Good morning, Samara.
Mama Becki and I are not really movie buffs. But we did go to a theater Tuesday evening to see the movie “HIDDEN FIGURES.” I would give it a pretty high rating. Among other things, it exposed the unreasonable attitudes surrounding racial and gender discrimination that has plagued our nation’s history since its founding—and, in varying degrees, still does. I suppose that that recent exposure is one influential reason I took the spin I did below.
You probably already know, but your grand uncle Ray Wilson left this world this morning. He was a good brother-in-law and a good friend. Heaven keeps looking better all the time. In memorial of him, I’ll stick on a photo of when I took him out for his last fishing trip in 2014.
Have a good rest of your day.
Love, Tua.
What’s the first verse in the Bible? Of course—it’s Genesis 1:1. What does that first verse say? I’ll answer with just the first five words of that first verse—“IN THE BEGINNING GOD CREATED…”—meaning that it’s not just a big bang colossal accident. Now, Samara, let me ask the most important question: Do you believe that first verse of the Bible? Do you believe that the Sovereign God designed, crafted, and manufactured it all? I mean do you really really believe that as an absolute truth? If your answer is YES, ABSOLUTELY, then you are well on your way to believing and incorporating the rest of this divinely-inspired BOOK into your worldview and life. But if there is any room in your answer for hesitancy or doubt, not sure, maybe, or that’s really not so important—well, sorry—I have to guarantee some serious stumbling ahead for you. I sincerely believe that believing that first verse of the Bible is absolutely essential to balanced Biblical belief—and the practical living of true Biblical Christianity.
Let’s carry on with this course and zoom in on a delicate and divisive ailment that has afflicted human attitudes and relationships since the beginning—and continues to afflict our own nation—and can even threaten to afflict you. This ailment comes in a lot of different packages of size, shape, color, language, etc. Call it racial discrimination, ethnic bias, or whatever—but at the heart, it’s that insidious notion that one person or people group is better, or worse, than another—that one is superior while the other is inferior.
Do you see how the FOCUS VERSE relates? Do you see how the first verse of the Bible relates? The point I would make is this: Ears don’t hear without being designed and created for that function. Eyes don’t just happen by accident. It is unreasonable to acknowledge design and creation without also acknowledging a Designer and a Creator. If we acknowledge also that all people have been designed and created with special functional parts, how can there be any legitimate place for superiority or inferiority?—or racial and ethnic bias?
Please get this nailed down, Samara. It returns us right back to our most basic job descriptions as servants of the Most High—to guard our own hearts with all diligence (Proverbs 4:23), to love God above all else, and to love everything else and everyone else that He loves (Matthew 22:37-40).