It is hard for me to comprehend how much things have changed just in my lifetime. Some changes have been very good. I can't comprehend how in the past (and unfortunately some people even today) Christians could think that the color of someone's skin made a difference as to their place in society or in God's family. As our pastor said today, the ground under the cross is level. A person's race, sex or creed has nothing to do with his or her status with God. I wasn't brought up like that and was stunned when I ran across it as an adult. It doesn't make sense, Christian or not, and I am thankful our country has taken a stand on this issue. Racism from anyone is disgusting. However, as much as we strive to be a colorblind country, we haven't arrived yet.
The church as a whole has made a lot of mistakes in the past, persecuting people for centuries because of this, that or the other. This was never Christ's example or teaching. He warned us not to judge. Just look at the passage in John, chapter 8, verses 3-11 where the Pharisees brought the woman, caught in the very act of adultery, before Jesus, demanding to know whether she should be stoned. Jesus didn't condemn her and made it obvious they couldn't condemn her either because they had sin in their lives too. One pastor I love and respect said he thought when Jesus wrote on the ground, he was writing the secret sins of the men who brought her to him. However, although Jesus loved her and accepted her, when all was said and done he told her to leave her life of sin. He didn't whitewash it and tell her it was okay.
Nowadays, that isn't good enough. Sin isn't sin anymore... it is a personal choice. Not only is it a personal choice, we have to applaud those choices or else we are called intolerant. Some will tell you that this all boils down to religious freedom. In a way, I suppose that is correct and it is unfortunate. Our country was founded on personal religious freedom, but our laws were based on scripture. Of course we can't and shouldn't have a law to govern every action. The "cradle to grave" mentality has gone far enough already. But if we throw out the truths of the Bible, where else do we get a moral code to base our lives on? If we take away the foundation for our morality, if there is no black and white, it all comes down to "what I want." What's right for me is no business of yours, right? In a sense that is true but no society can hold together if its citizens don't for the most part adhere to a common morality that at its heart protects those who cannot protect themselves. Anyone who is honest with themselves knows that none of us comes from an altruistic mindset. Apart from God, we are all out to get what we want and at the expense of whomever or whatever gets in the way. If I get pregnant and it isn't convenient for my life at the time, our society tells me that I have the right to choose. Choose what? To kill my baby and throw it away. Science and medicine has come too far for anyone to continue to claim that an unborn child is simply a piece of tissue. We know better even if some don't want to admit it. We've all seen the pictures. We know~
But that is where we have gone as a country and that is only one example. I find it frightening and it breaks my heart. It has been said that Christianity is one generation away from extinction and I see it more clearly now than ever. My father once told me that the older he became, the more he knew how far from God he was and I couldn't understand it at the time. He was a Godly, loving father to me. He was the one who demonstrated the truth of God to my life. However, I get it now. The older I get, the more I recognize my own sin and failures. The more I agonize over my failures as a mother and wonder how far reaching those failures will go. Just last week I spent hours on my bed, crying instead of sleeping. I can only pray that God will take my failures and use them as only He can to make something good.
I am still thankful to have been born in the United States of America. I pray that President Obama seeks God as he makes decisions that will affect each and every one of us. I know in my heart that he is in that office because God wills it in His providence. And I pray that those of us who name Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior will remember His example and show love and not condemnation to those who don't agree with us politically, philosophically and spiritually. "For God so loved the world ..." It doesn't say "For God so loved Christians ..." We aren't special and "better than." There are lots of good people out there with lots of ideas and ways of life with which I disagree. However, they still deserve my smile, thoughtfulness and consideration, not my scorn and arrogance. I have nothing to be arrogant about. Anything good in me at all comes from God and He is the only One in whom I trust.
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