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Men of Grace, it is an honor to write to you from
Mahmudiyah, Iraq.  I am serving with the 10th Mountain Division here in the
suburbs southern Iraq.  Darren asked me to write to you about what God has
shown me this year.

  If I wrote about everything God has shown me this year,
this might be a long message.  Instead, I’ll write about what God has shown me
this week, which might still be a rather lengthy dissertation.  Perhaps
referring to what God has “shown” me is a use of the wrong tense.
“Showing” might be a more accurate choice of words. But actually, I
feel like I am resisting the thing He is showing me right now.

    Before I elaborate, I should provide a bit of
background for the thoughts I want to share. This week, I was reading in
Matthew where Jesus says that we should love our enemies and pray for those who
persecute us. In any other time of my life, that would’ve seemed like a good
idea, and an idea not altogether difficult to carry out into action.

    But that was before I had any actual enemies. That
was before I lived in a place where people would gladly kill me. That was
before I soaked my uniform in another man’s blood or attended the funeral
of a fellow soldier who will never make it home.

    That these are our enemies, I have no doubt. But the
people I have the hardest time loving are those who spend their time and energy
plotting to kill not me, but each other.

    On Easter, some who I consider my enemies, detonated
a large bomb outside of the local hospital. Though there were no American
injuries, 15 Iraqis were killed, including some of their doctors as well as
patients.  Many more people were injured.  Of these, 17 came to our aid station
seeking care for significant injuries. 

    One of those patients was a 9-year-old girl with a
huge hole in her leg as well as an arterial bleed.  She was screaming in a
combination of pain and absolute terror. We could do nothing to comfort her
because we could not speak her language. We could neither answer the questions
of her parents, nor provide any explanation as we whisked her off in a
helicopter for further care. All we could do was work to get her stabilized
while listening to her scream. I will never forget that sound.

    Another of our patients that day might lose his leg. 
His son was killed in the blast, though he did not know it yet.

   There were others, but you get the idea. I don’t
relate these stories to impress you, but rather to help you understand these
enemies of mine.

    Surely, Jesus didn’t mean that I should actually love
people like them.

  When I think about those we politely call
“insurgents,” my reaction is akin to that of Conan the Barbarian
who found fulfillment in one thing: “to crush your enemies, to see them
driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.” 

  But Jesus says to love them. I don’t know how.

    It seems that it would be a big victory for me if I
could just stop hating these people who bombed a hospital and who, twice this
week, bombed an outdoor marketplace.  I have prayed about this often over the
course of the last seven days.

    Did Jesus really mean that we should love these men
who are, seemingly, the embodiment of pure evil?  I want to think not. 

    But then I am reminded of my savior on a cross asking
“Father forgive them.”  I know that I don’t have a high priest who
can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who has been in
all points tempted like we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)

    Jesus knew what it was like to have enemies and he
was, no doubt, tempted to hate them.  But He was without sin.

    Ultimately, I know that my nature will not allow me
to love these people apart from Christ. In my heart, I know that they don’t
deserve my love or Christ’s.  However, I know that God loves me, and I
definitely don’t deserve it either. 

    I haven’t learned how to love these insurgents who
are trying to kill me, my comrades, and their own countrymen.  Truthfully, I am
not sure that I will ever learn to do this.  Deep down, I don’t know that
I even want to.  

  But there is one thing this experience has done for me:
I have a much deeper respect, admiration, and appreciation for what Christ did
for us on the cross. He loved me, and millions more like me who go against His
commandments every day. We are not worthy of His love, much less his
sacrifice.  

  So I am trying to learn to love Christ, and praying
that He will enable me to love someday like He does.

  I will close this message like I close much of my
correspondence from Iraq.  As a Soldier, it is not my job to critique our
policies in Iraq.  I wish that decisions could be made by Soldiers, Sailors,
and Airmen instead of Democrats and Republicans.

  However, this I do know: our soldiers are doing some
incredible things in this country across the world from you. There are many
amazing people here who put themselves in danger every single day to try to
bring freedom to this land. In return, we ask only for your prayers. Prayers
for our safety, prayers for our morale, prayers for those who do not yet know
Jesus, and prayers for people like me to learn to love those who seem so
unlovable… unlovable just like you and me.

 Scott Carow, Soldier in Iraq, Soldier for Christ

Thanks to Esther on the  MyLatestRevelation.com Forum for this revelation.  

The thing we must accept is that we don’t, in fact, deserve God’s grace, kindness, and love on our lives.  But we move beyond that and accept the fact that it is offered to us anyway.  The pride part comes by us wanting to make ourselves okay without God.  When we resist grace it is because conciously and/or unconciously we are afraid to admit that we aren’t perfect - so we keep trying out of our own flesh.  That is why sometimes it is hard to accept grace.  The only way to accept it and receive it, is when we aknowledge that we are, in fact, desperately fallen and that we need Him to help us.  And you know what, IT IS OKAY.  WE NEED GOD - EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US IS SCREWED UP IN SOMEWAY(S) WITHOUT HIM!!!  To receive His grace we must stop fighting, stop resisting His call to rest in Him and in His strength.  We must acknowledge that we need Him and then give those areas of lack over to Him.   

Romans 3:23-24 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”   Matthew 11:25, 28-30 “At that time Jesus declared…Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”   1 Peter 5:7 Casting the whole of your care [all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully.   
 
 God the Father is not the same as our earthly examples.  We can trust Him with all our hearts.   So, if God is love (1 John 4:7), then 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 is in reference to Him.  So read that way, it reads…   God is patient, God is kind. He does not envy, He does not boast, He is not proud. He is not rude, He is not self-seeking, He is not easily angered, He keeps no record of wrongs. He does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. He always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. God never fails.

 Webmaster’s note: In math, a word problem that says “something is something” can be written as “something=something”  and anytime you see one of those somethings you can substitute the other for it.  For example, if a word problem says, “a” is the same as “b” then you can write “a=b”  and if “b+2=c” then “a+2=c” is also true.  Now, if that confused you ignore it and get this.   Because of this, what Esther wrote above (substituting God for the word love) is possible.  Something that i found instrumental in my Christian growth was using this principle to gain a greater understanding of God.  Try this exercise and see if you don’t begin to understand God better.  Do a word search of the Bible at www.BlueLetterBible.com for “God.” Then read through as many scriptures as you like substituting love in place of “God.” You’ll begin to see God in a new light. i’ve done this and selected a few of my favorites meditate on them and enjoy.

Matt 6:24 No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve love(God) and mammon.

Matt 6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of love(God), and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Matt 9:8 But when the multitudes saw [it], they marvelled, and glorified love(God), which had given such power unto men.

Get this, Jesus was the Son of God, God=Love, So Jesus was the Son of Love.  This is true because it was love that birthed God into our world to save us, it was love that kept Him on the cross to take our sins, and it was love that allowed Him to conquer death. 

Substitute love for God once in a while while you’re in your personal Word time it’s powerful.  The Bible also says that God is Light(as in opposite of darkness or evil), Good, Spirit, and a host of other things find them and you will begin to understand the character of God.