Racism, Really?

Racism, Really?

5/28/17

Well, this topic should be one of interest to many for it is one that “graces” our lives each day without warning and many times accompanied with disbelief.  One cannot dismiss such antics that are presented before our eyes on a continual basis and what frightening is that in many cases the Church has bought into this lie from Satan.  I am not saying that racism does not exist, for it was originated from Satan himself and thus grown into a viable weapon in order to silence and whelp many people into submission before a conversations begin.  We must remember that when a relative subject is brought into the forefront that causes division you can be sure that there is some biblical principle that God has already addressed in His Word and we must be careful not to distort the truth in order to be popular.

When I was a kid growing up I lived in many places around this country which meant I had plenty of opportunities to make friends.  In these travels, I also had the privilege to meet and to associate with many different cultures, backgrounds, ethnic groups, and any other “category” one wishes to proclaim.  My parents always taught me to be fair and to accept the people as human beings and no matter what their skin color, creed, or nationality may be, do your best to be kind and to show them, Jesus. While this stance gained me plenty of friends and persons that I hung around with it also was a setback on some occasions because I did hang around “those” people.  No matter, I was a happy kid who always had others to play with and still hold fond memories from those days of my life.

I know that if I would have said and acted as some of the young people do today I probably would not be in the physical condition I am today.  While I have a few health problems in my body I can sit down without hurting for my parents taught me well to respect others even when they are not your friends culturally.  This truth that they instilled into my life I have tried my best to keep but I have to admit that there was a time in my life where I struggled with this truth and almost threw it out, horribly while I was on a trip overseas.  I still reflect back to that trip often and marvel at my idiotic thinking and then silently suffer from my breaching of when my mother helped Memphis break the segregation barrier many decades ago.  I do have a saving grace in that I have learned from the best physical couple in this area and have the perfect example from my Savior Jesus to keep in my heart and to share with others when the setting comes into motion.

How is it possible to sustain and then maintain a society where blood is sought as a first responder to any situation that arises?  In every society, issues have come to a head and then vanquished over time but on the other hand, each society has endured social issues that have actually threatened the land or have taken it down.  To accuse someone of being a racist initially sets a person back for the term or phrase is used as a catch phrase and one that strikes at the core of a setting in order to grab the upper hand in a discussion.  The usage of such a phrase also places the conversation into a decline for everyone changes their positioning when the idea is thrown out, a sad yet fluid piece that defines the direction of the division.

There is no question that there is a large amount of civil unrest in this country and it seems like every day the boiling point of emotions rise another degree or two.  It is not uncommon to hear of angry people venting their frustrations out on the opposing political side and blaming that other side for the issues that are at hand.  While this method is a viable proposition it serves nothing but to divide as mentioned in the above paragraphs.  I also find fault in people carrying protest signs mentioning God and Jesus trying to politicize their positions in name of a human ill. 

I have heard these types of groups say God would never allow such hate to exist, saw WWJD signs, and other signs that had written Scripture on them pass by the cameras for all to see.  God has also shown us over the past that He, and later Jesus, do not have political agendas and we should understand that by using this platform to get our point of view across is a grievous sin and that we should be held accountable for such divisive tactics against God and His Kingdom.  It breaks God’s heart when He witnesses such portrayals of His name benefiting Satan and his world; God created our lives to be an example of separation from the world and not a means to divide the people believing in the world further.

A few months ago God shared with us a beautiful series from the New Testament where Jesus was talking with the woman at the well.  Many different truths were shared with us in that series and it made many of us think about how we view others and who we need to witness to on a daily basis.  The story is a magnificent portrayal of Jesus’ ministry and one that is often referred to when trying to make a personal point concerning a current or past issue.  I must admit that it pains me to see people use God’s Word for political maneuvering or gain for it falsifies God’s true intention for our lives and it sells out Jesus’ ministry for a personal vendetta against those who believe that others are wrong.  I cannot say that this shall be the last article that God will share with us dealing with this specific passage of Scripture, for as I study His Word deeper He reveals so much more of what He wants us to know about Him and our lives.

In John Chapter 4 we once again return to Jesus, the disciples and a Samaritan woman.  Many of us know the story by heart and it is a great example of how Jesus looked past certain issues of the physical and went directly to the true reason of why He walked this earth.  Many times we get caught up in the physicality of Jesus and ignore the true meaning of His presence, the eternal.  This setting is not the only time Jesus demonstrated that His purpose on this earth was not political but eternal and that was when He said His famous words in Matthew 22:21 that we should give to Caesar what is his and give God what is His.  First off we must mention that when Jesus met the woman at the well the disciples were not with him at that very moment, they were in town fulfilling a request from Jesus and it is this act that sets into motion of how we need to be when we encounter people who believe differently than we do AND what difference is really important between us.

Typical race relations are presented here for when Jesus walks up to the well and asks the woman for a drink she cannot believe that He is even talking to her.  This means that race relations between ethnic groups were strained even back during Jesus’ times and if studied were present long before Jesus walked the earth a problem that we still have not conquered today.  The woman recognizes that Jesus is a Jewish man and since she understands her ethnic origins has encountered some type of divisional racial tension in her past between her and other Jews.  The Samaritans were considered mixed breeds; they were Jewish but mixed with Babylonian blood as a result of the captivity of the children of Israel centuries earlier.  Yet, Jesus did not address her ethnic status but went straight for her spiritual condition, a situation that we harbor in our own culture today.

Jesus does not condemn her or shun her because of her ethnicity or her spiritual condition but He talks to her and tells her about her life through her own words of admission.  Now, we must admit that Jesus had a bit more discernment for the situation than what we normally do, but in our case, we can still have such authority in the spirit if we have placed God’s Kingdom first in our lives and operate through such livelihood.  After a few minutes of discussion, not yelling, Jesus tells the woman to go and sin no more thus defeating any suggestion that His motives were racially biased or placed on the physical aspect of her life, only the eternal was discussed thus revealing to her and to us that Jesus had only one goal and that was the spiritual and eternal. Remember, Jesus was the true Son of God which meant that He had to be consistent in ALL things or He would have given Satan legal grounds for reclaiming his position in heaven.

The conversation between the woman and Jesus did not start out on the same level and this is evident from what the woman led with and what Jesus led with.  We cannot deny that Jesus had Jewish blood running through His physical veins and that everything He represented was as a Jew, this is a truth that we cannot ignore or dismiss.  Often we tend to forget about this detail about Jesus but we cannot if we are willing to understand His presence on earth and why He could not live and function just in the physical aspects of life.  The other physical aspect of this setting comes into play with the disciples and it is their actions and words that display the racial incident and could have caused a rift in what Jesus had begun on that day.

When the disciples returned and saw Jesus talking with the woman, they immediately recognized her ethnic background and were not happy about what Jesus was doing.  It was a huge no-no for anyone to publicly converse with a Samaritan and to top things off it was a Samaritan woman that He was conversing.  The disciples were quick to point out that she was a Samaritan and how wrong it was for Him to be seen with such a low-life and one that could not be like them.  The difference here is that Jesus understood the Samaritan culture yet did not hold it against the woman while the disciples held her culture against her even though they were not directly involved in the conversation.  The disciples held on to their beliefs in the physical and totally ignored what Jesus was doing in the spiritual.  In other words, the disciples were more concerned with their physical appearances and who they were associated with at the time while Jesus was concerned with the woman’s eternal positioning with God.

The woman approached her duties with no malice a forefront.  The disciples had their agenda already agreed upon just by where they were at geographically, which fueled their physical desires of Jewish beliefs and then were ruffled when their side of the block was supposedly challenged.  While the woman did not verbally assault Jesus she did use words that would have threatened the situation but she did indicate that she understood the racial divide existed, a mild form of racism if you place it in the purest form.  The disciples, on the other hand, dealt with the situation with a bit more harshness about the setting and demonstrated a common reaction that many of us would have if we saw such a setting which represents a higher form of racism and one that is noticeable today.  In either case, Jesus stayed out of the physical, directed the conversation to the eternal, and stayed the weekend for a revival in the hated lands.  Which places the questions into play that God wants to ask us: who is acting like a racist in this story and who are we actually portraying?

There is no possible way that anyone can not acknowledge that many of the protests that we see crossing our screens and eyes do not have almost identical characteristics as John Chapter 4.  The timeframe is definitely off and the issues are somewhat different but the divisive nature of the words used and the attitudes displayed conjure up identical reactions on all sides involved.  If Jesus would have demonstrated these same characteristic attitudes towards the woman at the well, or agitate the setting by displaying His Jewish side of His life, He kept it on a spiritual level only which is exactly what we should be doing when an obvious “racial” moment arises.

Now God asks us this question, are we responding to others on a physical nature well enough to commit spiritual racism against God and our eternal existence?  Wait a minute here, what is this spiritual racism thingy?  Well, if Jesus dealt with the spiritual in the two settings above why don’t we deal with the same level now?  It is the level that we are dealing with, right?  While God understands and recognizes our ethnic differences those differences are not the overall ones He is concerned about.  For each ethnic representative present on this earth has a spirit within them that comes directly from God and it is that aspect of our lives that shall live forever and thus most concerning to God our Father.  See, it is our hearts that God sees and hears and if we have purposefully divided others from God then we have done nothing more than to separate them from God which in turn represents anger towards a brother or spiritual racism.  So, God asks the question again, are you practicing spiritual racism against Him and His child?  How will we answer this question?  It is a very important one since it will determine both your eternal placement and those who you come in contact with as well.

And then God wishes to address His second question that refers to who are we portraying when we are walking around in our “Jesus clothes” and holding the godly signs with Scriptures written all over them?  Are we concerned about being a witness for God and caring about one's eternal placement or are we trying to use God’s Word to promote our own human definition of eternal misunderstanding?  Physical racism is a bad enough tool that our enemy invented and now continually uses in order to divide our lives even further so why are we executing the same level of division by completing his work on the eternal as well?  Our job is to go into the world and to preach and teach the Gospel according to Jesus Christ, period!  If we place our activities to convert the world to Christ solely on our personal beliefs we have failed at His command, especially the beliefs that do not correspond with His Father's Word.  If one holds up a sign that says John 3:16 you best be demonstrating exactly what that verse states or you are a liar and one that is advancing Satan’s kingdom instead of God’s Kingdom.

The time for playing around is over and it is time to choose which side you want to live on.  There is no fence sitting and no having one foot in Colorado and one foot in Utah, it is either or and not both.  We have done our best to divide God’s Kingdom long enough and by the looks of it, we have done an excellent job in allowing millions to die and go to hell in their sins each day. We must stop the spiritual racism that we are performing and when we stop this action of ours, guess what, the physical racism and all of its ugliness shall disappear as well.  But this shall never occur until we turn our lives back to God and place Him first in our lives.  He is the eternal and everlasting God and the One who created us to advance His Kingdom and to represent Him at all times.  He loves us so very much and it is through obedience to His Ways that we show that we know His Love and accept it into our lives.  Repent Church, and allow God to restore our lives so that we can effectively reach the lost with the true eternal life that is offered.  Spiritual racism, really?  Oh, yes.  Tough subject but one that is showing it colors unabated and one that needs to be dealt with immediately.

DLB