This weekend the news was filled with riots, anger, hate speech and death as a car plowed into a crowd of people. I know that as a woman and an American the images and the news filled me with sadness and anger.
As I have been processing and praying over how to respond, two things stood out immediately. The first one is to acknowledge truth, and to personally live out that truth. All men and women are created in the image of God. Every skin color, every ethnicity, every physical feature reflects the divinity of Jesus Christ. Every person is valuable and worthy of dignity and respect.
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:27 ESV
White supremacy and Nazi philosophy is evil and born out of fear and pride. It is a thought process from Satan and it opposes the gospel. As Christians we are called to serve one another in love across social, economic and ethnic boundaries. The early church was made up of Jews and Gentiles, rich and poor, slave and free, men and women.
“[In this new creation all distinctions vanish.] There is no room for and there can be neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, [nor difference between nations whether alien] barbarians or Scythians [who are the most savage of all], nor slave or free man; but Christ is all and in all [everything and everywhere, to all men, without distinction of person].” — Colossians 3:11 AMP
So the first thing to do is to ask ourselves, how am I personally living out the commandment to love people who don't look like me or come from the same place I come from? That can mean your neighbor, a family in your children's school, or someone next to you in church that you've never spoken to.
The second thing is to pray for those whom Satan has blinded by hate. They are lost and in need of redemption and being made new. The gospel doesn't just command us to love our friends, it asks us to follow Christ in loving our enemies.
So today can we take a moment to pray for the souls of those lost in hatred and for the church to come together in love for one another?
“But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,”
— Matthew 5:44 ESV