Dave’s Monday Blast – June 8, 2020
Interesting days in which we find ourselves. “Pandemic” aside, over the last couple weeks I have been attempting to process things that I can not relate to. I really do not know what it is like to experience racial discrimination. I have not, and do not face systemic poverty. My encounters with injustice pale in comparison to many, and I have never been the innocent victim of violence. However, Jesus can relate!
He lived His life as a Jew under Roman occupation. He was so impoverished that he had “nowhere to lay His head” (Luke 9:58). After His arrest, he was subject to what has been called “the most unjust trial in human history.” He suffered and died in innocence (Isaiah 53:9; Hebrews 4:15), atoning for sins He did not commit to purchase our salvation (Romans 5:8). Not to mention efforts to kill him as an infant and attempts to stone him to death as an adult.
As a result, Jesus has the moral authority to speak to these days in which we live in a way that I do not. We must pay special attention to His teaching if we are to be part of the solution to another crisis with which we face.
Pastor Jim Denison comments, “Let us consider the single sentence that is often considered His foundational ethical principle: ‘Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets’ (Matthew 7:12). This one maxim provides a way forward through the scourge of racism and violence of our day. And it reconciles the many voices clamoring to provide “the answer” to the conflicts within our culture.
Consider: If every person did to others what they would want to be done to them, would racial prejudice exist? Would police step outside their operational boundaries? Would violent responses be considered an acceptable/appropriate response? Would an individual, regardless of color, gender or race be enslaved in this land or any other? Would children be murdered in the name of choice? Would the majority oppress the minority? Would members of one community oppress another?
Denison concludes: “We cannot force another person to choose Jesus’ rule for living, but we can choose it for ourselves. If we seek the most strategic, significant ways to use our influence in His service. We can pray for divine help as we love every person we meet as we want them to love us, modeling Jesus’ transformational love for us all.”
This is a daily INTENTIONAL choice brothers. A hard one admittedly; but it is His will for us.
