My heart is grieving
This has been a week or 2 (or 3) of tragic racism. No one, white, black or brown, could ever deny that the goings on in Georgia and Minnesota are sinful. The display of injustice hurts all of mankind and is a stain on our country’s racist present.
What is wounding me even further is the divide it is causing among believers.
We’ve had too much time away from each other. No face to face connections. No hugs. No side by side prayers. No Holy Spirit oil to heal these sins.
Anger is gaining a foothold
We are judging each other instead of loving each other.
We are finding offense instead of forgiving
I read a facebook thread that had me wondering what the outside world might think of us as a church. It was between 2 brothers in our body and came across as hostile, at least to me. It made me sad when I thought about all the people in their friends lists who might be reading that same thread, who might not know the same Lord that they do.
Of course racism is a sin!
With few exceptions, most everyone in our church has experienced racism first hand and felt it’s sting. All would agree it’s wrong and it should be absent from our church and world. How often and how vehemently we condemn it seems to be the issue.
At it’s core, racism is a condition of the heart, like any other sin. It needs a Savior to remove it. The Holy Spirit to cleanse and heal it, and God the Father to instruct it in a new way of living.
Historically, there was a time when racism was our country’s primary sin. Today, there are numerous ones to condemn. They are a minefield of public discourse and division. And it belongs to the church to pray for them and live lives that demonstrate our love for each other in the face of that divisiveness.
Our country is hard. Democracy is hard. Freedom is hard. And faith in the face of it all is even harder.
As citizens, we have limited political power. Our vote is it. We cast it where we each believe it will do the least harm and the most good. After that, we pray and live in unity with our faith families. History has proven that electing a black or white president has little influence on the hearts of mankind. How we speak about them publicly exposes our own hearts more than it persuades others to see our point of view. We add unneeded weight to the world’s opinion that we are unfit for their participation. It drives people away from a love that will transform their lives.
We are better than this
It’s time we start showing a racist, hostile world that there is a path of unity found in Jesus
Let it begin
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