DIVIDE AND CONQUER
Who is dividing and who is conquering? Sometimes it is not the same person.
This past Sunday, Pastor Harry shared the soaring story of a church with which he had worked. They were attempting to work in an urban area, and of course, there were racial and social divides.
The answer of who was, and is, doing the separating is obvious. Aside from the enemy of God, there are worldly systems, blood ties, and fleshly ties of which we are a part and which paradoxically divide. And the winner of the whole endeavor of division? It is certainly not us.
But the conqueror…that is up for grabs, contrary to the axiomatic title of this little blog.
There are large and small scales where separation occurs, between two persons or between large groups. ARE WE GOING TO LET THIS CONTINUE?? Because we DO have a choice about who wins.
Can we think about the person who irritates us the most, the person we have kept at a distance, and then imagine what it would be like to live in reconciliation with that person? To love them, even LIKE them?
When we give up our pride, stop holding onto the smaller things that identify us, ASK Him for grace and mercy, the things that divide dissipate, even if it is only a difference of personality. Then HE is the conqueror. And that is something we can all live with.
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”
Ephesians 3:20-21