Empty Vessels Awaiting Their Fulfillment

A person, no matter how great they are in earthly terms,
if they fail to acknowledge the Lord, fail to humble themselves
before His Messiah, is like a building magnificently built but left empty.

[the following is my email response to a dear and learned friend who still misinterprets my heart... I summarize their sentiments without directly quoting their words for the sake of anonymity... the manner I wrote my response reflects a dynamic I sense in them, one that is reminiscent of a friendship easily abandoned - the temptation to end a friendship]

I respond to their fear of death and contemplation of suicide:

This life is a process, and its end should not be aborted but embraced. 

The journey's lessons reimburse for its troubles.

I respond to their discomfort of hearing me openly express my love for God, them wondering if I have forgotten their religious background and their current stance:

I do recall what I've learned from you, about you, and because of you. 

I am bound to speak from my heart, and now that we know a bit more of each other, we shouldn't refrain from being honest.

I respond to their misunderstanding when I quote Scripture as somehow meaning I hate homosexuals:

If there is anything you find detestable in society, plaguing some of our dear brothers and sisters, is it that thing you hate? or the people through whom it comes? 

You have written about poverty and greed and ignorance. 

Do you hate the people that are greedy, ignorant, and indifferent to humanity's plight? 

Of course not. 

You hate greed, poverty and the indifference that allows for poverty. 

You hate it because you see these temptations in your own life. 

It is not people one hates, but rather their shortcomings (as we hate our own shortcomings). 

I hate not people, but the things which destroy and harm others.

I respond to his discomfort of me sharing things he disagrees with.

What I believe is largely disagreeable because the individual must face themselves in the mirror, and it is this task that is detestable for many people. 

Who likes to face their shortcomings and be held accountable for them?.. but I love it, for it reveals in me things which I should work on, and shows the Ideal mankind has forever pondered in his heart.