Photos by Ralph Freso / Slideshow / Livestream
With political tensions at a zenith, pastor Darryl DelHousaye of Redeemer Bible Church emphasized the importance of loving your enemies and praying for those who persecute you.
“It can change a life,” DelHousaye told students during Monday Chapel at Global Credit Union Arena. “Do you have a clue about how important this is? “You will, because no matter which way the election goes, this country is split. And you’re going to get it from one side or the other.”
Despite the relentless acrimony, DelHousaye believes one good thing will come out of Tuesday’s election.
“The church is going to be purified,” DelHousaye said. “You won’t be able to be a wimpy Christian. You’re going to have to make a mark. What mark? ‘Well, fight them.' 'No, we’ll pray for them.’ And not that God takes them home. But we pray. Father, forgive them.
“They know not what they do, and you’ll be showing the heart of your heavenly Father and following the very command of Jesus Christ. You’ll be perfect, complete. You’ll act like a mature Christian who learned the lessons instead of blowing off the words of Jesus, the one we follow. And we honor them, thus we honor the Father.”
University Pastor, Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students Dr. Tim Griffin set the tone at the start by asking students to give each other a fist bump and to vote at the campus voting site.
“As God’s people, we need to be praying for our country, our leadership,” Griffin said. “God’s Word invites us and encourages us to do that.”
DelHousaye has been in ministry for nearly 60 years and has seen many people fulfill their declaration of following Jesus Christ, based on their enthusiasm.
“Others look like they’ve been baptized in pickle juice,” DelHousaye said.
But he was not joking when he discussed the distinction of changing one’s contempt to love and prayer for those who have persecuted you.
“If there’s been a change in my life, are you going to see it in the way I treat my friends or the way I treat my enemies?” DelHousaye said.
“You know the answer.”
However, this does not mean the warm-feeling, “kissy-face, huggy body-type” of stuff.
“The word He uses here is a word that has nothing to do with how you initially feel nor do you have to like each other,” DelHousaye said. “It’s a choice, and simply to love is to make the choice to recognize the worth of a human being and care about their well-being.”
So who is your enemy? Obviously, it is those who physically and verbally abuse you and tell lies.
“But the fact is that even in this political climate, (Wednesday) this message will be very important when you find out how your friends voted, and others who may not find as your friends voted,” DelHousaye said. “How split are we going to be?”
And this is not like junior high, DelHousaye adds, when you elected to hurt the people who harmed you.
“But Jesus says there’s a change,” DelHousaye said. “And I really follow Jesus, and it’s real. Then how it will be seen, not in the way I treat my friends, but in the way I treat my enemies. People who I would rather hurt.”
It is a choice to recognize their worth, Jesus said. The enemies bear the image of God, no matter how hateful they are. And no matter how they disagree with their view and thoughts, and even if they abuse or mock you, they are worth Jesus Christ to the Father. Who else is going to recognize the worth of human beings if it is not the children of the Father because it is the Father’s heart?
DelHousaye shared the findings of Viktor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist and psychologist, in his international best-selling book "Man’s Search for Meaning." Frankl was placed in four concentration camps. His father starved to death in one camp, his mother and brother were executed in a gas chamber, and his first wife died of typhus in another camp.
DelHousaye said that Frankl observed that those who cared about the well-being of others, “which is biblical love by choice,” survived.
“The salvation of man is in love and through love,” Frankl wrote.
“What’s going to be the real change in me?” DelHousaye said.
“Not how I treat my friends, but the way I treat those I don’t like. That can start here because there are people around you who you don’t like.”
Next Chapel speaker: Brian Kruckenberg, New City Church, 11 a.m. Nov. 18, Global Credit Union Arena (no Chapel on Nov. 11, Veterans Day
GCU News senior writer Mark Gonzales can be reached at [email protected]
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