His life matters

The divide we are experiencing in our world today isn’t truly about white or black people it is about a lack of Christ. Our society has been left to its own devices by a holy God who is calling us to repentance through pandemic, through civil war, through locust plagues, through hurricanes, and tornadoes. But, just like pharaoh in ancient Egypt, we’ve refused to let our vices go.

The way we treat one another is critical to Jesus. The Bible states: “and the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me” Matthew: 25:40. In this passage, on the day of judgement, Jesus is dismissing those who did not do the will of the father: they did not accept Jesus as Lord of their life, their actions toward others were self-seeking, motivated by greed, and the cost will be great for those who seek the gratification of vengeance in this life rather than seeking to lay down their life in full surrender to His will and glory.

On judgement day many will be held accountable by one standard: the acceptance of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Rioting, looting, murdering, these feeble attempts to serve justice to one another, by one another, will be met with true justice by the only righteous judge and all who have put themselves in His position will ultimately be held accountable. The Bible declares in Isaiah 66:16

“For the Lord will execute judgment by fire

And by His sword on all flesh,

And those slain by the Lord will be many.”

The only ones who won’t face the wrath of God will be the ones who have accepted His offering for the reparation for sin: Jesus. There is nothing we can do, no offering we can make apart from Him. The Bible states in Isaiah, “But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away.” We are all like an unclean thing. In Romans the Bible states, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (3:23). We have all sinned. “All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). All we like sheep have gone astray. The LORD: the father, has laid on Him: Jesus, the iniquity of us all. We can do nothing to absolve the sin for which we will all be held accountable apart from Jesus. He is the only acceptable sacrifice to the father. His death and resurrection allows us to move from darkness into light if we accept Him as savior. “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

There is only one movement that matters and it’s the position of each individual heart moving from death into life. The Bible, in Ephesians 2:1 states “and you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins.” Accepting Christ as savior moves us from death into life, from darkness into light. When He died on the cross He satisfied the wrath of the father and became the final and permanent payment for sin. His life matters. Anything that distracts us from this critical truth is a tool of division that Satan is using to keep humanity from a right relationship with one another, and more importantly from a right relationship with God. Justification before God, rightness with Him, is only attainable through personal acceptance of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

To behold the ideology that any one life is worth more than another is to put into question the authority of the creator who, in the beginning, created man in His own image. The Bible isn’t specific regarding the creation of race in the beginning. He created male and then he created female. “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” Genesis 1:27. Further, when He created the blood that coursed through their veins he created, essentially, four different blood types: A, B, AB and O with varying factors. The Bible doesn’t tell us how He created their blood, rather it tells us that He breathed life into them. “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7). He didn’t create white blood and black blood. He didn’t create Irish blood and Spanish blood. He created male and female in His image and then He breathed life into them. To degrade the importance of life by something based on melanin, holding no distinction by blood to differentiate between races, is to challenge the authority of the Almighty.

Apart from Christ we can do nothing. We can do no good: “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10). We can do nothing apart from Him, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5) we were dead in trespasses and sin (Ephesians 2:1), but He made us alive (Ephesians 2:1) and because He lives “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13). His life matters.

When we elevate ourselves we put ourselves in a position to be considered equal with God, something that even Jesus did not do. In Phillipians, the Bible states, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped” (2:6). Jesus is God, and has all authority and power as equal to God, yet did not consider equality with God something to be grasped while He was in human form. When we hashtag life mattering apart from Christ we put ourselves in a position to be considered equal with God, an ideology that Satan was cast from Heaven for beholding. In Isaiah the Bible states,

How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High” (14:12–14).

The position of Lucifer’s heart was such that he believed he could ascend in Heaven by his own merit, apart from Jesus. Jesus ascended to Heaven to sit at the right hand of the father after His death and resurrection. The heart that believes it can obtain Heaven on its own, apart from Christ, or by some other good work maintains the same heart position as Satan who was cast from Heaven for maintaining it. Jesus is the only way. His death, resurrection, and life is all that matters. “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

His life matters. As a nation, if we continue to fail to recognize the only truth that will remain, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away,” (Matthew 24:35) we will continue to experience God’s judgement until the fulfillment of the day that Jesus declared “for it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” (Romans 14:11).