range of feelings.  Wow was I surprised.

One of the first instances I found of God expressing "negative" emotions was found in Exodus 20:5.  God flat out says in this verse - "Hey, I am a jealous Creator!  If you have any other gods before me I am going to punish you, your children, your grandchildren, and maybe even your great grandchildren!"  In Deuteronomy 7:1-6, God was so disgusted with the sinful ways of the Canaanites that he ordered the people of Israel to commit genocide (kill every man, woman, and child) on that entire nation!  In John 11:35, Jesus wept at the death of his good friend Lazarus even though he KNEW that he would bring him back from death.

God gave all of us a wide range of emotions so that we could understand and react to the world in the same ways the he does.

In our modern society we are seeing an enormous amount of apostasy.  We see millions of innocent children murdered (aborted) each year, the steady creep of the abomination of homosexuality (Leviticus 18, 20), corruption of children, and a breakdown of morality in general.  Are we supposed to sit by and just "love" the people who are so lost in sin without warning them of the consequences?  The answer is no.  Without taking a position of superiority (all humans are sinners and equally lost in the eyes of God), we must confront the sins that we see head-on.  We must angrily oppose the encroachment of sin and apostasy in towns and nation because, in many cases, we are the last bastion of resistance to evil in this world.

To gain some small understanding of what a world would be like without Christians we would suggest the "Left Behind" book series.

Any Christian that takes a stand today in America is immediately plastered with labels: "Bigot", "Homophobe", "Islamophobe", "Racist", "Hater".  Apostates love to hold Christians to an impossible standard.  They misrepresent Christ as a tree-hugging, flower wearing communist who walked around Israel blowing kisses to his enemies.  This is just a ploy to not only diminish the greatness of Christ but to "disarm" Christians and make them stop resisting.  Unfortunately this tactic has been all too effective as congregation after congregation has compromised itself into a separation from Jesus and his teachings.

God hates sin - Proverbs 6:16-19.  As Christians we know that God loves us unconditionally but has made it clear in the most straightforward way that there is such a thing as right and wrong.  We should profess love and desire peace but have been commanded by God to oppose sin everywhere - both within ourselves and in the world.  Christianity is first and foremost about sin, repentance, and redemption.  Love and peace without salvation is the hollowest of gifts.