George Floyd, Civil Unrest, Now What?

I’ve been asking the Lord how he sees the current division that is taking place in our country and what is required to move forward. As representatives of the Lord we are required to only say what he gives us to say and must be careful not to misrepresent him otherwise we are at risk of diminishing and possibly losing this responsibility. Jesus said..But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea (Matthew 18:6 (NKJV). If others are misled or get an error because of something I said, the Lord will hold me responsible, I am not without fault in this area but I take this duty very seriously and I know others do as well. Even though we think we have something to say, we must ask him and must be led by him and not led by the foolishness, ignorance and pressure of people. Our example Jesus, said in John 12:49 For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak... Saul lost his kingdom because he disobeyed God and gave into the pressure of men, Saul said in 1 Samuel 15:24...I have sinned: for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and thy words: because I feared the people, and obeyed THEIR VOICE..vs 26 ...for thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord hath rejected thee from being king over Israel. This does not mean the Lord did not love Saul but he could not trust him anymore with the responsibility he gave him. I personally do not want to lose the trust of the Lord because I spoke something out of emotion that caused another person to get in disobedience.

ABUSE OF POWER

Now with this understanding let us acknowledge, which I believe most reasonable people would, that there was a gross injustice and abuse of power/authority with the cop in the George Floyd case. The Word of God says in Ezekiel 34:2...Woe be to the shepherds of Israel-this means judgment is coming, one of the reasons was due to the leaders abusing their authority, vs 4 says...but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them... Jesus said in Matthew 20:25-26 (TPT)..Kings and those with great authority in this world rule oppressively over their subjects, like tyrants. But this is not your calling. You will lead by a completely different model. The greatest one among you will live as the one who is called to serve others..There is never a justifiable reason for those in authority to abuse their power and authority, never. We must address and change any policies that would allow those in authority to abuse it. But herein lies a problem, the institutions of man will fail us, no matter what laws are in place, who holds or does not hold office, laws do not deal with the hearts of men. I’m not implying that we do nothing or that we don’t express objections to injustices but this alone will not be enough. The Kingdom of God, the gospel must be preached, this is the saving power, this alone has the power to change hearts and get to the root of all injustices, discrimination or anything that would cause strife and division. Right now we may be facing legitimate hurts, understandable anger and undeniable fears but Christians should never take pleasure, condone or attempt to be heard at the expense of causing destruction on another person’s life. James 1:20 says For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. The Passion Translation puts it this way- for human anger is never a legitimate tool to promote God’s righteous purpose. Think about this, if someone just looted your home, burnt your business to the ground and lit your car on fire, how would you respond? Does that cause you to have good feelings towards them? Are you suddenly thankful and inspired to listen to what they have to say even if they were right? More than likely not, it doesn't even make sense and only confusion would cause you to think it makes sense. James 3:16 says For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. When we allow strife, it is just like if Satan knocks on our door and we invite him to influence us to do and say things we will later regret. Any legitimate concerns we did have probably will not be taken seriously. We must understand that as Christians the Father holds us to a different and higher standard than the ungodly world. If you have been a christian for a while you can attest that anytime you have prayed to him ( sincerely and open to do whatever is necessary) about a wrong another person has done to you, he will often tell you what your responsibility is. Even though you weren’t in the wrong, he talks to you about your duty and not the other persons. Right now we have a lot of finger pointing, blaming and judging occurring in our country and a lot less of taking responsibility. We can not control how others respond but we can control our response.

MOVING FORWARD

What now? how do we move forward, overcome and heal from all the current hurt, division and anger? Well, we need the grace and mercy of God to work in this situation and there is something we can do that will allow his grace to flow to us and through us. In Matthew 18 Jesus tells his disciples a parable about a king who wanted to settle his accounts with his servants. He called one servant which owed him ten thousand talents, if you do a study on this just in today’s currency it would be the equivalent of about 4.5 billion dollars. Since this servant was not able to pay the king, the king ordered that the servant, his wife, children and everything he had be sold to repay the debt. The servant basically pleaded for mercy asking for more time to pay back the debt, the master had compassion on his servant and forgave the entire debt and let him go. I want you to see clearly that this servant was put in a position to prosper and succeed like never before because of the grace gifted to him. But this servant went and found a fellow servant which owed him the equivalent to a day's wage, grabbed his fellow servant by the throat and demanded that he pay him back. His fellow servant did the same thing he did with his master, pleaded for mercy and more time to pay back the debt, but he refused and instead had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. The master heard what his servant did, called him and said ‘You wicked servant… I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. When the servant refused to show mercy he separated himself from the grace and favor of his master and was moved back into a position where it would be impossible to prosper. Jesus said the Kingdom, not the old covenant law, the Kingdom is this way and went on to say in Matthew 18:35 This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart. Jesus said all this in response to a question about forgiveness and he compared forgiveness to the release of a debt owed. Which means when you really forgive someone they owe you nothing in return, it is a gift with no strings attached. I want the grace and favor of God in my life, this grace enables me to succeed, to prosper and to do what is impossible on my own. And this grace is a gift from God which means he doesn’t owe it to me. But if I allow myself to think like this current culture, become bitter and demanding as if someone owes me-I will end up removing myself from a position to receive the grace of God, in other words- limited progress in my life, limited success and prosperity. The unforgiving servant thought he needed payback for what was owed but what he really needed to do was release him, if he would have released his fellow servant he would have continued in his increase. In the Kingdom of God, unconditional release leads to your increase. No one said this is easy but it is what is necessary and it’s what Jesus did for us, we no longer owe a debt we could not pay and because of this gift of grace we can now move forward.