Series: Renewal
2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV
Matthew 19:26b ESV
James 5:16 NLT
Romans 3:23 (All Fall Short)
To be completely honest I believe God is an all inclusive, all knowing, and all loving God.
I do not believe there are limits to God’s love.
I do believe humans struggle to live an all inclusive life on their own.
I believe when we cross over we will understand the absolute fullness of God’s love.
However, the Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
The hope we have (based on the promise Paul pinned) is that through Christ we can rely on Jesus to help us…give us love for others that is all inclusive. The struggle we often have as humans is that when we are not taught (usually at a young age) to love everyone and accept everyone as God created them…we are fighting a battle from within.
We want to love because we are in Christ and we are a new creation. Our old self that does not love has passed away. The new has come through Christ.
Having said that, as humans we miss the mark.
I remember a child I knew years ago who was what I will call mean-spirited. The first time I spoke with the child I knew he did not possess a spirit of the innocence of a child his age. I did not know his history but based on what psychology knows to be generally true, there is a good chance his innocence was taken from him at a young age. When a child is abused at a very young age they are unable to remember what it feels like to be innocent.
Their mean spirit follows them all the days of their life.
They do not know love.
From a spiritual perspective it is difficult for them to accept love from anyone. It’s not impossible, because we know from scripture “with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26b). But it is still difficult.
It is also difficult for that person to refrain from being mean-spirited.
What I noticed about the child I knew years ago is that he looked for others who were innocent and often different by the world’s standard because he could easily make them a target.
Now…take that one child and multiply it by a billion. According to worldometers.info planet earth now has 8.1 billion people as of 2024. While we cannot know for certain, but say one billion people were abused as children or adults. Out of eight billion people that is not a gross estimation.
In light of that…it’s safe to say we have a problem.
The problem is that If we have X amount of mean people and we use 1 billion as our X, how many people will be impacted by the other 7.1 billion throughout the course of their life.
I am absolutely not a mathematician (I was very grateful that after a lot of prayer I got a B in college Algebra and college statistics) but the impact on others who are innocent is significant.
So let’s say for example that short people are a target class of people who will be chosen as a target by one or two of the 1 billion. I am very short so I’m using that as an example.
If short people were the object of ridicule by 1 billion people on planet earth, those short people could conceivably be children.
Now I’m starting to get uncomfortable.
So, the mean child I knew passed on how he was treated and that same child did not know that Jesus can heal him from the pain of his past.
According to 2 Corinthians 5:17, when we turn to Jesus and surrender we become a new creation. Jesus can make the old go away and the new can come.
The problem is that the child (or person) doesn’t know they need Jesus. And more than likely even if they are given the opportunity to turn to Jesus, what’s the likelihood they would readily accept it?
They would probably be very unlikely to surrender to Jesus. As a matter of fact, in my mind it seems like they would be very unlikely to surrender their evil power just because someone told them they can or should stop being mean (think Cruella on steroids).
So what IS the answer?
In my mind, the ball is in my court…and maybe your court if you are called to the challenge.
According to James 5:16, “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.”
Notice that being an effective prayer is a two step process. First, confess your sin.
Second, pray for each other so you can all be healed. In other words, the person praying isn’t more holy than the mean person they are praying for. We have all sinned and fall short (Romans 3:23). The person praying needs to be forgiven and then by the power of God in Christ they pray for others.
According to how God leads, you proceed. God may lead you to pray for a specific person, or it may be to pray for a specific class of people who are a target for mean people. God knows what you are called to…
So, go to it.
Spiritual Practice: Pray
Pray as God calls you to pray.
In God, Deborah
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