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Love...believes all things…

(1 Corinthians 13:7)
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I had an interaction this week with someone who calls himself a Christian in which he claimed that another person “hates” him. His evidence of this claim is that this person did something that he disagreed with. The only conceivable reason in his mind that they could act this way is if their heart is filled with hatred toward him. In reality, this isn’t the case. The actions involved had nothing to do with this man, and in fact the idea that this person somehow “hates” him is rooted in his own inherent distrust of their motivations.

This interaction was troubling to me for a multitude of reasons, but the primary one is that the man was so willing to casually bear false witness against his neighbor. Even when called to account on this, he continued to claim this hatred as the only legitimate reason. He has no evidence of this beyond his own speculations about motivations, and yet he was not deterred in his claims.

Brother and sisters, Love believes all things. This doesn’t mean that we ignore sinfulness that’s plainly placed in front of our eyes, but it DOES mean that we should believe the best about people until we have evidence that tells us we should not. I pray that all of us would strive to not bear false witness by loving our neighbor as ourself. And loving our neighbor as ourself means believing all things until we can’t any longer.

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