You know, I just don’t get it…
A church in Paducah, joining in a state-wide push, is giving away hand guns, rifles, and a steak dinner to attract people to come and join their congregation. REALLY? And not 12 miles away, at Heath High School in 1997, a student opened fire in a hallway on a group of praying students killing three and injuring five others. A (now) 31 year old woman who was paralyzed from the chest down from one of the bullets remembers that day.
Did Jesus not say to Peter,"put away your sword” (Matt 26:52), and to his followers, “love your neighbor” (Mark 12:31)? And speaking of love your neighbor, are we not all God’s children? So much discrimination has been in the news lately.
Galatians 3:26 states, “so in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith” .
2 Corinthians 5:7 says, “for we live by faith not by sight”. Faith does require us to understand that God never promised life would be easy, but that he would help us through. We are His children.
I love the story of Ruth. She was a foreigner, a widow with no sons, an outcast, a Moabite, the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder, the lowest of the low. But she meets and marries a great guy named Boaz, and they have a son named Obed. And he has a son named Jesse, and Jesse has a son named David – King David whom God calls “a man after my own heart” (Acts 13:22). David also has a son, and his son has a son, and so on and so on until many generations later in the same little town of Bethlehem where Ruth married Boaz another child is born. The Son of God who will give His life on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins.
Let’s share God’s love through our attitudes and our actions – let’s give up something bad for Lent. How about discrimination, harsh judgments, and bullying? Let’s truly learn to love our neighbors as ourselves!
All God’s children say:
AMEN!
Carol Van Hooser
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