Something that we can often get caught up in throughout our lives is admiring and supporting someone who we don’t know actually doesn’t care for us until they let us know that they don’t. A person might relay certain information and understanding that we might agree with and relate to in our form of understanding. We think that because we share certain ideals that this all of a sudden makes you friends with that person. A person can only be your friend unless you know them personally. You often end up trying to communicate with this person and the energy that you show to them is that you think of them as a close friend that you’ve known for 45 years. In reality, you’ve probably only heard of this person and what they’ve had to say about certain things for about 2 or 3 years. There is a difference between relating to the information and or perspective that a person is providing you and relating to the person. A person may feel a certain way about you and you wouldn’t even know it. You often develop this “cloud nine” mentality about people who offer information or “content” that you agree with. You have to take everyone you interact with and place them on the lowest bar of expectation possible. We can never think that we know who a person is or how they’ll interact with us because not only do we not know them but we are never supposed to put anybody on a pedestal. When you do this, you’re setting yourself up for failure and devastation because you thought that this stranger was going to embrace you with open arms. A person may seem to be one way on a microphone or on a camera but they’re an entirely different person when they interact with you in private. We should simply appreciate their information from afar. Unless that person communicates that they’re accepting of you as far as your ethnicity or gender, do not communicate with them in private. When you think this person is your long lost best friend, you start divulging way too much personal information that they have no business knowing about. Not only does it show to them that you’re way too trusting, it also shows that you’re not too smart and you didn’t pick up on the signals that they may not like you for who you are as an individual. You have to be able to separate the information or “content” from the “content creator”. You agree with what they’re saying. However, you don’t know this person from a can of paint. We have to let ourselves be free from this jolly way of thinking aka the “cloud nine” mentality where everyone who is in truth is your best friend.

Let this be very clear; just because someone’s in truth, that does not make them your best friend or a person that you necessarily can even like. There are people in truth who you find yourself just not being able to communicate with them or being close with them as friends or acquaintances. Sometimes, people in truth can exhibit and project a great deal of toxicity as people that completely sour the atmosphere of the rapport you may try to build with them. Not every person is “righteous”.  Just you because you “know” the Word and you praise the Most High’s Name, that doesn’t make you a humble or mentally/spiritually healthy person. Personally, the word “righteous” gets thrown around quite a bit. Righteousness means virtuosity, uprightness, innocence, and guiltless. Just because a person does something supposedly in the name of Yah, that doesn’t make the work itself “righteous”. If the purpose of the work and the components of that work is done or are rooted in righteousness or purity without vain purposes or hidden ulterior motives or with double-speak, that is what makes that work righteous. A person can say that they’re righteous and everything they do is righteous ad nausea but their claims won’t hold any merit if that energy is not being projected. A person in truth with a certain sense of discernment can tell who is truly humble, righteous, or pure at heart. They’ll be able to tell who is doing it simply to get attention or to “get big” off of the Lord’s Name. There is a difference between trying to build exposure for your business through marketing and trying to be “famous”. A person who is pure will naturally project that energy and it’ll be obvious that they are who they say they are. However, a person who keeps shouting to the heavens that they’re “righteous” brings other people to start questioning whether they’re truly genuine or not. If you’re righteous, your actions will speak for you. You don’t have to speak for your righteousness.

When we understand this, we learn to not be so trusting and thinking highly of everyone just because they say they’re in the truth. Once you learn to have greater discernment, you are able to evaluate things with greater clarity and not be led so quickly to believe in what another person is saying that they are. You will be able to avoid these unpleasant encounters where you are met with vitriol or negativity from another person while you showed the utmost respect and generosity in your statements towards them. The encounters of accusation or negativity or hatred will only be devastating if you think that everyone in truth is an angel sent from heaven who is as pure as a lamb. People are people. A person changes as the season does. That is the human experience. It is no different when a person comes into the truth. A person’s mentality changes in truth as well; for better or for worse. When we understand this, we learn to not place them on a pedestal. The only being we are to put on a pedestal and invest all of our trust in is the Most High Yahweh Elohim. We don’t place all of our trust into anyone in this life; whether they’re in truth or not. A person can change on a dime even if they are in truth. There are many people who fall out of truth after slowly descending into vanity, madness, arrogance, hubris, etc. Not everyone is meant to make it. When you learn that people come and go as the seasons do, you’re never to be devastated when they fall out of truth or fall out with you personally. Even if you’ve known a person in truth for some time, you can never place your full trust in them; not because they’re a bad person but because it is never wise to trust fully in the flesh since the flesh is not based completely in the truth. Humans have free choice. Angels on the right hand side are designated and unwavering from their righteousness. A human can wake up tomorrow and decide to not follow the Most High anymore or they may deny Him and lose favor from Him. Once they lose favor, it is unwise to stay in their circle because everything will go downhill from there for them. We have to be capable of staying and navigating in our own individual lane because our dependency on others to stay in truth will only drag us down with those who fall out as well. You have to be able to be alone without anyone else being by your side because that is the core principle of faith; trusting in the Most High and having nothing but your belief and trust in Him to help guide you throughout this life. We can’t cry wolf over those who we fall out with in life; whether they be friends, family, or other people in truth. It may hurt at first but we have to be able to move on and not dwell on it too long because if we do dwell on it, we may develop a bond to that person and fall with them. No matter how much we have love for a person or how many great memories we may have had with them, we have to remember to separate the love for our friendships or relationships from our love for the Most High and be able to let them go if the time ever comes where they fall out and turn for the worst. There are levels to this. We love the Most High, His Son, ourselves, then our parents, our wives, and our neighbors in truth. Self-love is prefaced before our love for anyone else because if we are not capable of loving and caring for ourselves, we will fail of being able to care for and love others. If you care for everyone around you while you’re not caring for yourself, you will destroy yourself. If you care for yourself and mistreat everyone around you because you’re only thinking about yourself, you will destroy yourself as well when you destroy the relationships you have because of your lack of care.

This brings us to the title, “Love Those Who Love You Back”. It is self-explanatory and rather plain. There is no use in loving those who do not care for you or do not wish you any good fortune. There is no use in loving those who are not providing anything positive to your life. That doesn’t mean they have to be giving you gifts or physical things. If they’re not providing you with a sense of reciprocative bond in learning and growing and supporting you as you do for them while growing together in truth, they’re simply not worth your energy. Again, that doesn’t mean they have to be hitting you up every hour of the day. It simply means that if you are to love your neighbors in truth as you do yourself, they have to be bringing something to the table.

Do not be eager to make friends just because you’re “alone”. Embrace your loneliness because that is the route which will create the strength within to rely on your faith in the Most High alone. It is crucial and is the main thing you must have as an individual in these last days. If you can’t rely on your faith alone, you simply won’t survive the trials and tribulations of the walk in these last days. That goes for all of us, including myself.

Having said that, it should be clear; do not be quick to love those who you don’t know at all. Do not develop an affinity for people just because they have good information or are saying things that you agree with. It is not a reflection on them as a person. It is a reflection on their knowledge and perspective. Value the Most High and His Son first above and beyond all things and your closest brothers in the truth will come. Charity cannot be forced. It has to come naturally. When we force it, we’re creating the path for our own disappointment, devastation, and if we don’t recover: our own self-destruction. Love those who you know love you back.

Peace and Blessings,

-GP