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Dear Friend,

You would have to be living under a rock to not know what is catalyzing an awakening in the United States in regard to race relations. On May 25, Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, apprehended George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, after a call about a counterfeit $20 bill. The officer pressed his knee to Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes while Floyd was handcuffed face down in the street, begging for air and pleading for his life. Two other officers, who were being trained by Chauvin, further restrained Floyd while a fourth prevented onlookers from intervening. George Floyd was tragically murdered.

Our nation is desperate for healing on the topic of race and reconciliation. The church has been silent way too long on this topic. We have to talk about it, even though it’s uncomfortable.

We can’t ignore racism because, quite simply, God hates racism. If God hates racial prejudice, then we should as well. Being a Christ-follower means that we love what He loves and we hate what He hates.

Why does God hate racial prejudice?

Judging a person according to skin color is an ancient sin. For that reason, God gave this ancient solution.

At creation, God said:

“Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.”" (Genesis 1:26)

Embedded in these words is the most wonderful of promises from our Creator and Redeemer: Almighty God made us to reflect His image.

No one is a god except in his or her own delusional thinking. But everyone carries some of the transmittable characteristics of God. Wisdom. Love. Grace. Kindness. A longing for eternity. We are made in God’s image; in His likeness.

Sin has distorted this image, but it has not destroyed it.

In order to understand how this affects us, take your finger and press it gently under your eye. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Did everything become blurry? That’s the effect of sin in our lives. Sin distorts our view of the world.

Now take your other finger and put it under your other eye. Yes, I’ll wait.

That’s the blast of the fall on our lives because we live in a sin-cursed world (Genesis 3:1-15).

By pushing our fingers under our eyes, what we notice is that we not only have a blurred vision of ourselves but also of our world.

The point is that not only has our tainted moral purity warped our perspective but also our perception of our world is skewed due to sin entering the world (Romans 8:18-25). Our emotions, our intellects and our wills are all polluted. We have fallen prey to the snake oil of self-promotion and self-focus rather than God-promotion and being others-oriented. The image of God is sometimes difficult to discern in us because there is so much of self eclipsing His likeness in us.  We have missed the most basic of all expectations from our God: to love Him supremely and to love others as naturally as we do ourselves (Matthew 22:37-39).

But do not think for a moment that God has rescinded his promise or altered his plan to put His image in us. He still creates people in His likeness to reflect his glory.

Pop psychobabble is wrong when it tells you to look inside yourself and find your value (“Do you!”). The magazines are wrong when they suggest you are only as good as you are thin, muscular, pimple-free or perfumed (“like this celebrity”). The movies mislead you when they imply that your value increases as your stamina, intelligence, revenge or finances do (“Kill Bill”, “Ocean’s Eleven”, etc.). Religious leaders lie when they urge you to grade your significance according to your church attendance, self-discipline or so-called spirituality.

According to God’s Word, we can only be good simply because God made us in His image and redeemed us. Period.

“God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.” (Ephesians 2:8-9, NLT)

God cherishes us - all of us - because we bear a semblance to Him and have turned from our sin to Him alone for our eternal destiny. And you will only be satisfied when you engage in your role as an image-bearer of God for His purposes. “As for me, I will see your face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied when I awake in your likeness” (Psalm 17:15).

Everyone you see today is made in God’s image.

We are all descendants from Adam and Eve and our skin tone is merely different shades of the same mother and father who were originally made in the image of God.

Please "REPLY" and let me know your thoughts!

Rejoicing, On the Victory Side!

Beau

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