In the light of all the communal rioting that is happening in Mumbai and around India, I would like to make this clear… what I am campaigning for is #IndiaAgainstHate and certainly not #IndiaAgainstGod because the Bible teaches that God is Love (1John 4:8) and that He seeks people to worship Him in Spirit and truth (John 4:24).

Mat 5:9
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.

It is a very atheistic mind set to throw God out of our lives for the sake of peace, but peace will never come at that cost because if we are afraid of pointing out where people err spiritually, then letting everyone be right in their own eyes is certainly no solution for peace. Rather, it breeds anarchy where each are a law to themselves, judging right and wrong only as per what is most convenient to them in that moment. Why don’t you take a look at societies around the world? You will notice that most of the developed nation are those which were shaped by the Gospel. Though you may see some terrible back sliding today in the west from being a God-centered society, you will also notice that where they are now coming to something any self-centered fool anywhere in the world can very well relate with. As for the middle-east, they are only rich because of their oil and being the poor/wicked/ungrateful stewards (Mt 25:26-28) they are, this blessing of theirs is also their curse (Malachi 2:2). Let’s take a look at the blessing a nation enjoys in God.

Ezekiel 36 (look at this from the construct of Jn 3:3, 16)
27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. 28 Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God. 29 I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. I will call for the grain and multiply it, and bring no famine upon you. 30 And I will multiply the fruit of your trees and the increase of your fields, so that you need never again bear the reproach of famine among the nations.

It’s time we all stopped fooling ourselves and learned that the only dividing line that really exists are those who put God first & those who put themselves first. If we were to look at the 10 Commandments in Exodus 20 in the light of what Jesus said in Mat 22:36-40, we understand that there will never be an equality among people unless God is first in our lives. Look closely at the 10 Commandments, you will see that the first 4 commandments teach us the awe filled reverence we are called to have for God. Now look at the other 6 commandments, they teach us to love and respect people around us just as much as we love and respect ourselves. This precisely is what Mat 22: 36-40 teaches us, that the greatest commandment is to love God with all our strength and the second is to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Now owing to our fall from grace in Adam, we have a natural inclination to throw God out of our lives but when we do that, it is only because we consider it is better to be self-centered as over being God centered. So, thanks this fall of ours in Adam, we have usurped that place God must occupy in our lives with ourselves. This is turn effects our relationship with those around us because now we see people only as objects that serve our vested interests. This truth however remains that we are not God and so our selfishness is wrong and sinful. So, religion estranged from the truth about God, does nothing but create unrighteous divisions and exploits people from the vested motives of those in power. Let’s now look at how the Civil Law given us in the Bible protects the interest of various people in society.

Exodus 20
10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
…
21 Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.

Contrary to how world religions represent themselves, a Biblically established society is not fascist because each is accountable to the same God, no matter where a person may be in the hierarchy of power. So, a foreigner’s/unbeliever’s rights are protected, and he/she enjoys as much liberty in that society as a believer/native does under God (Exo 20:10). The other thing is, true religiosity cannot be forced upon unbelievers/foreigners in such a society because religious devotion is calling from God and cannot be imposed forcefully by (Jn 1:12-3). This however does not mean that the Gospel won’t be preached as the means of saving souls in that society. The Bible teaches us that the most precious resource on this earth are “Human Beings” because we were made in the Image of God, not even the angels have this privilege. This precious resource can only be valued in true religion and not in the lies the world has concocted about God. Where this Image of God remains broken, lies a spiritual state where the salt has lost its saltiness (Mat5:13), it isn’t even good enough to be used in the manure pile and is thrown out (Lk14:34).

John 1
12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

It is so sad that people today are scared to take a stand in their seeking the truth about God because they are afraid of hurting other people’s sentiments. I hope you can see the extent of unbelief underlying in this psychology because these cowards are more concerned about not hurting people’s sentiments than they are about honouring God in their lives (Mat 10:32-33). This lukewarm nature typifies their unbelief in which they choose to honour people’s misplaced sentiments about God in lieu of bearing witness to His divine majesty and the atonement He offers us in His Son Jesus Christ.

Isaiah 9
6 For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace

So, to those who God is stirring to seek Him in their lives, I have this to say from Isaiah 62:6-7 & Eph 2:11-13. Do not be ashamed of the Gospel because in it lies the elixir of learning to speak the truth boldly, constructively and with love (Eph 4:15) for the upliftment of society, for though we may be few are as salt… where just a little is needed to flavour a whole lot of food.

Isaiah 2
2 Now it will come about that in the last days The Mountain of the house of the LORD Will be established as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills; and all the nations will stream to it.
3 And many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; That He may teach us concerning His ways And that we may walk in His paths.” For the law will go forth from Zion and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
4 And He will judge between the nations, and will render decisions for many peoples; and they will hammer their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they learn war.
5 Come, house of Jacob, and let us walk in the light of the LORD.

There is a lot of meaning in the above verses, which I would like to exposit for you as your spiritual manna (Exo 16:15/Luke 22:19), out of my love for the Lord Jesus (John 21:15-17). Verse 2 needs to be understood in the context of Dan 2:45 & Heb 8:10-11, which in the light of Col 1:16-20 says that God is going to increase His righteousness upon the earth with time, till all the earth is filled with the knowledge of God (Hab 2:14) and unbelief will be an insignificant minority. Verse 3 needs to be looked at in the context of Rev 22:17 and Mat 28:18-20, which speaks about the Holy Spirit calling the people to hear the preaching and the teaching of the Gospel. Speaking about Law, we ought to understand that there are three aspects of Law i.e. Judicial Law, Ceremonial Law and Moral Law. The Judicial Law is what is given the State to maintain Law and Order in society, while the Ceremonial Law was given the Old Testament Church as pointing to the redemptive work of Christ, while the Moral Law is the standard given every believer to live by. Today, very few Churches have such an understanding of Law, for most Churches in holding to Christ and rightfully doing away with the Ceremonial Law (Heb 10:1-7), they unwittingly reject the Moral Law and the authority of the State concerning the Judicial Law as well, owing to their poor understanding of the Bible. The Moral Law is the very character of God, as described in Psalm 119, which goes from Alef to Tav (Old Testament Hebrew)… like the Alpha and the Omega (New Testament Greek) we are familiar with in ascribing to the Lord Jesus (Rev 1:8). When the Law goes forth in verse 3 i.e. God’s word goes forth from Zion, we know that those who receive Jesus as Lord and Saviour shall glorify His grace and mercy (John 3:16) but those who refuse Him shall glorify His wrath and justice (John 3:18/Rom 2:12) because God’s Word shall not return to Him void (Isaiah 55:11). Every believer taken from the family of Adam and grafted to the Church, inherits this nature of God in being conformed to the likeness of Jesus (Rom 8:29). This is the very purpose of every human being, who are all made in the image of God, broken in Adam but restored to all godly fullness in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is from here we understand that if there is to be peace in the world, it can only be on God’s terms and never our own but this peace is what God is going to bring about by His might because nothing in creation exist which does not serve His righteous purpose and so as the Church is given to walk by faith and not mere sight (2Cor 5:7), we learn from verse 5 to walk in the light of His promise concerning Salvation because Salvation is not based on merits of depraved men (Psalm 49:7-15) but on the saving merits of the righteous Jesus Christ (Rev 5:7-12).

Psalms 37
4 Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart.

Mat 5
9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

John 1 (in reference to Jesus)
12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name,
13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

Concerning our adoption into the family of God, we understand from scripture that this is according to the will of God. If believing in the Lord Jesus Christ was something established purely on a person’s free will then that person would never be a new creation in Christ (2Cor 5:17) and could never conform to the likeness of Christ nature unless there is a complete change in the orientation of his/her desires, where a person no longer delights in pleasing himself/herself but his/her delight is in the Lord, which is what being born from above is all about (John 3:3). If we understand the implications of the fall of Adam and Original Sin, we then recognize that the reason each person is self-serving naturally from birth is because each person is a law to themselves. Thankfully the Sovereign will of God presides over our free will and so we have institutions like the State in place, which is given to function by the Judicial Law and this is what keeps unbelievers in check from the fear of being apprehended by the Law but as for the believer, he/she is given the very Moral law of God as his/her own nature/character and so he has nothing to fear from the Judicial Law because unlike the world fallen in Adam (1Tim 1:8-9), his/her desire is not sin in pleasing of self at all costs but his/her desire is God in exercising the righteousness of God.

Mat 10
34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
35 “For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
36 and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.
37 “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.
38 “And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.
39 “He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.

The Moral Law as taught to us in Exodus 20:1-17 and Mat 22:36-40 says we ought to love God first and second love our neighbour at par with ourselves. However, the citizens of the world in their unbelief do not see God as first but themselves and so everything else and every other person is nothing more than the means they use to serve themselves. We ought to understand that people in their unbelief are incapacitated from finding security in God, instead people find security in the masses and so they are ok doing wrong and believing in a bunch of lies as long as they have many people with them doing the same thing. These fools are not accountable to God, they are unreasonably accountable to only themselves and that is why they live as they please. Take the instance of the Parable of the Vine-growers (Mark 12:1-12), the defaulting tenants here are the unbelievers who go about life with their poor stewardship over the earth, as coming from their refusal of God and when the real stewards show up these defaulting tenants give in to their destructive nature and act maliciously towards the adopted sons of God who are the real heirs of the earth, because Adam’s failed stewardship upon the earth is restored to only those who are in Christ.

John 15
18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 20 Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21 They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.

As much as a thief hates being called a thief and a homosexual likes being called gay, we ought to understand that the world hates the truth about themselves but will God cease to exist so as to allow the world to continue living by their foolish lies just as they so please, that will verily not happen and so we ought to understand that the world hates the Church & God, only because we reveal to them that they are on the highway to hell. So peace can never be on the terms of every individual in this world because they are each a law to themselves in their broken communion with God i.e. their righteousness of self is not the righteousness of God thanks to the fall to Adam, who relieved himself of the righteousness of God to receive to himself and for his posterity a righteousness of their own (Gen 3:1-6). The reason God put the Judicial Law in place (1Tim 1:8-9), is because from the world’s self-righteousness comes the world’s desire for anarchy and death. It is no wonder that the people of the world are fascinated with substance-abuse which throws them out of the control while near-death experiences proves to be their entertainment because it feeds their appetite for death and anarchy with such a godless rush. It is for reasons such as these that peace can never be on the terms of self-seeking men/women who sabotage what is good; on the contrary peace is on the terms of God’s righteousness and so for peace to exists there is need for truth and revelation of God, which is where the Word of God comes in (Rom 10:17), in tutoring us about the saving merits of the Lord Jesus Christ (John 14:26).

Hebrews 4
12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.

2Tim 3
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

To conclude, we know from John 1:1-18 that the Word of God, is God i.e. Jesus Christ. We also know from John 4:24 that God is Spirit and from 2Tim 3:16-17 that scripture is God breathed, meaning it is the very life-giving breath of God that gives every believer life in Christ (John 20:22), which was formerly lost for all in Adam (Gen 2:7,17). So I would close by echoing the fact that this peace of God, which am talking about is not going to be brought by the willingness of men but by the mighty nature of God. This peace that God is going to usher into this world is metaphorically described in Isaiah 11: 1-11, which I would strongly advise you to read. The Stump of Jesse or the Root of Jesse in Isaiah 11 bears reference to the Lord Jesus Christ (since the Messiah was prophesied to come from the lineage of David), while the Mountain of the Lord bears reference to the people of God i.e. His Church, which will be firmly established in that day. For those who have a gloomy disposition concerning the end of the world, I would like to tell you that that gloomy disposition only reflects your unbelief because unbelief is never constructive in nature but destructive and God does not share in that fallen nature. It is for this reason when we look at Isaiah 60:20-22 and 1Pet 3:1-13 in the light of Ezek 36:27, we understand that the Lord by His sovereign will shall move His people to delightfully hasten righteousness in world, so as to hasten His coming because the ending is going to be a happy one.

Peace (Luke 10:5-6)!

​Acts 4
18 Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 19 But Peter and John replied, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! 20 As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
21 After further threats they let them go. They could not decide how to punish them, because all the people were praising God for what had happened. 22 For the man who was miraculously healed was over forty years old.

Roman 13
13 Everyone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God. 2 So anyone who rebels against authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and they will be punished. 3 For the authorities do not strike fear in people who are doing right, but in those who are doing wrong. Would you like to live without fear of the authorities? Do what is right, and they will honour you.

The above verses helps us understand the role of government and in what manner we are accountable to them and in what manner we are not. As you read further on, you will see that what we owe the government is obedience to the Moral Law of God (Mat22:36-40), where God is first and concern for neighbour is at par with self. A Godly decorum for government may seem appalling for many but that is because we are so used to a system of government that runs almost every aspect of our lives that we have grown used to our chains. We live in a society where it is taboo for one to criticise the government while the people’s indifference towards God is an atmosphere we are all very familiar with. In a true Biblical Theocracy however, it is God who is above criticism, not the government. In a Democracy, the state is accountable to the people and so if the people are a licentious lot then the state sets Laws to appease the people’s immoral appetite, which in God’s time incurs God’s deserving justice. To site a few examples, the legal age for sexual consent in Nigeria is 11, while it is 12 in the Philippines and Angola, and 13 in Burkina Faso, Comoros, Niger and Japan. The cost of licensing such immorality then amounts to licensing murder through abortion. WHO estimates that 125,000 unborn babies are aborted everyday across the world! Can you imagine, how such a genocide would reflect in the newspapers daily, if society only accepted: unborn babies are human beings? As much as a baby can kick in the mother’s womb, it can also experience pain but the only reason we look the other way concerning abortion is because, in a democracy the individual is sovereign, being a law to himself/herself and so he/she does as he/she pleases. The media too goes on, as though covering wickedness is a priority over covering righteousness in society. Take for instance the #lgbt population in the USA, which is about 3.8%, yet these wicked lot get about 70% of media coverage over everything and everybody else. In India, the LGBT is about 2.5 million in a population of 1.25 billion and the media here too uses celebrities to condone the destructive and sick LGBT ideology in society.

Isaiah 9:6 (A prophesy concerning Jesus)
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

In a theocracy, the State is accountable to Christ and we understand that the Bible serves as a framework for civil law from the appointment of Judges by Moses to settle civil disputes in Exo18:13:27 but ever so often, the Sacred Cow for many professing Christian happens to be Religious Neutrality, which is far from the truth in any culture because though society may claim such a thing as religious plurality, it is alway one religion that remains dominant over the rest. It is as Jesus says in Mat 12:30, if you are not gathering, you are scattering, if you are not with Him, you are against Him because if God is not first in your life, anything else that rivals God’s right over your heart is idolatry. The State is purposed to serve one duty only and that is to punish lawlessness and protect the lawful but this is not true of the modern state which purposes to terrorise good people. Take Sweden for example, a country of 9.8 million people, their government in claiming to be a Humanitarian Superpower plans to spend about 3 billion Swedish crowns of tax payers money in 2016 to house refuges in the country, while about 34000 still remain homeless in Sweden. We therefore see that it is essential for the State to stick to what is right and wrong as defined in the Bible (Is5:20) because the Law of God is infallible.

Exodus 20 (Moral Law given the believer in serving God’s interest)
3 “You shall have no other gods before me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Deut 12:1-3 (Judical Law given the state in serving God’s interest)
These are the decrees and laws you must be careful to follow in the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has given you to possess—as long as you live in the land. 2 Destroy completely all the places on the high mountains, on the hills and under every spreading tree, where the nations you are dispossessing worship their gods. 3 Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places.

Besides, bringing wrath upon those evil doers, the state is also given to protect the interest of religion, not just any religion but Biblical Christianity because if truth be told, worshiping any other God than the Triune God Almighty is damning and so the State is given to reflect God’s justice in safeguarding the worship of God Almighty. So, a State that functions under God has the power to execute people on proven charges of blasphemy (Lev24:16/Mk3:29/Jn4:24) and though the worldly Christian may find this appalling, he/she ironically finds himself/herself at home with counterfeit political power executing people on charges of treason, which only happen to prove detrimental to the interest of the State, not God.

Rev 13
11 Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon. 12 It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence, and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed. 13 It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people, 14 and by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast it deceives those who dwell on earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived. 15 And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain.

Now the beast of the sea mentioned in Revelation 13 is apostate political power, so coming back to the fable many are led to believe concerning religious neutrality and religious plurality, we understand from Revelations 13 that only apostate religion (the beast of the land) is given to exercise the corrupt power of the beast of the sea (apostate political power). Nonetheless, knowing that it is not the State which is Sovereign but God, we understand that the State’s duty is to protect God’s interest in society. In this sense, the Civil Law is set in place to hedge the Moral Law. To give you an example, Mat 5:27-28 teaches us to guard even the motives of our heart in dealing with adultery. However, unlike the Moral Law, the Judicial/Civil Law cannot function as a thought police but if we were act on those wicked intentions viz. murder, adultery and covetousness, it is then that the Civil Law has the power to punish such crimes because the State is an instrument of God’s deserving justice here on earth.

1 John 5
16 If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that you should pray about that. 17 All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death.

1Cor 15:56
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

1 Timothy 1
8 We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. 9 We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, 10 for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine 11 that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me.

From 1John 5:16-17, 1Cor 15:56 and 1 Timothy 1:8-11, we see that what the Christian owes the government is obedience to the Moral Law of God because the believer who showcases the fruit of Holy Spirit in his/her life (Gal5:22-23) has nothing to fear concerning the Judicial Law exercised by the State. Today, in refusing to be a conduit of God’s righteousness in society, most governments ironically find it is a herculean task to enforce Biblical Judicial Law, which are only a few hundred morality based laws, while these same governments zealously impose thousands of new laws each year to serve their own vested interest. For any minister, whether that be of the Church or the State, his/her duty is always to administer, meaning he/she only exercises that which is already written. Unlike what is happening today, a minister can never write his/her own laws whether it is to govern the State or Shepherd the Church, the purpose of the minister is to only administer the Law that is already revealed to the Church/State in Christ.

Rev 22
18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, 19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

Like Apostate Egypt during the time of Moses and Apostate Assyria during the time of Daniel, the State today claims to be omnicompetent in the control it exercises over its people, which is as though it were a god. A government can only tax that which it lays claim to but today we have taxes like Income Tax, Inheritance Tax and even Gift Tax. Though these taxes may claim to secure financial spending in the country, it so often turns out to only help ministers within the government accumulate the most money for themselves that remains unaccounted for in Swiss bank accounts. These taxes only keep on increasing as the days go by and the worst thing is we are all ok with this because most of us don’t know any better. Biblically in Exodus 30:14-15, only a Census Tax was to be collected, which was within every person’s reach and the same was paid by every person, it wasn’t the same percentage but the same amount.

Exodus 30:14-15
14 All who cross over, those twenty years old or more, are to give an offering to the Lord. 15 The rich are not to give more than a half shekel and the poor are not to give less when you make the offering to the Lord to atone for your lives.

The State today covers up it robbery by providing Healthcare and Education. However, it must be understood that the State cannot provide unless it first takes from the people. Also, healthcare and Education are vocational institutes and being institutes of vocation they are not to be usurped by the State. For those of you care to notice, the state has only made life worse when it chooses to leave aside its given duty of bearing the wrath of God against the wicked and usurp duties of the Church to excuse itself from further taxing the people.

Luke 3
12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”
13 “Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them.
14 Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”
He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”

To conclude, when it comes to understating the Godly Decorum of the State, there are three aspects to learn: its Origin that is God; its function that is to terrorise ungodly evil doers; its powers which talks about its ministry, its authority to bear the sword of God’s good/deserving justice and the power to tax without extorting (Lk3:12-14).

Mat 25
24 “And the one also who had received the one talent came up and said, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed.
25 ‘And I was afraid, and went away and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.’
26 “But his master answered and said to him, ‘You wicked, lazy slave, you knew that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I scattered no seed.

The above scripture is taken from the Parable of Talents and God here is compared to a hard man who deals severely with those who are wicked. Today, people have this notion of God’s love as though it licences you to live the way you please. Though we may have scripture like Rom5:8 which says to this effect that: God demonstrates His love for us that while we were still sinners Christ died for us; it does not in any way imply that God loves unbelievers in their wickedness. To convey the transforming power of God’s love I would like you to picture this: you and me are lepers/beggars sitting on the street among other lepers/beggars, this philanthropist approaches us, washes us, treats and shelters us until we are able to find our feet. Now, how far does this contrast with passers-by who just throw you a rupee or two just to escape that guilt they experience from their unwillingness to step out of their comfort zone and help in a manner that makes a difference. By this, I am in no way implying that the godly are obligated to take every beggar on the street to their house, clean them up and care for them because each person has a different calling in the overall development of the body of Christ, which is His Church. What I am alluding to, is the propitiating power in the love of Jesus (1Jn4:10), which siphons people from spiritual depravity in fallen Adam and joins them to the family of God, which is His Church… making them able bodied men and women of God with a spiritual capacity to think and act according to God’s good pleasure. As much as people who pass a beggar a rupee or two, don’t really care for them, I must say that you are only fooling yourself if you believe God expresses his love to you by letting you remain as you are (Rom9:13-15).

Rom 6
15 What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!
16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?
17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed,
18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

We ought to understand that there are three aspects of Biblical Law: Ceremonial Law, Moral Law and Civil Law. Rom6:15 is speaking in the light of 1Tim1:9, that the reason we abstain from wickedness is because we are a new creation in Christ (2Cor5:17) brought to delight is in God in thought and deed (Ps37:4/Jn15:5), our abstinence from wickedness does not come from the fear of being caught and punished by the State (1Pet3:17), which is given to act from the Civil Law. Yes, Jesus ate with sinners but these were sinners who welcomed Him and acknowledged their shortcomings through repentance before Him (Rom3:23-24) and if you know the Jesus of the Bible, He was not out to sweet-talk society but He welcomed these who repented in the midst of His fellowship for all to see (Mat21:32/Jn3:26-30). If you were to take a look at Prov26:12 & Mark2:17 you will get the drift of who is welcome in Jesus’ fellowship and who is not.

Luke 19
3 Zaccheus was trying to see who Jesus was, and was unable because of the crowd, for he was small in stature.
4 So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree in order to see Him, for He was about to pass through that way.
5 When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and said to him, “Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.”
6 And he hurried and came down and received Him gladly.
7 When they saw it, they all began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.”
8 Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.”
9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham.

Today, we have people who are scared to speak out against the world and they will not admit their fear but excuse themselves saying God loves everybody. However, this doesn’t indicate their love for God but only their unbelief because what is more prominent in their sight is their setback with society as over the fear of God (Mat10:28). The world is filled with such hypocrites that with the same mouth they deter Christians from speaking out on socials evils like idolatry, abortion, the #lgbt, euthanasia and against capital punishment, all from their self-righteousness; and then with the same mouth they manage to question what God is doing, when they see a rise in the rate of crime but why talk when you don’t listen and if you think you know better, own up then to everything you do. Unlike hypocrites who are given to make the most convenient statements in that moment of time, emerging from nothing but their vacillating emotions, the true Christian on the other hand is given to judge based on the very code he/she himself/herself lives by (Mat7:2). This is called preaching what you practice or walk the talk.

1 John 2
4 The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him;
5 but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him:
6 the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.

1 John 3
4 Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.

The antinomians use the pretext of preaching the grace and love of God to excuse standing firm for the righteousness of God in society, and they hate it when genuinely concerned Christians admonish them using scripture. To defend themselves they quote Mat7:1… “Do not judge so that you will not be judged”. However, this warning is not given by God to His sheep but to those hypocrites, those stubborn goats who unrighteously find fault with His sheep and use the Word of God, not for God’s glory but for their own vested interest. If you were to look at the very crux of the Moral Law in Mat22, you would come to realize that Love is as God (1Jn4:16), whose saving knowledge is revealed to us in Jesus Christ (Jn1:18/1Tim2:3-4), that we may be adequately equipped for every good work (1Tim3:16-17). The world in their broken communion with God, has no clear definition of love because they can only know/relate with things from the perspective of how it serves themselves, not God. So to these, love turns out to be the means of serving their own lusts and from this ungodly mindset, broken homes and single mothers become a cultural norm because to these who are a law unto themselves, love is nothing more than a vacillating feeling that is here today and gone tomorrow. For the Godly however, love is duty and by this I do not mean devoid of emotion but grounded in the joy of the Lord, which is its strength (Neh8:10) and personally I must say, there is true joy to your hearts content to be found in diligently seeking and exercising the Moral Law of God.

Ps 119
97 O how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day.

Mat 22
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
37 And Jesus said to him, ” ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’
38 “This is the great and foremost commandment.
39 “The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
40 “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”

To conclude, God hates sin and loves the sinner is nowhere in Bible. God loves Himself and He is right in doing so because He is God. It is from this love He has for Himself that He made man in His image… for His own glory. The fall of Adam, granted men a righteousness of their own, separate from God but a man who serves nothing more than himself spews nothing but evil through the course of his life because man is not God. The truth however is in Jesus Christ, the Son of God who added to Himself the complete nature of man but without sin and presented Himself to be that substitutionary sacrifice and atonement for all sin, that man would be restored to God from the fall of Adam. To the world love is blind but this is so because the world is blind to God, who is love and so also the world sees no purpose in love but to those who know God, love serves it purpose in Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 12
11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

#guncontrol
It is understandably very hard for the world to look at Christian society and see us as having a Biblical right to bear arms because when the world sees us bearing arms, they do not see it from a perspective of exercising the righteousness of God but rather they see it from their own nature, where everything they do is centred around themselves. To them, there is no such thing as true religion because their indifference to the truth about the Lord Jesus, renders them insensitive to the transformation of the individual, who is purchased from the belligerent bloodline of fallen Adam and grafted to the body of Christ, whose delight is no more in pleasing self but in pleasing God. Such is Christian society! Let us take a look at an excerpt from the Old Testament concerning the godliness of bearing arms in building Jerusalem.

Nehemiah 4
12 When the Jews who lived near them came and told us ten times, “They will come up against us from every place where you may turn,”
13 then I stationed men in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, the exposed places, and I stationed the people in families with their swords, spears and bows.
14 When I saw their fear, I rose and spoke to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people: “Do not be afraid of them; remember the Lord who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives and your houses.”
15 When our enemies heard that it was known to us, and that God had frustrated their plan, then all of us returned to the wall, each one to his work.
16 From that day on, half of my servants carried on the work while half of them held the spears, the shields, the bows and the breastplates; and the captains were behind the whole house of Judah.
17 Those who were rebuilding the wall and those who carried burdens took their load with one hand doing the work and the other holding a weapon.
18 As for the builders, each wore his sword girded at his side as he built, while the trumpeter stood near me.

If we were to look at Gen1:28, 3:15 & Rom5:17, we understand that from the fall, the world has locked its horns with God’s Church (Mk13:13), and there can never be any fellowship/communion between the Church and the world because what pleases the world gives us a nauseating feeling in the pit of our stomach i.e. their joy is not ours to share in likeminded fellowship. Take a cue from the lions and the Maasai tribe in Kenya/Tanzania, the lions keep respectful distance from the Maasai and their cattle (property) out of fear of being killed. It is the same with the world, we have no desire to kill them but from their self-serving nature the world is given to anarchy/destruction, which is something we must protect ourselves and our livelihood from.

Luke 22
36 And Jesus said to them, “But now, whoever has a money belt is to take it along, likewise also a bag, and whoever has no sword is to sell his coat and buy one.

When you take a look at all the Western nations, it is not very hard to notice from their flags (with a cross) that their culture especially concerning their morality and etiquettes has been shaped by the Gospel. Notice, how everybody wants to go and settle in the West but nobody wants to admit that the rather congenial environment one associates with the West is what has been afforded to them by the Gospel. Such a hypocritical disposition among immigrants is understandable, when you consider that the world has no capacity to find fault with itself because repentance leading to eternal life can only be accomplished in Jesus Christ.

Gal 3
8 The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “All the nations will be blessed in you.”
…
14 in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

It is the Gospel that has made the West what it is (Ezek36:27-31/Jn3:3, 16). However today with all the religious backsliding, the West is losing its grip on the Moral Law as taught in the Gospel and their lives are now as bland as their food. They keep looking everywhere to find where the fault is while also trying to find meaning to life without realising that the fault lies with themselves owing to their backsliding from the Christian faith, which prospered them. Take a look at China, I don’t know how many of you know this but Gospel is spreading like wildfire in China, with corporates using the Bible to teach employees Biblical etiquettes so as to build loyalty and genuine employer-employee relationships. It is no wonder that China today is the world’s second largest economy after the US. For this very reason, I understand that the development of my country India too rests, not on how much business comes in but on how well it receives the Gospel because God exists and Jesus is the only eternal truth.

1Timothy 1 (Paul to Timothy)

8 But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully,
9 realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers
10 and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching,
11 according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted.

When I hear all this “Surrender Your knife | Save a Life” in the UK and then “Gun Control” in the US, I am reminded of convicts in prison, where no metal objects are allowed, out of fear of one person killing the other. If you were to see society from such a view point, you would understand that the issue that needs to be dealt with here is not really the guns or the knives or even the ceiling fan for that matter, it is the depraved spiritual state of the people in their ignorance of God. I am not sure if you can perceive this according to all that is happening but these are tell-tale signs of society heading towards anarchy and gun control is only an excuse to divert our attention from what really needs to be done i.e. people getting back to establishing their lives in Christ. In all their backsliding people have turned slothful, concerned only about their own lives while having no qualm is shoving every other responsibility on God, such is their definition of faith… these who are unmoved by the fear of God. Outside Christ there is no life and so people find it cumbersome to even bear responsible stewardship over the world as coming from a godly conscience, a purpose we were given as human beings by God.

Isaiah 65
24 “It will also come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear.
25 “The wolf and the lamb will graze together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox; and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will do no evil or harm in all My holy mountain,” says the LORD.

Yes, in His time there will be peace in the new heaven and the new earth, merited by not men but by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself (Is 9:6) in accordance to the will of God the Father (Col 1:16-20) but until that time comes we ought to be on our toes, waiting on Him in obedience while staying on guard against scheming hypocrites (Mt25:8-12), all because Jesus is worth the effort we invest in the reconstruction of society unto the glory of God (Mt28:18-20).

Love is the very foundation of true religion, yet what this world perceives of love is nothing but lawlessness and wickedness because what our world considers as love is nothing but a love that satisfies their own interests and lusts. The Bible teaches us that God is love but to think of God by the standard of what this world knows as love, is nothing short of heinous and appalling. Take the Moral Law for instance, which teaches the individual to put God first even before self and second to love their neighbour as thoughtfully as oneself. Does the world know any such structure in its love? No, because the individuals of the world are nothing but a law to themselves, still imagine the might of God that he restrains these individual in their wicked nature [1Jn2:2] (who are inclined to serve nothing more than themselves) and allows for such people to live in a structured society hedged by the Civil Law that is given to the state (1Tim1:9). That is how good and great God is!

1John 4
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.

The reason I feel so compelled to write on love is because it is the most abused term in the world today. Today, even fornication passes of as love but what happens when a child is born from it? The apostate State then gives license for murder through abortion. Clearly this is not the love of God because Biblically love covers a multitude of sins (1Pet4:8), never ever serving as a cause to give rise to sin.

John 15
9 “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.
10 “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
11 “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.
12 “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.

So what then is love? Love is knowing God because if you don’t know God, you will not live practicing God is first and that you ought to deal with your neighbour (people in your environment) in the same manner you would be like to be dealt with yourself (Mat7:12). The Bible refers to knowing God as loving God because unlike the fallen lusts this world wallows in, God is irresistible to the extent that it will not prove detrimental to your wellbeing but would enrich your life instead (Ps34:8). This knowledge of God is available to you in the Lord Jesus alone, whose Spirit overcomes our sinful nature propitiating us to the righteousness of God. We are thereby given to understand that God is love because He is strongly relational being One in Three Persons, a beloved unity which His people are blessed with in King Jesus Christ (Jn17:11).

Matthew 22
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”
37 And He said to him, ” ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’
38 “This is the great and foremost commandment.
39 “The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
40 “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”

To the world, love is blind but that is only because they are blind to God. Love is not blind nor shapeless or lawless. Love is an absolute! Just take a look at the anatomy of our own bodies, the design is so complex. Take a look at our DNA and you notice the immensity of details it stores, which even exceeds the storage capacities of the fastest supercomputers today. If God was ever the senseless kind of love the world knows, there would never be such beauty in the details of all creation. So after you consider all of that and realize we are merely creation, we cannot imagine how infinitely awesome the Triune God Almighty is. In other words, if God is indeed love as the Bible teaches, He is not the irrational love the world knows because if you care to look into the Bible, God is absolutely rational, it is this world in its self-serving nature which is senseless and irrational, in being indifferent to the God of the Bible.

John 3
16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
17 “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.
18 “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19 “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.
20 “For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

On this topic of love, I would like to touch-up on this popular notion which exists in Christian circles that: “God hates sin but loves the sinner”, which is far from the truth because from the fall of Adam, we all hated God but thanks be to the Lord & Saviour Jesus Christ, His elect are ransomed from all sin by the power of His blood. You see, a person cannot sin unless he/she is a sinner and the reason we all sin is because we all are sinners, and as sinners we hate the truth/light as it exposes our self-righteousness to be lie, which is a horrid feeling. We learn from the Bible that God in His Omniscience knows who are His even before the foundation of the world (Jn10:14/Eph1:3-4). So even though it is impossible for us who love sin to love God because the righteousness of God is contrary to our nature, our Salvation is by no means impossible to God (Mat19:25-26), since Salvation is not by the power of the people but by the power of God (Jn1:12-13).

Romans 5
10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

Mark 2
17 And hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Rom 5:10 is therefore the highlight of God’s grace upon we who are his elect, undeserving sinners. Those who are righteous in their own eyes know nothing of such grace given to the individual in repentance (Lk18:9), on the contrary they are fools who believe that they are right and God is wrong but to the elect God grants repentance (2Tim2:25) that in His time they would see the error of their ways and submit to God in Jesus Christ (1Tim2:5-6).

John 14
15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.

John 15
5 “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
6 “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.

I would like to put in a word of caution for those of you who are inclined to follow after the Charismatic Church. The Charismatic Church is not a body Christ has instituted because if you care to look into its history, you would learn that it is nothing but an atrocious spinoff of a retard girl (Margaret McDonald somewhere around the 1830s) from a mental asylum, who is believed to have been gifted with visions by some (I’d say just as in Acts16:16-18). We ought to understand that prophesies and revelation were given in its time to the Apostolic Church [1Cor14:24-25] (i.e. before the Bible was compiled in 325 AD) so that the miracles would bear witness to those to whom the Gospel was preached that the Church was indeed from God. However, after the Bible was compiled, all these healings, prophesies and speaking in tongues ceased (1Cor13:8) as they no longer stood as assurity that that body was a Church. Today, many ministries like that of Benny Hinn claim to be Ministries and Churches of God but with the money laundering and molestation charges that is brought against such leaders, we learn that these are merely bodies who serve themselves in their sin, not God. Today, what determines a body as God’s Church depends on how that body obeys God’s word in the Bible without being dependant on any additional revelation through prophesies or the speaking of tongues (Rev21:18-19) because the Bible by itself is complete/sufficient to edify/nourish the Church (Ps19:7/2Tim3:16-17).

1 Corinthians 13
8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.

Mat 7
22 “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’
23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’

As Christians, there is a standard by which we are to live, which is the Moral Law (2Jn1:5). The Moral Law defines the very nature of God, revealed to us in scripture and so in our calling to be Christlike, this nature becomes our own (Ezek36:27/Jn3:3,16), owing to our Godly purpose as human beings who are made in the image of God. If you have time, take a look and the study Psalm 119, which is the longest chapter in the whole Bible, as it expounds on the nature of God revealed to the individual in the Moral Law.

1 John 5
16 If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask and God will for him give life to those who commit sin not leading to death. There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that he should make request for this.
17 All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not leading to death.

Before I conclude, there is one more thing I need to caution you against. Please know that the Bible is not merely a set of instructions to the Church but it is a set of instructions to society at large, which means that it instructs both the Church and the State. So just as a parent would kill, if their child’s life depends on it, so too Capital Punishment is a power given to the State (not the Church or the individual) to protect society from deadly antisocial elements. You might find this fascinating that nations in the west like Switzerland and Netherlands who have abolished Capital Punishment because they are so civilised supposedly… have legalised Euthanasia! Can you believe that? It’s like Rev3:16 materializing right before your very eyes (God is indeed sovereign). It’s as though their self-righteousness made them break their fall with their own faces when they abandoned their faith, leaving their religious institutions to be turned into pubs and mosques.

Heb 12 (breaking in the middle of sentence)
5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, Nor faint when you are reproved by Him;
6 For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He scourges every son whom He receives.”
7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

To conclude, this is something I must leave you with. True love does not start and end with mushy feeling because love bears a character of duty; just like one’s faith is evident in what he/she does (James2:14-20), so too Love goes beyond emotions in practicing Godly duty and neighbourly kindness. We need to remember that true love involves discipline and requires us to mend our ways… straighten us out, so to speak. It is from such “discipline” that we get the word “disciple” because the love we learn in Jesus Christ is not one which allows us to live as we please but to live according to the good pleasure of God. Such love is not merely healthy for our lifestyle but it also promotes a congenial environment for society to blossom in, where the corner stone is Jesus Christ.

1John 3
1 See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.

Mat 5 (Jesus says)
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Today, when Christians discuss “how to love your enemy”, it seems common sense and practicality are thrown out of the window for the sake mushy religiosity based on an eisegesis as over an exegesis of scripture. The reason I feel compelled to write on this topic is because there are people out there who desire to do that which pleases God but have spiritual elders who are poorly equipped with scripture and thereby incapable to holistically counsel them in the light of scripture. We ought to remember that a good exegesis is done when scripture is interpreted in the light of scripture, if a verse is interpreted so as to favour the prevailing humanists/liberal mind-set, not only does that not harmonize with the rest of scripture, which stands as its background but it ascertains a teaching which was never Biblically called for, to be the foolishness God supposedly requires of the individual from unholy fear.

Mat22
36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

If you were to take a look at the Ten Commandments (Ex20:3-17), you would notice that the first four commandments deal with the Christian’s religious accountability unto God, while the other six deal with the Christians accountability toward his/her neighbour. Now this neighbour could be anybody who exists or whom you can make contact with in your environment, yes even your worst enemy if he/she is around (Lk10:27-37). However, this does not mean that you ought to go hug them as you see them or ask them out for dinner or even smile at them from an out of place feeling. It just means that you should be courteous in your dealings with them and even help them out if they or their property is in danger.

Exodus 23
4 “If you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to return it. 5 If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help them with it.

As a true Christian, you need to understand that your enemy only hates you because he/she hates the nature of Christ that is burgeoning in you (Jn15:18-19). That hatred between the seed of Satan and the seed of Christ is what God has put in place from the beginning (Gen3:15) because light can have no fellowship with darkness (2Cor6:14). This means the Christian can never be intimately involved with the unbeliever because the glory of God pleases the Christian while a sinful satisfaction of self is what pleases the unbeliever.

Rom 12
18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
    if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”

Today, what the world knows about love is merely a mushy feeling that pampers the other to do as they please but if you were to read the scripture from Mat22 above, you would notice that love requires us to bear responsibility unto God and neighbour. Love is not merely a wavering emotion but a duty given the Godly to act from the nature of Christ (Phil4:13) because when the individual is born from above, he/she turns to God by the merit of Christ (Jn3:3,16 & 15:4). So you notice that the individual is called to be Godlike in nature, in his/her calling to be Christlike (Ezek36:27), as the moral law of God occupies the person’s heart (Jer31:33), making God’s precepts the individual’s new nature because we are a new creation in Christ (2Cor5:17).

Rom 9
22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?

1Cor13
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

From 1Cor 13 we notice that patience is a virtue of love and in Rom 9 we see that God exhibits such love through patience upon the wicked who are merely vessels of wrath prepared for destruction. So in being called to follow after God (Mat10:16,25), we are called to be gentle and live as peaceably/wisely with them as you possibly can (Prov16:7/Rom12:8).

2Tim 2
23 Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. 24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25 correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

That is to say that scripture does not expect you to make your enemies your close friends or count them among your loved ones because such intimacy is not possible for you who are in Christ to have such communion with those whose communion with God is broken. In other words, the reason you would not be able to share intimate fellowship with your enemy is because what your enemy delights in, will probably make you feel squeamish.

Col1:21
21 And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, 22 yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach— 23 if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister.

To conclude, most of us believers would know how we lived back in the time when we were unbelievers, knowing now how patient God was with us while we never knew the rich intimacy of Christ’ fellowship back then (Col1:21-22). We thereby are not given to determine beforehand whether the patience/curtesy we exhibit unto our enemies, shall be a conduit of God’s mercy allowing for closer/likeminded fellowship with the individual (2Tim2:25) or whether it would merely be leaving room for God’s justice (Rom12:19) because Salvation belongs to God and as Rom 9:15 says God has mercy on whom He has mercy and compassion on whom He has compassion.