Every day in America it seems as if we are creeping closer and closer to some kind of disaster involving North Korea. We have two heads of countries behaving like children playing a game of tit for tat. North Korea has a population of about 25 million people, which is about the same population as Madagascar, or Austrailia. The countries rank this way regarding population: Austrailia is 53rd, North Korea is 52nd, and Madagascar is 51st. The United States is 3rd, with a population of 326 million, 300 million more than North Korea. China, the world’s most populated country has almost one billion four hundred million residents. India is a close second with one billion three hundred million. [These are 2017 statistics courtesy of WorldOMeters.]
China has spoken out about the rhetoric and appears to be attempting to tone things down, but where is India? Why haven’t we heard from the leader of India or other countries? We are ALL sharing this planet! What is going on between Trump and Kim Jong Un impacts all of us! This is no time for isolationism.
One can only imply that reason for the lack of response from other world leaders and spiritual leaders is that everyone fears the wrath of Trump. The man is known for making his opponents miserable. Long before he took office, he had a reputation of destroying people’s careers and lives with his vindictive and malicious behavior.
So, perhaps it’s no wonder that people are not speaking out. It’s sad though because the world needs some heroes, right now! So far, no heroes have arrived or shown themselves. Every day we seem to be spiraling downward, downward, downward to some kind of crash of the spirit, to some black moment, it’s as if America is living a collective dark night of the soul.
On August 9th we took another step, a rather large step, closer to the darkness when an evangelistic megachurch pastor in Texas suggested that Trump has God’s moral authority to kill Kim Jong Un.
I wrote an extensive article about this “pastor” Robert Jeffress’ misrepresentation of Romans 13 in this article that appears on the Eat Pray Vote website, When the Bible and Politics Collide – Beware an Angry God.
In short what Mr. Jeffress did was to take a single line out of the beginning of Romans 13, which when read as a stand-alone misleads the reader as to the intent and meaning behind the words.
When we study Romans 13 in its entirely, we discover that it goes on to summarize the 10 Commandments, telling us to love our neighbors, not to covet, not to murder, not to be an adulterer, not to bear false witness (lie). And finally:
“Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”
So, wait a minute. How can the “pastor’s” statement that Trump can kill Kim Jong Un marry with the quote above? If love is the fulfillment of the law, then isn’t THAT what we should be doing with each other, the United States and North Korea?
I know what you’re thinking: “But, we don’t love North Korea.” Why not? Because we judge them. Because we’ve decided that we know better what they should do, how they should be. We don’t love them because they are different from us.
Why not? Because we judge them. Because we’ve decided that we know better what they should do, how they should be. We don’t love them because they are different from us.
Because we judge them. Because we’ve decided that we know better what they should do, how they should be. We don’t love them because they are different from us.
Really, the truth of the matter is, we don’t love them because we don’t know how.
The irony of Mr. Jeffress’ misleading interpretation of Romans 13 is that Romans 13 contains the instruction on how to love just a few passages later!
It’s helpful to remember that Romans 13 was written by the Apostle Paul, who was first Saul, a despicable human being who killed Jews and was malicious in nature and despised by many. It wasn’t until Saul experienced the agony of blindness for 3 days and then the miracle of healing that Saul awoke to divinity and his connection with Source. Saul was immediately baptized, and he became the Apostle Paul.
In the final stanzas of Romans 13, Paul writes:
Put on Christ
11 And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. 12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. 13 Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.
So, when Paul says “Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light,” what he’s referring to is his former self. The darkness that he was. When Saul embodied Jesus and became Paul, he put on the armor of light.
So, the actual message of Romans 13 is become the love of God by embodying Christ.
There may have never been as dangerous an out of context comment like the one made on August 10, 2017, by Robert Jeffress.
Let us ALL do as Paul suggests, and embody the love of God and Jesus Christ, of Buddha, of Muhammad or any other spiritual leader, all of whom teach the same message: LOVE.
We need to find our way back to our beginnings to our roots because we exist only because of love. Without love, nothing that we see or know would exist. Love is the creative force of the Universe; it is, in fact, the only energy of the Universe. There is nothing else. The things you think exist like “evil” are in fact nothing more than a lack of love.
So, as you go about your day, try to keep that thought in mind. If it doesn’t look like love, it’s nothing more than a lack of love.
It’s a place to start. Perhaps when we find our way back to love, we will find our voices to speak up.
As always, thank you for reading and please don’t forget to insist on love, first from yourself for yourself and then from yourself for others! #InsistOnLove
Namaste’
