Patrick Higgins's Blog - Posts Tagged "stop-the-hate"
Christians and Racism by Patrick Higgins
If you proclaim to be a follower of Jesus Christ, yet you have an issue with someone simply because their skin color is darker or lighter than yours, or because they come from a different culture and look different than you, your issue isn't with them but with God.
After all, just like you, they are the way they are because the Most High chose to make them that way. Your disapproval of them is nothing more than you holding God in contempt for the mistake you think He made. Imagine that, a grain of sand trying to correct an endless universe...
At the heart of racism stands Satan, not man. No one is more pleased by the racial tension in the world than God's ultimate enemy. I'm sure he marvels at how shallow we humans tend to be, by hating one another simply because of skin color! If you are a child of the Most High God and you are fighting in this war of division and hatred (even if only in thought), you are fighting for the enemy.
If this is you, you need to repent of this sin and start seeing others the way God sees them, as made in His image. If not, Satan will keep stirring your mind with thoughts that will not only further stoke the burning hatred of racism deep within you, it will put even more distance between you and the One who saw your unformed body before the foundations of the world, and knit you together in your mother's womb.
James 4:14 states: "What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes."
Eternity, on the other hand, never ends. With that in mind, imagine standing before Jesus on that inescapable day, and gazing into His holiness, and being forced to explain why you thought He made a mistake by creating others to look different than you? A frightening thought, to be sure...
1 John 4: 7-12 declares: "7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us."
As Christians, we need to be who we say we are in Christ Jesus. This includes loving our neighbors despite what they look like. And this doesn't just mean your next door neighbors, but anyone not living under your roof! Know what I mean?
Grace and peace y'all...
After all, just like you, they are the way they are because the Most High chose to make them that way. Your disapproval of them is nothing more than you holding God in contempt for the mistake you think He made. Imagine that, a grain of sand trying to correct an endless universe...
At the heart of racism stands Satan, not man. No one is more pleased by the racial tension in the world than God's ultimate enemy. I'm sure he marvels at how shallow we humans tend to be, by hating one another simply because of skin color! If you are a child of the Most High God and you are fighting in this war of division and hatred (even if only in thought), you are fighting for the enemy.
If this is you, you need to repent of this sin and start seeing others the way God sees them, as made in His image. If not, Satan will keep stirring your mind with thoughts that will not only further stoke the burning hatred of racism deep within you, it will put even more distance between you and the One who saw your unformed body before the foundations of the world, and knit you together in your mother's womb.
James 4:14 states: "What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes."
Eternity, on the other hand, never ends. With that in mind, imagine standing before Jesus on that inescapable day, and gazing into His holiness, and being forced to explain why you thought He made a mistake by creating others to look different than you? A frightening thought, to be sure...
1 John 4: 7-12 declares: "7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us."
As Christians, we need to be who we say we are in Christ Jesus. This includes loving our neighbors despite what they look like. And this doesn't just mean your next door neighbors, but anyone not living under your roof! Know what I mean?
Grace and peace y'all...
