This week one man was condemned to death by those who were supposed to serve and protect him. Like a horrific scene from a movie, those that were supposed to uphold the law, instead elevated themselves above the very law they were sworn to keep. As bystanders begged for the cops to show mercy, one man made himself judge, jury, and executioner taking the life of another, seemingly without remorse. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\tThe horror of this act has left me without words. What would cause one man to disregard the value of another human life? What brought him to the point of such apathy? What motived his actions? What feelings did he allow to have dominion over him? Was he blinded by hate, unforgiveness, jealousy, unmet expectations, or callousness? What went on in the life of this corrupt cop that allowed him to wrongly justify murder? What hidden feelings or emotions enabled him to assign more value to his own life and less to someone else\u2019s? For this, I have no words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\tInstead, I am plagued by so many questions. God, where do we go from here? Social media isn\u2019t the answer. Words calling for justice have instead been used to sow more discord and division. These words that have been penned in the hopes of producing change have done more to incite anger, hatred, and discord among us. I have no words to describe the sadness I feel as I watch brother tear apart brother with heated, desensitized words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\tFrom all I have watched unfold this week, of one thing I am certain. We definitely proved the words of the Lord in Jeremiah 17:9 (NLT), \u201cThe human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \t<\/em>God does. He knows are hearts, our motivations, our secret thought lives. He knows our comings and goings. He is the only one with a cure and He sent that cure into the world. His name is Jesus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \tWhile hanging on the cross offering His life for our sins; while taking the punishment for our crimes Jesus said these words to the Father, \u201cI am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all <\/em>be one,<\/em> just as you and I are one\u2014as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.\u201d <\/em>(John 17: 20-21, 23b NLT)<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tWhere is that unity today in the body of Christ and how do we find it? There is only one place it can be found and that is in the person of Jesus Christ. That kind of unity is only found when we take our eyes off of ourselves and start to see one another through the eyes of Jesus who offered himself as a ransom for others. We must start to live sacrificial lives, not lives of demanding our own viewpoint or way. We have to start seeing one another as valuable regardless of race, sex, creed, or education and we must start to see ourselves as the servants God called us to be. He sat down, called the twelve disciples over to Him, and said, \u201cWhoever wants to be first must take last place and be the servant of everyone else.\u201d <\/em>(Mark 9:35 NLT) <\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n \tWe must stop judging people first in order to decide if they are worth our respect and start respecting and serving one another because we have all been made in the image of God. He doesn\u2019t love us based on our behavior, looks, social economic status, race, country of origin, the amount of money we have in the bank, or even how good or bad we are at something. He loves us because He made us. He loves us because we are His. It\u2019s time that we start seeing one another through His eyes. That is when we will find unity over division and love over hate. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This week one man was condemned to death by those who were supposed to serve and protect him. Like a horrific scene from a movie, those that were supposed to uphold the law, instead elevated themselves above the very law they were sworn to keep. As bystanders begged for the cops to show mercy, one man made himself judge, jury, and executioner taking the life of another, seemingly without remorse. The horror of this act has left me without words. What would cause one man to disregard the value of another human life? What brought him to the point of such apathy? What motived his actions? What feelings did he allow to have dominion over him? Was he blinded by hate, unforgiveness, jealousy, unmet expectations, or callousness? What went on in the life of this corrupt cop that allowed him to wrongly justify murder? What hidden feelings or emotions enabled him to assign more value to his own life and less to someone else\u2019s? For this, I have no words. Instead, I am plagued by so many questions. God, where do we go from here? Social media isn\u2019t the answer. Words calling for justice have instead been used to sow more discord and division. These words that have been penned in the hopes of producing change have done more to incite anger, hatred, and discord among us. I have no words to describe the sadness I feel as I watch brother tear apart brother with heated, desensitized words. From all I have watched unfold this week, of one thing I am certain. We definitely proved the words of the Lord in Jeremiah 17:9 (NLT), \u201cThe human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?\u201d God does. He knows are hearts, our motivations, our secret thought lives. He knows our comings and goings. He is the only one with a cure and He sent that cure into the world. His name is Jesus. While hanging on the cross offering His life for our sins; while taking the punishment for our crimes Jesus said these words to the Father, \u201cI am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one\u2014as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.\u201d (John 17: 20-21, 23b NLT) Where is that unity today in the body of Christ and how do we find it? There is only one place it can be found and that is in the person of Jesus Christ. That kind of unity is only found when we take our eyes off of ourselves and start to see one another through the eyes of Jesus who offered himself as a ransom for others. We must start to live sacrificial lives, not lives of demanding our own viewpoint or way. We have to start seeing one another as valuable regardless of race, sex, creed, or education and we must start to see ourselves as the servants God called us to be. He sat down, called the twelve disciples over to Him, and said, \u201cWhoever wants to be first must take last place and be the servant of everyone else.\u201d (Mark 9:35 NLT) We must stop judging people first in order to decide if they are worth our respect and start respecting and serving one another because we have all been made in the image of God. He doesn\u2019t love us based on our behavior, looks, social economic status, race, country of origin, the amount of money we have in the bank, or even how good or bad we are at something. He loves us because He made us. He loves us because we are His. It\u2019s time that we start seeing one another through His eyes. That is when we will find unity over division and love over hate. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faith-e-tales.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faith-e-tales.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faith-e-tales.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faith-e-tales.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faith-e-tales.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/faith-e-tales.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":273,"href":"https:\/\/faith-e-tales.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions\/273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faith-e-tales.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faith-e-tales.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faith-e-tales.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}