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America - Who We Really Are!Let’s keep our perspective!By Paul Hayden August 21, 2017 I recently saw this on a Facebook post - August 2017 – author unknown, concerning the recent violence at Charlottesville, VA.
“Here is what I learned about America over the weekend. After 6 months of organization and promotion, the ‘largest white supremacist gathering in decades’ drew only several hundred sick puppies from around the country on Saturday. Several hundred. And on Sunday, 52 million Americans went to church – where everyone is welcomed and we all drink from the same cup. 62 million Americans volunteer in any given year, and 83% of American adults give to charity. And 145 million Americans went to work today – where people of every race, gender, ethnicity, religious belief, orientation, and ability get along just fine. America is not those few hundreds who hate; it is those tens of millions who don’t. Let’s keep our perspective.”
(End of post.)
Something that has been made real to me over several decades pertains to loving God, which is the greatest commandment of all, according to Jesus:
"If you do not love God with your whole heart, then you will love something or someone else more than you love Him.
But if you DO love God with your whole heart, you can never love anyone or anything else too much!" It says in the Christian Bible that "We love because He first loved us." (I John 4:19) Love does not originate within us, but rather originates in God. The living God loves each one of us more than we can ever fully know. We can reflect that love. We are blessed if we know that love in any measure. There is power in love. Love comes out of truth. Love of the truth is itself empowering - it aligns you with the living God, the source of all love and truth. Love and truth ARE reality - not "a reality," but reality itself is love and truth. This whole passage from the Bible/New Testament would be most helpful in observing and understanding many recent events, including the weekend of August 12-13, 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia. It can truly help understanding all of life itself.
I John, Chapter 4
1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. 4 You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. 5 They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. 7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14 We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. 19 We love, because He first loved us. 20 If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also. (New American Standard Bible) NOTE TO EVERYONE: Keep doing what you know is right. Take responsibility. Help one another. Stand up for what is right, and good, and true. Love one another! Paul Hayden - 8-19-2017 (P.S. Try reading the Bible, especially the New Testament. It is filled with truth, applicable to every situation in life that you will come across!)
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 Paul Hayden is a Christian believer, and an American patriot, necessarily in that order. He is a student of the Bible, and is avidly interested in our role in the context of history, as understood through the heart and eyes of faith. Paul has lived and traveled somewhat widely, and now lives in the heartland of the U.S. (central Illinois), with his wife Donna - they have five grown children. Since December of 2016, he serves as the Editor-in-Chief of www.ConservativeTruth.org."I was raised by a Christian minister, Kenneth Hayden, until his death when I was 10. Then my mom married a farmer. So I was raised in a very down-to-earth home. My faith has grown through the years, but both in conjunction with the institutional church and through small groups and individuals, including books as well as group settings, where deep, sincere faith is shared that aligns with Biblical truth."
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