Love Separation
Theme for this Week: It's Mutual
Friday, December 28, 2001
 1 of 1
Key Bible Verse: "Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples" (John 13:35).
Bonus Reading: 1 John 4:20-21
Growing up in small-town Mississippi, I assumed there were few white Christians south of the Mason-Dixon line. I saw in the Scriptures that if you loved God you'd love your neighbor, and I knew the white folks didn't love us. At least to the black community, separating loving God from loving your neighbor had cost white believers their witness to God's power.
A while back I was talking to an old man who lived in a Christian community in New York. He asked me how they could get black folks to join their group. "Why is that so important to you?" I asked.
He replied, "If we whites and blacks lived and worshiped together as brothers and sisters, we'd make a stronger gospel witness."
This man understood how our lack of visible love for each other compromises our witness to a skeptical world. Only five of every 100 black Americans belong to a majority-white Protestant denomination. The number of whites who belong to majority-black denomination is even smaller. These numbers illustrate how hard it is for even God's people to practice the Christian "prime directive": love your neighbor as yourself.
Spencer Perkins in More Than Equals
My Response:
I'll pray about an opportunity to visit a church with a racial majority other than my own.
Thought to Apply:
Eleven o'clock Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour of the week.
Andrew Young (politician)
Adapted from: More Than Equals (Intervarsity, 2000) with permission.
For your convenience, More Than Equals is available in the ChristianityToday.com bookstore.
Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today, Inc./Men of Integrity magazine.
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Dear Father: Help us, without ignoring our differences, to achieve equality by realizing that we each offer something the other person needs.
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