Love, Peace, and Sooooooouuuuuullll

“Let the first act of every morning be to make the following resolve for the day:

- I shall not fear anyone on Earth.
- I shall fear only God.
- I shall not bear ill will toward anyone.
- I shall not submit to injustice from anyone.
- I shall conquer untruth by truth. And in resisting untruth, I shall put up with all suffering.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

"I'm Don Cornelius, and as always in parting, we wish you love, peace and soul!"- Don Cornelius

Love and Peace is more than a phrase said in the 60's and 70's. It's a phrase that's throughout the bible. I was reading this unique chapter of the bible and the subject matter of it caught my attention. The title read "What Christians Should Do. Living the New Life." Amazing I thought. I finally found a "How to" book. LOL Sort of. It was Colossians Chap. 3. The verse that stood out the most was:

¹⁵ And let the peace (soul harmony which comes) from Christ rule (act as umpire continually) in your hearts [deciding and settling with finality all questions that arise in your minds, in that peaceful state] to which as [members of Christ’s] one body you were also called [to live]. And be thankful (appreciative), [giving praise to God always].

What it was saying is that Christians should live in peace. It doesn't mean that suddenly all differences of opinion are eliminated, but it does require that loving Christians work together despite their differences. Please be inclined to read the whole chapter. Verse 13:

 ¹³ Be gentle and forbearing with one another and, if one has a difference (a grievance or complaint) against another, readily pardoning each other; even as the Lord has [freely] forgiven you, so must you also [forgive].

States that the key to forgiving others is remembering how much God has forgiven you. Let God worry about the wrongs you suffered. My constant phrase whenever I am team building or teaching is that we need to be effective also. Not just right. When you are going through your trials and tribulations, we need a team. God, Jesus, and you are a great team, but also understand that God has also put other teammates for you out there to get the win. Not all teams work out in the beginning, but all have the ability to be champions. Every component is important. 

Without peace in your own heart, you can never grow to become anything more than what you are then. You cannot truly love without peace. You cannot move on when you are stuck on what angered you. There is no place in the Kingdom of God for hedonistic sexual experimentation or for gossip, rage, and back-biting. All those things cause a stir within you as well as a in your Christianity. Think of it as the story of the mosquito. In this story, the mosquito tells a lie which sets off a series of cause and effect events that affect all of the other animal characters in the story. The animals are each called in turn to tell their side of the story to the Lion until he learns that the problem can be traced back to the mosquito. In the end, the mosquito dies trying to spread gossip to a farmer who smacks him. Gossip cause distractions. God is in reference to the farmer. He was there to bring it to an end.

So we look at the title of my story and see the it is love, peace, and soul. We need to love one another in order to find peace to save our spirit (soul) from not reaching the Kingdom of heaven. I thought it was a big thing to hear Don say that catchphrase. Lets move forward in our lives and not become stagnant in hatred and animosities. If we cannot not love each other, how can we fully understand how God can love us.

Stay blessed.