Monday, June 15, 2020

Who's Side Are You Fighting On?



Ok so let me nail this post to the virtual church door!

In light of all the George Floyd protests, looting and violence in the streets, I feel led to admonish those who call themselves Christians, by reminding us all of  the scriptures that we are called to obey and apply to our everyday lives.

Question: Do you find yourself getting emotional and angry at all the goings-on? Are you engrossed in all the political upheavals in Washington? Are you choosing sides of the racial injustices of this world? Well here's the first reminder from the writings of Paul.

2nd Timothy 2:1-4

"You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier."

No one engaged in warfare who is a soldier of Jesus Christ entangles himself in the affairs of this life! That means that we should not be concerned whatsoever with anything going on in this world! Didn't God Himself call His people to come out from among them and be SEPARATE?

2nd Corinthians 6:14-18 

Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will dwell in them And walk among them. I will be their God, And they shall be My people.” Therefore “Come out from among them And be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, And I will receive you.” “I will be a Father to you, And you shall be My sons and daughters, Says the Lord Almighty.”

What does it mean to be separate you ask? "to mark off from others by boundaries, to limit, to separate" pretty clear right? So God is saying to us in these scriptures to separate ourselves from the world, from darkness, from unbelievers, from idolatry etc...

We are to be IN the world but NOT OF the world!

John 17:14-16

"I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world."

If you call yourself a Christian and you are caught up in the George Floyd issue and separating yourself from other people because of their skin color you definitely need repentance and deliverance! Are you calling yourself "Black" or "White"? I'm sure you know those are colors and words that should not be used to identify different people groups. I don't see one scripture in the bible where God, Jesus, or His apostles address people from other countries by a color. The scriptures CLEARLY tell us there is no Jew or Gentile in Christ!

Galatians 3:26-29

"For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise."

Paul said that Christians should not regard anyone according to the flesh!

2nd Corinthians 5:16-17

"Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."
  
Here's a very enlightening excerpt from a recent blog post:

"In combating this increase in racism, there are two primary aspects to consider. The first is that the very idea of “race” is a lie: as the American Society of Human Genetics, the largest professional organization of scientists in the field, explained in an essay:

The science of genetics demonstrates that humans cannot be divided into biologically distinct subcategories”; and it “challenges the traditional concept of different races of humans as biologically separate and distinct. This is validated by many decades of research.” In other words, “race itself is a social construct,” with no biological basis.

In 2014, more than 130 leading population geneticists condemned the idea that genetic differences account for the economic, political, social and behavioral diversity around the world. In fact, said a 2018 article in Scientific American, there is a “broad scientific consensus that when it comes to genes there is just as much diversity within racial and ethnic groups as there is across them.” And the Human Genome Project has confirmed that the genomes found around the globe are 99.9 percent identical in every person. Hence, the very idea of different “races” is nonsense.

A second problem, as cognitive scientist George Lakoff has shown, is that simply using the word “race,” even when criticizing racism, actually reinforces the false belief that human beings belong to fundamentally different groups. That’s because the more a word is used, the more that certain brain circuits are activated and the stronger that metaphor becomes.

The use of colors to describe ethnic groups also supports racism. That’s why it is not acceptable anymore to refer to Asians as “yellow,” to Latin Americans as “brown,” or to Native Americans as “red.” However, many people, including academics and journalists, still use “black” to describe people of primarily recent African origin.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-concept-of-race-is-a-lie/

We are to be aliens and foreigners in this world, sojourners just passing through. Our citizenship is in Heaven and we should be looking up and waiting for our Lord and Savior to come back and redeem His people.

Philippians 3:20-21

"For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself."

So I ask you, who's side are you fighting on?

In The Lord's Army,
Tyrone