My Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, I cannot sit in silence without writing about the atrocity at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church last week, when a shooter killed nine of our other brothers and sisters. My feelings about this are so strong, that I am compelled by the love of Christ to respond.
I believe the killings were demonically motivated in the
mind of the shooter. (I don’t care to
give the shooter more fame by using his name.)
Satan’s mission statement, according to Jesus in John 10:10, is to “kill,
steal and destroy.” He succeeded in killing these precious nine members. That is how this story begins, but hopefully,
not how it ends. And, a lot of that
depends on whether we choose to live like who we are in Christ.
Here are some piercing questions that challenged me that I
had to ask myself in how God can use this tragedy for good. Each of these
questions is really about a bigger question?
“Is Christ living through me in regard to racism?”
- Do I feel our Father’s grief over this or have I resigned myself to the inevitability of these kinds of killings?
- Have I recognized my own sin of racism as evidenced by telling racial jokes or passing on my racist views to my children and others?
- Have I prayed for the family members of the nine slain brothers and sisters in Christ?
- Have I prayed for the remaining members of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church?
- Have I asked God if there is a lonely person in my life He wants me to befriend and share Christ with, who just might be the next shooter unless someone reaches out to him?
- Have I prayed that the church as a whole would stop being the most segregated institution in America?
- If I preach each Sunday, have I considered preaching on this?
- If I blog, have I considered writing on this?
My prayer more than ever is that we let Jesus live through
us to be a part of the answer, instead of perpetuating the problem. Something to look forward to is that God’s
kingdom in heaven is full of every race, tribe, tongue and nation according to Revelation
5:9 and 7:9. Heaven will not have different
sections based on skin color. Every
neighborhood will be multi-ethnic.
Jesus taught us to pray for the kingdom of God to come to
the earth. That includes racial
diversity in the body of Christ, as well as economic and ability/disability
diversity. As His children, we can all
be united in prayer that His Kingdom will come to the part of the earth we journey
on.
The Jesus who lives in us grieves over what happened last
week. But He also knows it is an
opportunity for the church to rise up and act as His agent, through whom He
brings His kingdom to this earth. No one
person can do it all but, the One Person living in us can do more when we
rely on Him to do it through each of us.
This is the Gospel in action because just as the Gospel of
grace frees us from our own junk, He also desires to express Himself through us
into a dark world that desperately needs His light to shine brightly.
Would you stop for a moment and ask your Heavenly Father
what He might be saying to you in this devo/blog?
Believe it! It's the Gospel.
Live Free In Christ,
Mark Maulding, President and Founder
www.GraceLifeInternational.com All Content Copyright © 2015 Mark Maulding but feel free to pass it on!
