I have to credit the title for my post to this Newsweek article.
https://www.newsweek.com/secession-partition-uncoupling-blue-states-red-states-united-canada-1486944
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the United States of America is anything but united. There seems to be great division between us, pick a topic: liberal/conservative, pro-life/pro-choice, people of color/white, traditional sexuality/LGBTQ, red states/blue states, etc. The list could go on and on.
We could try to figure out how we got here and point fingers at each other deflecting the blame, and to a certain extent, it is necessary to look at how we got here.
But the real question is: where do we go from here?
Do we, as the author of the Newsweek article above suggests, divorce each other based on irreconcilable differences and create 2 different countries based on geography and a general set of ideologies? Part of the issue with that idea is that not everyone in a blue state is “blue” and not everyone in a red state is “red”. So would we see millions of people moving to their preferred country?
My hunch is that it would not take long for each of those new countries to find some other issue within their own society about which to argue and disagree. Why? Because we are corrupted by selfishness and sin.
What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.
James 4:1-3 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jas.4.1-3.NLT
This passage tells us that we fight because we are selfish. We are looking out for ourselves and not for others. We selfishly ask God for things that will benefit us or give us pleasure.
So while on the surface it might seem the best route to just divorce each other, that doesn’t really solve any problems. We would not have dealt with the heart of the issue.
Since Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, which was selfishly saying, “I want to do it my way for my pleasure and my benefit,” the curse of sin has been in effect.
Then the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all animals, domestic and wild. You will crawl on your belly, groveling in the dust as long as you live. And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” Then he said to the woman, “I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy, and in pain you will give birth. And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you. ” And to the man he said, “Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains. By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return.”
Genesis 3:14-19 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/gen.3.14-19.NLT
The curse of doing it my way is a division and separation because, by God’s design, we don’t see things the same and do things the same. God’s purpose was to complement each other and work together, but sin and selfishness corrupted that ability. So there is division between humanity and God, humanity and creation, humanity and animals, and within humanity, starting with gender.
But even within the pronouncement of the curse of sin, God pointed to the cure: JESUS!
And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”
Genesis 3:15 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/gen.3.15.NLT
The offspring of the woman was pointing to Christ who would strike Satan’s head vs the devil’s offspring striking the heel.
What hope do we have for true reconciliation? Jesus.
Where is the land of the United? Jesus!
Divorce for our country, as in most marriages, is not the solution because it doesn’t deal with the root issue: our sinful selfishness. Only the self-less love of Jesus living in us and through us can cure is, and that is always a work in progress.
Church, this is for us. This is our ministry. This is our calling. This is our privilege.
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that 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. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
2 Corinthians 5:16-21 NIV
https://bible.com/bible/111/2co.5.16-21.NIV
Church, we are failing at bringing reconciliation because we are still regarding people from a worldly point of view rather than how God sees them. We are concerned with getting our way more than doing it God’s way. We are new creations in Christ, but we have not allowed him to transform us by renewing our minds (Romans 12:1-2). The apostle Paul says we are the aroma of Christ and in many ways, we stink!
Let’s commit to displaying the sacrificial, self-less love that Jesus shows us each and every day, which we don’t deserve.
I will probably address this topic again in a later post.
Renewing Our Relationships 