All nationalities have a negative nationalistic trait – some worse than others. And because the Lord did mention some of them,But did that make Him one? Of course not! He gave His life for all who would accept Him, “God is not one to show partiality but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right is welcome to Him” (Acts 10:34). Yet, His dying love wouldn’t be enough for some today.
Every nationality has a positive and a negative nationality trait, and I speak from much experience having mixed with, and lived with many different nationalities in our missionary work, and their particular negative nationality trait would become obvious within weeks, which intrigued and fascinated me – I love studying people.
Also, in my large family we have now acquired quite a few different races and I recognise the negative nationality trait of each. But that doesn’t make me racist and we laugh and joke about each others.
“You have two nations in your womb” (Genesis 25:23). Esau represented a nation God disliked, and said so. Esau represented a nation that hated Israel and who fought to wipe them out (Edomites).
I get weary of hearing someone being labelled a ‘racist’ when it could merely be a negative nationality trait that they/we don’t like as every race has one (there are always exceptions as with everything ) and I do not think it is racist to recognise or dislike a negative nationality trait. But if I were to express to someone outside of my family, what some of them are, I would be called a racist, as Jesus would be today.
of the Jews, “They are a stubborn people” He didn’t say this to a person, He said ‘people‘- a race. And He said a lot about Pharisees and others too.
So don’t think you are racist if you happen to dislike the negative trait of some of the nationalities you may be rubbing shoulders with.
Our granddaughter is married to a Jew (who’s parents lost all relatives in the Holocaust) and from the Bible it’s plain what their negative trait is. But just one of their many ‘positive traits’ is: a family member will never be neglected or forgotten and will be cared for until the day they leave this earth.
I am English, and I know what our main negative nationality trait is. But their positive trait is: they are a very compassionate race, always willing to help someone in need whatever colour or race, which has brought unexpected trouble on some for doing so. But it never puts them off from doing the same again. Yet the English have been ‘branded’ racist, when the opposite is true. Lies can do much damage – that’s why God hates lies; and the horror of the Holocaust all started with ‘lies’ being printed about Jews in children’s comics and newspapers until the lies were believed.
In Spain I’ve cared for extremely destitute Christian Romanians for a number of years. Their positive traits are many. They are unbelievably smart and I’ve witnessed them learn a foreign language almost overnight while we struggled! They can learn/do/fix anything as they have had to do whatever it takes to merely keep alive. They are hard-working and their commitment to the Lord is faultless, and easily able to cope with persecution. They never waste a thing, and even a scrap of paper in a gutter is kept as it may come in useful one day. However, some have a very dislikeable negative nationality trait due to having to fight to survive even from childhood, in a country with nothing under the most cruelest of regimes. I love my Romanian brothers and sisters in Christ, and in the end they did more for us than what we’d planned and hoped to do for them! But I didn’t like the negative nationalistic trait of some, and they knew I didn’t, but they knew I loved them.
So don’t be perturbed if you are called a ‘racist’ – or even if you yourself may be wondering if you truly are a racist just because you happen to dislike some of the negative nationality traits of certain races. Think of Jesus, who would be ‘cancelled’ today. It’s as if we are not allowed to ‘dislike’ anything or anyone anymore, when even our sinless Lord did not approve of everything or everyone. It’s as if Satan is trying to look ‘Holier’ than God if you get my meaning.
Recently, some work colleagues complained to a German lady they worked with. They told her nicely that she shouted too much and spoke too loud in the office. The German lady said ‘I don’t blame them, its due to my nationality as we can be somewhat pushy and loud’. The colleagues said it wasn’t that they didn’t like her because they actually did like her and still wanted to work with her if she ‘toned it down’ a little as she was fun and had a lovely personality. However, her colleagues were still branded ‘racist’ which hurt them deeply as they were not. It was merely the ‘trait’ they didn’t like, not the person.
What is my point?
Persecution comes in all different forms. And as Christians, we will be called all sorts of unsavoury names.
The Apostle Paul couldn’t have put it better…“We have become the scum of the world” (1 Corinthians 4:13). And he even felt it a privilege to be so.
So my message to any Christian being called ANY hurtful name (usually when we don’t approve of something that God doesn’t approve of) such as ‘unloving’ ‘behind-the-times’ ‘outdated’ ‘old-fashioned’, a ‘holy-joe’ – or just being ignored as if we are some ‘sell-by-date species‘… is not to give in to the temptation to rid yourself of these painful ‘stones’ thrown at you, by joining the ‘field’ full of seeds that fell and withered by-the-wayside through some persecution or adversity, “For when you do right and suffer for it, you patiently endure, this finds favour with God” (1 Peter 2:20).
I had often wondered how heaven would fit everyone in when you think of how many had gone there since the beginning of the world! The words of the Lord in Matthew 7:14 answered it for me, “Narrow is the way and few there be that find it”.
Is this ‘few’ because the way started to become just ‘too narrow’ for many? “The gate is wide, the way broad that leads to destruction and many enter through it” (Matthew 7:13).
As it is says in the parable of the seeds, “When affliction or persecution arises he falls away” (Matthew 13:21).
We are in the army of the Lord! And in these last days we should expect the ‘arrows’ of the enemy to come thicker and faster. They will hurt. We may shed some tears, but as long as we stay with the ‘few!’ “The righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity” (Proverbs 24:16)
“Endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” (2 Timothy 2:3).
God bless,
Christine.
Christine Smith´s Books 