RE Verse reading–Amos 1-2 (day six) “And they will hammer their swords into plowshares. . .never again will they learn war” (Isaiah 2:4) Part of God’s judgement on the nations is for their behavior in war. Amos called out Damascus for the cruelty to “thresh Gilead with sledges having iron teeth”. (vs 3) He condemned Ammon for “ripping open pregnant women to extend his borders”. (vs 13) Is our world different? When the negro spiritual sang “I ain’t gonna study war no more” it was a confession that we do. . .study war. Much of our research is toward better weapons. Many of our private thoughts are justifications for continued fear/anger toward our enemies. Sometimes war is just and necessary, but the Christian heart must never surrender the hope that the cruelty of war will someday cease and the world will know the Prince of Peace. Friend, does your heart break with the report of every new atrocity? Do you feel angry? God does.
Does my heart break?…yes. Do I feel angry?…at humans, no…at sin yes.
For some reason this reminds me of the movie “Miss Congeniality” where the joke was about all the girls wanting “world peace.” Christians do, but so do atheists/new agers/Hollywood stars, etc. The problem is that we do not see things correctly. Peace is only possible when the Lordship of Jesus is operative in our lives. We all have a lord… some have evil (in its many forms) as their lord (leads to destruction) and some have Jesus as their Lord (leads to Life/salvation/deliverance/Peace).
Our fellow man is not the enemy and yet we act all the time as if he/she is. Paul said in Eph 6 “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Oh that we could get this. When we see a human acting like evil, we then know that there is evil in operation. Just like when we see the fruit of the Spirit, we know the Spirit is operating in that person’s life. We Christians must fight THE ENEMY if we want to see our earthly reality change toward God’s Kingdom/Will being done on earth as it is in heaven.
Is our world different?… no… of course not because the same forces are still at work because we, the Body, are not taking our rightful place in enforcing the victory of the cross. However, the potential for it to be amazingly different has been purchased for us…. He made a way!! What are we waiting for?
Father, may you find us faithful. Amen.