“Why?”
That was the question my seven-year-old daughter asked after she and I read a book about the Jim Crow laws. The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States that legalized racism. Jim Crow laws included prohibiting African Americans from drinking out of the same drinking fountains, using the same bathrooms, or even eating in the same restaurants as white people. Jim Crow laws required African Americans to sit in the back of public busses so that the good seats would be saved for white people.
“Why?” my daughter asked. “Why would people make laws like that?”
It was an excellent question. Why? Unfortunately, history is full of examples of people trying to secure their own power by hurting others. However, this isn’t something that only happens in history. It happens in my own life when I make a decision about how I treat another person. This happens in schools, in workplaces, even in churches. So many of us want the power of popularity and its draw is so strong that we end up excluding and hurting others to get it.
You might not be old enough to make laws and run countries, but your actions are just as powerful. Anytime you exclude or hurt someone to secure your own standing, anytime you demean another human being so you look or feel better, you have acted in a way that is hurtful and unjust and wrong. Your age doesn’t give you a free pass to be cruel. Your voice and your actions matter.
My daughter put it better than I could. “That’s crazy,” she said. “They are so wrong. They aren’t more powerful. It’s not like they have magic or anything. God is the only one with real power.”
My daughter is right. God is the only one with real power. And the power we think we gain by being cruel is not real power. Excluding that person from the lunch table, laughing at or telling a racist joke, or gossiping behind someone’s back is not power. It is sin.
The Bible talks a lot about power. After Jesus went back to heaven, His disciples and followers did amazing and powerful things. This made some leaders angry. They didn’t like someone being more powerful than they were. At one point, two followers, Peter and John even healed a man who couldn’t walk. The leaders threw Peter and John in prison and demanded to know, “By what power or what name did you do this?” (Acts 4:7)
Peter answered, “It is by the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 4:10).
The name of Christ. That’s real power.
So where are you getting your power?
Are you pretending to get power from hurting others?
It’s not real.
Jesus’ power is not only real, but it is wonderful, life changing, take-you-places-you-never-even-dreamed-of power. Jesus’ power works through those who love Him. And even more wonderful is that Jesus’ power isn’t exclusive, it isn’t only for the well-dressed and good-looking. It is for anyone who wants a relationship with Him and for anyone who wants to live their life for Him.
And that’s for real.
`
Coming in the Spring of 2012!
