Who's Responsible?

"It is good when you obey the royal law as found in the Scriptures: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' But if you favor some people over others, you are committing a sin. You are guilty of breaking the law."

James 2:8-9

With the chaos of the protests this week, I have heard many different comments about how such events could have been prevented and how we can prevent them from happening again.  After pondering this, I have come to realize that the issue actually began with Cain and Able.  Cain thought of Able as being of lesser value and, as a result, killed him then tried to go on with his life as if Able didn't exist.  Until God asked Cain, "Where's your brother?  Have you seen him?"

Throughout history, this same scenario has played out again and again. One group of people think they are better than everyone else and, therefore, subjugate others as "lesser."  Thus, without going through the history of prejudice, I would like to BEGIN with who is responsible for changing the way we see each other. 

Are you sitting down?  The ones responsible for changing our society is.....each of us!  We can claim that we "love our neighbor as ourselves" but, in reality, if we show favoritism toward anyone, then we are trampling God's Law into the dirt and throwing it back in God's face.

Think about this, if God had wanted one particular group to rule everything, He would have only created that particular group!  Instead, He was creative and created us like a beautiful mosaic.  Wouldn't it be boring to have everyone look alike, act alike, sound alike...?

So if each of us is responsible, how do we go about changing our society?  Romans 12:18 is where Paul gives us the answer:  "As far as it depends on YOU, live peaceably with everyone!"  Did you see that?  Paul reminds us that WE are the ones to make every effort to live in peace with everyone!  In order to do that, we have to regard every person as God's Precious Child!

Holy Abba,

You have reminded us that we are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, and we need Your help to accomplish this.  Remind us that every single person we meet is Your Precious Child, loved completely by the Creator of All.  Any injury, any injustice, any hurt done to Your Child puts us as odds with YOU.  Forgive us for our failures to live and love peaceably.  Strengthen our love for You and in so doing, strengthen our love for our fellow sojourners.