World Affairs
God, the Father, does not endorse terrorism, neither does He counterterrorism.
I want to start from a very general fact in order to give the background of “outdatedness” of warring against one another while we invoke divine endorsement and inspiration.
We all owe our genesis and sustenance to God—whether we acknowledge Him or not. The Bible says the following in Acts 17:28 (NIV):
For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
I don’t know why God “seemed” to have commissioned military expeditions in the Old Testament. There are many things I don’t understand about God—and this is not a problem. I have understood enough to know how to relate with Him and His creation. God is infinite and we have to be infinite in order to understand every way of His—fortunately or unfortunately we are not.
Whatever the case, thank God for phrases like “Behold, I am doing (I will do) a new thing” and the likes (Isaiah 42:9; 43:19, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Revelation 21:5). These shows that things don’t have to remain the way they were.
In His gesture of doing a new thing, the God of the Old Testament decided to do a mysterious thing; something He had never done before; something that reveals His impeccable virtue. He decided to patently, blatantly and potently reveal Himself as a Father.
If there is a secret worth spilling; a secret worth digging deep for, this is the one. The moment we understand our relationship with God as a Father-child, everything changes. We start talking family matters. I may not go to all the details of this at this time and in this platform but suffice it to say, that when God sent Jesus Christ to come to earth, we were the “luckiest” lot of species. If only we knew right away what it meant, to say that we would have been overwhelmed with joy is understatement.
One of the primary things that Jesus talked about again and again is the fact that God is a Father. He claimed sonship to Him and many of His listeners were not amused.
To cut the long story short and spare it for another day, let me go back to the scripture I quoted above (Acts 17:28). It is true that at the fall of man (Gen. 3) we lost our membership in God’s family; we became the devil’s adopted children. Nevertheless, we still owe our origin to God; He is our ultimate Father.
In my house, as a father, I have instructed my children to abide by some rules. The following are some of them, laying the norms of relating with one another:
1. Don’t offend one another; fighting is completely forbidden—its justification notwithstanding.
2. If by any chance you are offended; or wronged; or beaten, etc. by your brother/sister, don’t pay back. Instead, report your brother or sister to me. I am the one to mete any punishment in this house.
3. Whether you like him/her or not, by virtue that he/she is my child, he/she is your brother/sister by “factory setting”. You completely have no means and/or choice to “customise” this. So, because you can’t change this, why don’t you make life easy for yourself—live at peace with your siblings? Even if you don’t like them, choose to love them.
Think of what kind of a house it would be if I allowed my kids to settle scores with one another; think of what will become of a family where the father delegates his disciplinary responsibilities to his armed and physically advantaged children.
This is what God is saying:
If you reciprocate enmity, know for sure that you haven’t come back to Me. You still belong to the “adopting father”—the devil. If this is the case you still share the same father with the one you call your enemy. Though the person you call your enemy might be an adopted child of the devil, he is still My child by origin. If you are the type that listens to the Father, then listen to Me and mark the following:
1. Love him/her—your perceived enemy:
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust (Matthew 5:43-45 KJV).
2. Report him/her to Me if he/she has done something against you:
Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head (Romans 12:19-20 KJV).
3. Because you can’t choose who is your brother/sister, don’t let it bother you. Live at peace.
If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men (Romans 12:18 KJV).
4. I will not send you to punish anyone on My behalf because you also are not perfect—you also have your own problems (John 8:1-10).
This is the conclusion and the verdict of the matter:
If you are still waging war against others, regardless of the reasons for doing so, know for sure that you haven’t listened to the Father of late. And if you hit back after having been offended know that you are not an obedient child.
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Author’s Note:
The war against terrorism is a concern of every believer. There are conflicting views regarding what a Christian stand and operation ought to be. The author believes that it is time bona fide Christians begin taking action instead of just taking position. If we seek the heart of God as spelled by Christ’s mission, we may find out exactly what our assignment is in this war.
If the reader is interested, consider SECRET WEAPON AGAINST TERRORISM and position yourself to take appropriate action. We can reign with Christ if we use the weapon He gave us.
© 2007 Daniel Owino Ogweno
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