This month of June is National Pride Month. It is the month nationally recognized to bring awareness to the existence and progress of the LGBTQ community toward inclusivity.
Inclusivity is a concern of every one. No one wants to be left out, forgotten, dismissed, or ignored.
My skin color is of a darker tone. My voice tone may sound threatening. And if I dress any different than expected by my surrounding community, I suddenly may become a very uneasy person to relate to.
The challenges of mankind are many. Many. And they’re not about to become less until Christ returns.
It’s a challenge to learn to live or learn to work with others who seem different from us in one way or another. Yet, when we imagine ourselves in their shoes, the receiving end of stereotypes, all we can conclude is that we’re always struggling to find a path to fairness.
Adam and God, the created and the Creator, couldn’t get along. Cain and Abel, brothers, could not get along. Spouses very often can’t get along. Humans very often can’t get along.
The question I ask is what will be the next challenge thrown at mankind to cause more difficulty for mankind to get along each other? Will it be half-mankind & half robot? Will it be half-mankind & half animals?
Our reaction at every challenge had always been that we can fix it so, “let’s fix this.” The reality is that it’s already been fixed, pre-arranged to cause mankind to thirst for God in every shape and form.
How do we love ABC? And let ABC be the person you’ve never met before. Let ABC be the person who lives in our blind spot, the person we never see and probably have zero desire to see. How do we love such a person?
Christ, how do we love such a person? The answer is right there in the gospel. We don’t have to be the person or have the same traits or values as the person in order to love them.
Yes, when we agree on certain things, we’ll probably get along quicker and for a longer period of time. Yet, how will our relationship ever grow if no challenges are never thrown at us and that we don’t address those challenges together respectfully?
The gospel would have probably been meaningless to us if no challenges were ever delivered to mankind.
“If I had never had a problem, I would never know that God could solve them”, words of the late Andrae Crouch.
Life, as hard as it is already doesn’t become easier when a parent found out that his child had not been breathing like every other child on the playground due to fear of being rejected.
When some kids find out that they didn’t get selected by their mates to join the team because of something these kids could only hope to control by hiding it, they may want to take matters into their own hands.
When God wanted to render justice to all mankind, He sent Jesus to die in their place and rise up in their place so that a whole new creation would come forth starting with Jesus.
“God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:19)
The message of reconciliation is the message of the gospel.
At the end of the day, whoever we are, we will probably only get to breathe at the hearing that: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
Any other means of breathing is most-often short-lived.
Jesus, in his own words, speaks of inclusivity as such:
“But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” (Matthew 5:44-45)
The Jewish establishments in Jesus’ days were shocked that Jesus too is for the Gentiles. It didn’t sit right in their minds. But when Peter preached the gospel and that those who heard it were drenched with the Holy Spirit, the recorded reaction was this:
“The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.” (Acts 10:45-46)
The gospel doesn’t waste its time in identifying and condemning sins. Instead, it preaches deliverance from sin, the author of sins, by the very forgiveness we now have because of the blood of Christ which has been shed.
So here’s how the gospel sees inclusivity:
“He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” (1 John 2:2)
I’m not valued because I am identified as a black person. I’m valued because I’m loved by God. The unfailing love of God is the source of our inclusivity.
We cannot celebrate our actions as our means of salvation. We cannot call the sufferings of mankind as God’s punishment toward them. We cannot celebrate our actions as our means of being granted inclusivity. The unfailing love of God is the source of our inclusivity. That’s what we will always find worthy of celebration, at every moment, The unfailing love of God.
When Christ had said to the prostitute who was to be stoned, “neither do I condemn you”, he further added “Go and sin no more”. These last few words were not a calling for her to try her best effort in keeping herself from living as the woman of many, it was a command to remind her that she’s free now from her fears, free to go and actually live like she’s always wanted, free to go and no longer be influenced by the expectations of mankind, free by the assurance that Christ has instilled in her heart at that very moment when her life flashed in front of her eyes. Jesus, with no sin, casted zero stone.
Jesus’s words to her did exactly as God had said: “For just as rain and snow fall from heaven and do not return without watering the earth, making it bud and sprout, and providing seed to sow and food to eat, so My word that proceeds from My mouth will not return to Me empty, but it will accomplish what I please, and it will prosper where I send it.” (Isaiah 55:11)
No man is a fixer of anyone because no man created another man. But God reconciled with mankind in Christ fixed everything.
Jesus is the well of the living water, the Holy Spirit. 