How do we respond to racism as believers in Christ? Where is the balance between what the world teaches and how we, the church, should respond?
In this special bonus episode of Verity with Phylicia Masonheimer, I interview my friends and co-pastors Emmanuel and Samantha Danso of Grace Innovation Church in London, United Kingdom. They offer a gospel perspective on an issue that is dividing many in the body of Christ.
There’s this rumor that God won’t give us more than we can handle.
We use the line as a comfort when our friends encounter hard times. We console ourselves with it when life becomes overwhelming. But the scary thing about this rumor is that it’s quite simply untrue.
I knew love as a choice. Even when falling in love with my husband, it was the product of a planned, discerned choice for a man who shared my values and life goals. Love was not an impulse, sometimes not even an emotion. It was an action. It was resolve.
It goes against my nature to not schedule something. But I’ve found that God can’t be scheduled in every season. I have learned to arrange my life to be reminded of Him throughout the day: fifteen minutes at the kitchen table, ten minutes while nursing, five minutes on a walk, fifteen minutes at midnight. God isn’t looking for a consecutive minutes spent on Him. He’s looking for hearts that seek Him wholly.
If you are seeking God and His approval, you will walk in such a way that you need not fear offending those around you. You will walk in the fruits of the Spirit – love, kindness, self-control – that make us more ‘likeable’ in general. But you will not be bound to people-pleasing because you will have pleased the One whose opinion truly matters.