A Call to Prayer for Racial Understanding

The following call to prayer was the focus of Coggins Church's prayer newsletter, Throne Of Grace (TOG), 6-7-20 regarding the struggles our county is facing at the present time.

We all know what’s going on in our country and are grieving. Our hearts are broken for George Floyd and what’s happening in our nation. I don’t have or know the answer except that we all need to pray.

We need to pray that the church of Christ would make some sense out of how to deal with this.

Pray for understanding, to understand that there are many protesting peacefully. Some are taking advantage of the situation as well.  Some are radicals within our nation who are using this tragedy to force anarchy. These are people who have a different agenda out there.

Pray for our leaders, our cities, and the inhabitants who are losing their jobs and their livelihood. Pray for officers who have been hurt. Pray for families who have been hurt through this tragedy.

Pray for God to work in our nation to be given understanding among people in our country.  Pray because there are bad things done.  

No matter what color we are. We can’t stop all that’s wrong in this fallen world. But we can rally to what is right. When injustice is done, we can unite on making it right. There are forces out there that are pulling us apart when we ought to see this as a cry to pull us together to show more love and understanding of one another.

The term ‘racial unity’ may be the wrong term. It communicates the wrong thing. We use this term as if unity can happen apart from understanding. We need to understand one another better.  We need to show love toward one another more. I’m sorry if that sounds trite. Let me explain. We should work out our relationships rather than trying to force some utopian dream on each other because there is no utopia but heaven. We’re in a fallen world; no matter how hard you try to be a godly Christian, there’s somebody out there that doesn’t do it right. No matter how I try to be a biblical pastor, there’s going to be some out there that extort and exploit and use people for the wrong thing instead of bringing them to Christ.

We can say that about every group, every person, every color, every ethnic group, …. There are good and bad people among us. We can’t judge every person by the actions of one or a few. We don’t’ excuse it. There needs to be justice within the law.

I’m just sharing my thoughts. I’d like for us as a congregation to be spiritually minded through all this and not be manipulated by so much of the media, from the hype that’s going on; you know what I mean -  more and more fear which pushes us apart when we should be supporting one another.  We must remind one another that there’s a lot more love and unity among us than is being reported. 

If we emphasize one part over the exclusion of another, it can skew the story. God has called his people, as far as the church goes, from every nation, tribe, tongue, and kindred on the face of the earth. There is no white church, black church, Asian church. There is the church of Jesus Christ. We are in Jesus. Our attitude should be that we support the work of Christ. We seek to be peace-makers. We pray for all those involved.

We can’t fix all injustice but we can declare the gospel. The gospel is the greatest unifying thing on the earth.  The gospel of Jesus Christ has been pulling people from all different groups into the church from the beginning. We have the government of the Kingdom of God telling us that from his Word.

He will guide us to use what opportunities we have to do those things we can. Sometimes we think the answer to be nationwide when maybe the answer is to be kind and gracious to the people around us and let that spread. We can’t change the world but we can change the relationships with those around us. 

The children's song is simple and true - "Red, yellow, black, and white they are all precious in His sight." If they are precious in our Lord and Savior's sight then let them be in ours also.

Love You All, 

Pastor Scott