2 Corinthians 5:16-17 (NLT)- “So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”

“I began to see with horror how hate could destroy me - destroy me more devastatingly and suddenly than any destruction I could bring on those who had wronged me. I could try and fight back, as many of my brothers had done. But if I did, how would I be different from the whites who hate?

“And where would hating get me? Anyone can hate. This whole business of hating and hating back. Its what keeps the vicious circle of racism going. The Spirit of God worked on me as I lay in that bed [hospital bed]. An image formed in my mind. The image of the cross - Christ on the cross. It blotted out everything in my mind. This Jesus know what I had suffered. He understood. An He cared. Because He had experienced it all Himself…His enemies hated. But Jesus forgave. I couldn’t get away from that.

“The Spirit of God kept working on me and in me until I could say with Jesus, ‘I forgive them, too.’ I promised Him that I would ‘return good for evil,’ not evil for evil. And He gave me the love I knew I would need to fulfill His command to me of ‘love your enemy’…Because of Christ, God Himself me and healed my heart and mind with His love.

“The Spirit of God helped me to really believe what I had so often professed, that only in the love of Christ is there any hope for me, or for those I had worked so hard for. After that, God gave me the strength and motivation to rise up out of my bed and return to Mendenhall and spread a little more of His love around” [John M. Perkins, Let Justice Roll Down, p.194-195].

How differently we know him now! It is amazing that God loves us so much, that he would send Jesus to die for our sin and shame, and that he would give us his Spirit to keep this new life growing and active in the love of God. It is this reconciliation that we need daily in our own lives so that God can reveal the sin, our own hatred and prejudice, our laziness and pride - all ways the keep the distance from others and our deep need for reconciliation. Let’s ask the Lord to open our eyes to the hidden ways that have hindered our love and reconciliation with others. And let’s ask him to change us and transform us into the likeness of Christ. May the fierce love of God work deeply in us.

-TR