“If You Love Me . Like and Share.”
“E-mail this Message to Everyone.”
Modern Gospel 14:15
“If you love Me, you will like and share.”
Maybe I shouldn’t be this way, but I am. When someone tells me that I have to do something or that I can’t do something, I have an overwhelming urge to do the exact opposite. It is a great struggle for me to resist this urge and I do quite often. But sometimes that urge just gets the best of me. For example, in our world today we all get e-mails in which the ending says something to the effect that if we “love God, then email this to all your email buddies.” Please!
Or, we see these posts on Facebook or some other social network in which we are admonished to “Like and Share” if we agree with it. Oh come on, give me a break. Does no one understand human nature anymore? If people like it, they will push that button and if they want to share it, they will. Putting those words on the post does not change that fact. Well, it might change it for some like me who refuse to forward, like, or share something which has such an admonition attached to it.
If I get an email with this on the end, it gets deleted. I refuse to be manipulated in such a manner as this. My mom can testify to the reality that I have never been a follower of the crowd, not ever. At my age I am not about to start now. To me, such admonitions are not only manipulative, but an insult to my intelligence. I know my own mind and I am fully capable of making my own choices. I don’t need some lame tacked-on words at the end of something as some afterthought to propel me in the right direction.
Furthermore, if this “Like and Share” or the forwarding of emails is all a person’s life consists of in following Mashiach Yeshua, then such a person shall be sadly disappointed on the Day of Judgment when they hear the words “Depart from Me, for I never knew you.” They shall respond, “Master, did we not forward every single email that told us to forward it if we loved you to every single person in our address book? Did we not like and share every single post on Facebook that told us to like and share if we loved you? Does this not prove that we love you?” He will surely say, “If you love Me, obey My commandments.” Surely, they would hang their heads in shame, realizing they failed to do anything tangible to obey His commandments.
Liking and sharing or forwarding emails does absolutely nothing to prove one’s love for our Creator and Savior. Neither does such silliness do anything to act in obedient love towards our Master. He has told us to go out and to give a refreshing drink to those who need it. He has told us to give food to those who are hungry. He has told us to clothe those who are naked. Does liking and sharing or the forwarding of an email accomplish these things? NO!
We need to stop wasting time and actually do what He has commanded us to do. It is not the government’s responsibility to follow Mashiach Yeshua and obey His commandments. It is each person’s individual responsibility to do this. It is each person’s responsibility to do what is right in His eyes. I cannot do it for you and you cannot do it for me. However, we can help each other do it and when we combine our resources; we can do more than if we only worked alone.
One horse can pull a great load. One horse is limited in how much he can pull. However, hook up two horses as a team and the amount they can pull together is not just doubled, rather it is four times as much. Is it any wonder then that one finds such verses as this in Scripture?
Devarim (Deuteronomy) 32:30
“How should one chase a thousand, And two put ten thousand to flight, Except their Rock had sold them, And YHWH had delivered them up?”
By this math, a million-man army only needs four men sold out to YHWH to defeat them!
So here is the question I would like to leave you with today. Are you listening to the voice of those sending you emails and posts on social networks? Or, are you hearing and obeying His Voice?
Zerubbabel ben Emunah
www.onetorahforall.com
zerubbabel@onetorahforall.com