By Billy Graham • May 9, 2012 • Topics: Religion
I agree with part of what you say; we should respect those who disagree with us and not hate or revile them. God made them just as He made us, and He loves them just as He loves us. As someone has said, we can disagree without being disagreeable. The Bible commands us to “live at peace with everyone” (Romans 12:18).
But that doesn’t mean we should compromise our beliefs or pretend they aren’t important to us. As a Christian, I believe God has shown us what He is like and how He wants us to live. We aren’t left to wonder if He exists or cares about us — because He has revealed this to us. This is why the Bible is so important, because through its pages God tells us about Himself. The Bible says, “For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21).
Let me illustrate why this is important. Imagine that you were a medical researcher, and one day you discovered a cure for a specific type of cancer. Would you keep it to yourself, or say to yourself that it didn’t matter? No, of course not. Instead, you’d do everything you could to tell others about it so they could be healed.
In the same way, Jesus Christ (the Bible says) came to heal us of the deadliest disease of all — the spiritual disease of sin. Let us discover this truth for ourselves — and then joyfully share it with others.