“WE” (Born again believers…babs)…need to be uncommon. To be “friends” with the world and the direction it wants to go (whenever it chooses an immoral path) is to be an enemy of God. Christ followers do not have to bow to sin to demonstrate “love”. The world isn’t angry with people who agree with its end goals. Rather, it gets upset with people who stand in the way of what it wants to do when that way opposes the ordinances of God.
There have always been ways that seemed right to people and “the masses” in general, but any path that leads away from God ends in destruction. Consider how the world works almost like a singular organism.
Our cells don’t know they cooperate to make one body do what it wants to. They are mere citizens of what, to them, is a vast enclosure and they just go about their business, going with the “bloodflow” as it were. Likewise most people do not realize they are participating in an age old war where “our ancient enemy” who was always more “subtle and crafty” than we are keeps getting the better of us by taking advantage of our emotions. Eve distrusted God. She thought the forbidden fruit looked pleasant and so she lusted (entertaining an emotionally driven desire). She got the feeling that it was good to listen to the enemy. Adam followed her though he knew better. Thus, humanity fell.
I say all that to say this. Everyone panicked in the year 2020 especially when the world shut down. It was an emotional response. Our enemy counts on our predictability when we become fearful. Economies slowed. People displayed their fear of death, especially from such an unfamiliar cause as a global pandemic. Additionally, we saw yet another of our brothers killed by “white” officers, not realizing that while that was indeed inexcusable, we were failing once again to realize something important about our existence, our essence,—our being. A human being is not the skin he wears. When we die, the spirit of blackness, whiteness or whatever label we’ve been given is no where to be found! Rather, the consciousness God gave us goes to Him while the flesh rots away. That’s not to say racism does not exist. It certainly does. As a man of color, I’ve seen it. When George Floyd’s life was taken (after many other “black lives” had already been) the world witnessed a physical manifestation of an invisible enemy, an enemy we’ve never defeated because we collectively fail to confront it.
This was always a fight against the powers of darkness who have used race, socioeconomic class, and other man-made labels and divisions as chips in their twisted game. We let some of our “leaders” keep playing on our emotions saying things like if we don’t vote this way, “we ain’t black,” or if we vote that way we’re being duped by the real racists and bigots. Meanwhile there are bigots in all political parties if we are to be honest!
Instead of demanding better candidates we settled for mediocrity. Instead of pre-qualifying our candidates based, not on perfection (because no one is flawless), but on a genuine commitment to righteousness (which is simply, the highest moral standards set by God), we kept choosing corrupt individuals. Instead of forgiving our trespassers (granted it was difficult) while certainly not forgetting altogether the atrocities committed against us, we harboured resentment…especially black folk. It’s a difficult confession because skin-wise, I’m classified as a black man, but having some knowledge of our history, I know of hateful terms used against “white people” like “White Devil,” “Edomite,” …etc. I use quotation marks because after this life, everyone will know we (as a global community) have mislabeled ourselves. God created us male and female after his image and likeness but humanity divided itself into different factions, took sides, and waged wars. We even laced much of our music with hatred and anger.
In the United States, our citizens joined factions also. Most didn’t agree with the Christian ideals upon which the US was founded. We saw no harm in the groups as long as they promised to get us closer to that one thing we wanted (e.g. equal pay for equal work, equal rights, better healthcare etc.). We never truly got closer. We never truly united. We just learned to “coexist.” The nation is an organism of some sort, full of imperfect cells. The larger whole operates with wheat seems like a singular mind, flawed because each cell is fault, infected with sin, and in need of healing, redemption, and rebirth. But the cells constantly attack each other like an autoimmune disorder. This has prevented us from attacking the true threats. SIN, the powers of darkness, the devil, and fear! America had problems but who didn’t? We should have been praying fervently as we sought to live up to the ideals that we initially strived to reach! We should not have pulled back one bit and given the Adversary a single inch of territory.
Historically, however, we kept taking steps back. As a whole, we failed to realize each new change in legislation was taking us away from God. Did you know virtually every Ivy League university began with the mission to teach educate their student so they could come to know God? Yeah! You can fact check me. Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Columbia, and others educated their students for the ultimate goal of better knowing the God of Creation and spreading the gospel (“good news” of Jesus Christ) to the world. Now, few if any have kept their original mission statements.
We have exchanged the truth of God for a lie that He isn’t real. We’ve rejected the truth of God for a theory that this functional creation made itself and we are accidents. We continue to accept lies that result in gradual loss of our rights, identities, and true freedom, lies spoken by government officials, influential “theoretical scientists” (yes, in theory they’re scientists), so-called educators who no longer enlighten young minds, but confuse and pervert them with thoughts that they can be one or more of 50+ genders. We believe we can fix our world by writing our confusion into history, our present, and our future. If history were as confused as we are today, a n undoubtedly male U.S. president could hypothetically claim to have been the first black female president in history. Who would prove him wrong if our confusion is so right? Would black women everywhere not have reasonable cause to be angry? Yet people are getting told they can identify as anything they choose and there’s nothing wrong with that.
I know that many people lack the love of truth, but truth doesn’t change even when we ignore it and wish it were different. A great deception has blinded most. It is so elaborate, so subtle, and so hard to prove that the uncommon have a hard time fighting back! All we can do now is continue praying. Christ isn’t going to return when things are rosey. According to scripture He will essentially burst forth through the clouds and every last person on earth will see Him and bow as they finally realize that the God who made them has returned in visible form.
Rest assured things will seem to get better. Our world leaders think they have a plan. Have at it! Who are we to be anarchic when God instructs us to submit to them (secondarily to Him)? So we’ll go with the flow for now, knowing that everything has been foretold. One day we will have to take a stand against the increasing wickedness of the world. The Holy Spirit will let us know when that time comes. Until then, remember common sense is indeed always common. In the 1950’s it seemed commonly sensible to smoke cigarettes to remain healthy. We know better now. Common sense isn’t always right, but it us always popular…because it’s common. The common sense shared by a drunken bar is that the bar is spinning. Every drunk feels it. The sober know otherwise.
“Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” – 1 Peter 1:13
SOUL HAVEN 