TUESDAY 29th
Leviticus 19:9-18
NIV (v18) – ‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbour as yourself. I am the LORD.’
ESV (v18) – ‘You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the LORD.’
So far in my devotions I have kept away from some of the matters that are making headline news at this moment of time, but they fall some part within the context of this verse. ‘. . . you shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ And I want to make it clear that I absolutely agree that black lives matter, but at the same time I want to emphasise that all lives matter, regardless of age (i.e. a baby in the womb or a person nearing the end of life) regardless of health, (to be treated with dignity and care) regardless of race, colour, class, or nationality. The Scripture is abundantly clear that ‘God so loved the world’ and that because of the Cross there will be an innumerable host gathered around the throne from every people, tribe, and tongue and nation. That means there will be people of every skin colour, of every race, of every tribe and of every nation. There is no doubt that there will not be any such thing as racism or prejudice in heaven. The problem is here on earth, and it matters not whatever our skin colour is, whatever our race may be etc. the Scripture says that we have all sinned and fallen short of God’s standard. Sin is the problem, and when the problem of sin is dealt with there should not be any room for racism or prejudice in the believer’s heart.
We cannot and must not erase out of the history books that which has taken place in the past, we need each succeeding generation to learn from the past and make sure that on many issues history does not repeat itself again, imagine if all the faults and the failings that are found in the Scripture to do with the people of Israel in particular were written out of history, we the people of God today would not have a record from which we can learn lessons and our Scriptures would contain a lot less pages! What does need wiping out or blotting out is our own personal sin and failure and thank God that that is the power that is to be found in the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Blood that cleanses and erases, blood that gives us a total brand new start, blood that unites us together as one family, the family of God that is taken from out of every tribe, every tongue and every nation and makes us to become a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God. (Revelation 5 & 1 Peter 2:5)
In Luke 19, the rich young ruler asks Jesus ‘What must I do to receive eternal life?’ Jesus asks him ‘What does the law say? The man replied, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.’ We know this story so well, we call it the parable of the good Samaritan, that ends with Jesus telling the young man, ‘Go and do likewise’. All lives matter, may we learn to love with the love of Jesus and share his love to the whomsoever.