Save Souls, Don't Oppress Them!

Sunday's Devotion (1-16-05)

"Ye shall not therefore oppress one another; but thou shalt fear thy God: for I am the LORD your God." Leviticus 25:17 (KJV)

Let's look at the meaning of the word, "Oppress". "1 a archaic : SUPPRESS b : to crush or burden by abuse of power or authority 2 : to burden spiritually or mentally : weigh heavily upon" Thanks to www.Webster.com for the definition. Oppression is a very bad thing to do to someone, but yet a lot of us are guilty of this sin each and every day. People hold each other down and they also put so many burdens on a person that they can't take it. Communism is an example of oppression. People who rule over other people and control their lives and make their lives miserable is communism and oppression. Some people who follow Christ, will take people in if the people live by their rules. There's nothing wrong with that, but some of the rules are so controlling and so horrible that it burdens these people and it doesn't bring them closer to God, but further away. Some of these places will tell the people stuff like, "You can only listen to Christian music.". Christian music is good and it's all I listen to, I recommend it to people, but I don't believe in forcing things on people. You can't make someone's heart worship God, you can make it so the outside of the person looks as if it is worshipping, but you can't make the actual heart worship. Some Christians are guilty of oppression and I am sure they don't mean to do it, but they are doing it in so many ways. We need to live right and teach right, but we can not force people to do as we want them to do. Even God, follows by this: Sin was brought into the world by Satan, but it was brought so we would have freedom of choice. God, doesn't want people to love Him because they have to love Him, but because they want to love Him!

Us followers are also being oppressed each and every day. You have people being persecuted and even murdered for the sake of Christ. The human race causes each other so many burdens. The sin of oppression covers so many different things: Stealing, hatred, adultery and anything where we are causing another person pain. Right now in America the courts are being used to oppress the followers of Christ. We've heard of lawsuits where people want, "Under God" taken out of the pledge and where a woman was restricted from having Christmas decorations in her yard. This is all wrong!

What's the point of today's message? I believe in a perfect balance in all things. I believe that we need to share a message of God's love to others and save others without oppressing others. I believe that we can't save souls by oppressing souls! I believe that we need to love everyone and not oppress them. Let's go back to that perfect example of the other day where the two boys attacked the Satanist with a metal club. That is oppression. Instead of oppressing the Satanist with a club they should've displayed the love of God, that would've been much more effective. We need to save souls, not oppress them!

Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this message and for all things. Please forgive us of all our sins and we forgive all those who've wronged us. Please help us to love one another and not to oppress each other. Help us to display your perfect love and to save many souls. In Jesus, name. A-men!

God bless!

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