As believers, I see our reactions gravitate towards either anger or despondency at the audacity of people who openly and unashamedly refuse to acknowledge the existence and power of a God whom we love and have such great reverence for and I wonder if perhaps we could find another way to look at it; another way to respond.

When I was younger I prided myself in the fact that I did not allow myself to have any relations, even acquaintance with anyone who was not born again. I lived such a sheltered life that as I grew up,I did not know how to react when someone even dared to challenge what I believed and why I believed what I believed. It wasn't that I did not share my faith, I did, I just took it very personally when people questioned the reason for my faith; which usually ended with me crawling under my blanket and crying for days or turning the other direction and making sure I don’t have to face the question again.

Jesus looked at him and loved him...

In Mark 10, the bible gives a story about a young man who for the love of all he had, refused what Jesus was offering him and the bible continues to say that Jesus loved him. Jesus loved this man who symbolized everything that He had come to challenge on this earth; Jesus saw and knew the state of this man’s heart and still tried to win him over to the Kingdom. Jesus loved him even as he watched him turn and walk away; basically he was saying that what Jesus offered was not worth losing everything he owned. But Jesus loved him.

This is where I ask myself, what fills my heart when someone else challenges the reason for my existence; when someone challenges the very thing that I consider my centre?

Fear?

Dread?

Anger?

Hate?

The world we leave in today has forces at play that out-rightly contradict what we know to be biblical truth; every day we will be faced with people who don’t believe what we believe, who make a mockery of our faith and our God, who celebrate the idea of a life without God, but how should we respond to them?

Now,I am smart enough to know when a task is beyond me, but I know of one who was able to love those who hated Him, those who challenged Him and those who spit on Him and despised Him; some He won over while others made it their life purpose to see Him die on the cross; but He loved them, even at the cross. How about we ask Him how He did it? How about we ask Him to fill our hearts with the kind of love He had? Let us ask Him to teach us to love like He did, to season our words with love. So that our anger would be mellowed with this love and our fear will find courage in Him who went ahead of us.

At the Saturday PM, we have opened our doors to all people from all backgrounds and world views. People who have been taught different things about God, people who acknowledge him and people who don’t; our mission for these people is to love them. Jesus asks us to love them.

In the wake of this celebration of a life without God; let us pray that Jesus will continue helping us as believers to respond like He did, with love and not fear or anger or panic.