Charlie Kirk and Those We Are Supposed to Love

This past week has been heavy for our country with the assassination of Charlie Kirk. People have lost jobs for making fun of his death, Turning Point USA has had over 37,000 requests for new chapters in high schools and colleges, and I don’t think life in America will ever look the same again.

Over the weekend, I kept thinking about the kids Charlie spent so much time talking with on campuses across the nation. Students who are in the middle of an identity crisis, who feel like they’re stuck in the wrong body, or who live with self-hate every day. Even kids who identify as animals or objects just to cope. These are the very people Jesus has called us to love. And now, as details come out about Charlie’s killer and his ties to a transgender male, it’s just heartbreaking to see the pain and confusion in it all.

Charlie’s mission was to step into conversations with people who didn’t agree with him and create space for honest debate—conversations that almost no one else was willing to have. He stood in a gap that only a few others, like Bryce Young with his Instagram ministry, are also trying to fill—reaching out, praying with, and talking to people from every walk of life who don’t yet know Christ.

So here’s the question I’m wrestling with today: what are we doing to love people who don’t know Jesus? Do we even stop to ask the Holy Spirit to help us understand the pain of someone who looks in the mirror and thinks about ending their life because they feel like they were born in the wrong body?

When we run into someone angry, bitter, or depressed—do we ask God for a way into their life, or do we just look the other way? If our frustration with the darkness in this world causes us to forget that those trapped in their minds and hearts being deceived by the devil are people too, then we’re doing Christianity wrong. We have to see them as Jesus sees them. That doesn’t excuse evil actions, but it does change how we pray and how we approach people with compassion instead of human judgment.

Matthew 9:36 says, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” That’s how Jesus looked at people. Do we want those who hate us to meet the Shepherd we know in Christ?

It’s always easier to fight fire with fire and hate with hate. But following Jesus means doing the harder thing—meeting anger with love and despair with peace.

This week, ask God how you can bring His peace into the world around you. Be bold in living out the truth of Scripture, but do it with the love of Christ shining through you. Remember James 1:20: “The anger of man does not produce the righteous life that God desires.”