blinded by hatred (or, thoughts on "gospel")

i'm about to get wordy and undoubtedly repetitive, so you have my permission to close this window on the premise that soon you'll stop by for a cup of tea and wrestle through these ideas and truths with me. until then...

i see it more often than not. we, and by we i mean the whole human race, begin with good intent. intent to end abortion, drug abuse, slavery and the many other things that threaten to destroy our idea of security and most importantly our sense of control. we set ourselves against "evil" giving it the face of those who participate in it.
*note: i was going to mention a few groups of friends with opposing views who regularly share with me their distaste for those not are like them but i fear it may be just as detrimental for me mention as it is for them to share ( i hope that made even a smallest bit of sense to someone) hopefully you can arrive at the conclusion i've drawn without those examples.

the thing is, we did not simply lose a life a ease in the garden, but our identity as a humanity made in the image of God and with it our ability to plainly see that image in each other. so then the passiveness with which we approach seeds of dissension is what destroys us. it breeds a hatred that condones our refusal to see our fellow man as anything less than sacred. worse, it denies that we ourselves are sacred beings, and being so deceived we fail to do what is sacred and good. so our good intent becomes a power struggle, we refuse to give good even at the expense of denying it to ourselves.
the gospel of matthew records Jesus' words to the pharisees, "Woe to you,...you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to"
though we fool ourselves into thinking that this is for our (the individual, not the whole) gain, what we do is join forces with our enemy by sinning against each other. we may not do it outwardly (gossip, bitterness, ill-wishes, abuse committed in secret and, yes, even speaking in a condescending manner) but that only makes us “white washed tombs.”
whenever the gospels tell of Jesus speaking angrily to the religious leaders and teachers of the law, they follow it by saying that He was grieved by the condition of their hearts. They were, in their day, the persons who were most closely associated with God and still were not able to see each life as He did. i’d liken it to a man in love with a woman he finds ravishing, whose brother fails to notice her beauty. or further, unaware of his brothers unwavering love and commitment to him, lets jealousy take root and denies her any respect. it would leave him unnerved, grieved, unsettled at least and would incontestably cause him to respond in exasperated anger.

we have been lied to. we’ve been told we are worthless, slaves, powerless, vagabonds, without purpose, unloved. we’ve been gulled into giving up our true identity and left to strip others of theirs in order to regain a (false) sense of an identity that was never meant for us.
here’s the kicker, our identity cannot be taken from us, “for I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (the love of God is what marks us as His) but we give it up when we believe any of the lies that threaten our “son-ship”

in saying to Jesus, "if you are the Son of God...", Satan was not tempting Him with power, fame or even the instant gratification of a stomach filled, but rather, attempting to destroy the whole of His identity. the things Satan offered were already His. had He doubted that and pledged loyalty to Satan His identity would no longer be “Son of God” but subject of Satan. But He didn’t because he knew his authority, He knew His Father.

so this is the gospel, that we are His (and He will fight to remind us of this) and that He came to redeem humanity both to Himself and itself. correct me if you find fault in what I say, but the gospel of Christ is not one of elitism, it is not an us-against-them gospel, nor it is a Johnny-be-good gospel. what he said and did always pointed to the truth that we have been made by God, for God and that we are heirs of a kingdom in which we are priests and kings, a kingdom that cannot be taken, though when we fail to understand its weight and value, it can be given up, and that too easily.

We have been lied to by a power who is not a co-heir and therefore wishes to keep us from inheriting its fullness. It tells us we are worthless, slaves, powerless, unloved, without purpose. it shows us wealth and positions of power, promising them at the cost of our allegiance to its gross version of our true home.
But though we’ve believed it we are not left to die in it. there is a small whisper begging us to see with eyes unmuddied that we are valued by the very force that spoke our world and bodies into existence, to hear with “ears less hollow” that we have a hope and that none of us is exempt from the redemption that Christ died to bring.

Our remedy lies in letting go of hatred, pity, our belief that some are better or more worth, and our ignorant allowance of the devaluing of any human life. Our redemption lies in taking hold of our home and refusing to believe that we are anything less than sons and daughters, priests and kings.

we are all His
we are all His