Love Has a Name

The main stream media has been relentlessly showing both protests and riots, nationally as well as internationally. Each side of every discussion will have 2 points of view.

This post is not about either side.

What I want to write about here is how history is doomed to repeat itself should we forget where we have come from, who our ancestors were and what they overcame.

The Bible is a clear demonstration of this. In the Old Testament we read of a tribe of people, who would later become God’s people, escape the evils of slavery. Egypt at that time had taken massive military control and dominance in the world and as such enslaved many.

The story of these people is one that includes turning to God, away from God, to God and away from God. This demonstrates how many of Jesus’ followers lived and still live today. Furthermore, God describes the repetition of people choosing hate and fear and war over love and peace for millennia.

This is not isolated to the Bible. People all over the world, Christian or not, have chosen to go to war for reasons we may never know or at least comprehend.

What is our more recent history though? Take a glance:

1914: World War I
1939: World War II
1945: Korean Conflict (Ongoing – Stalemate in 1953)
1948: Internal War Burma; Myanmar (Ongoing)
1953: Korean War (Part of Korean Conflict)
1955: Vietnam War
1960: Congo Crisis
1960: South Thailand Insurgency (Ongoing)
1967: Six-Day War Israel
1975: Cambodian-Vietnamese War
1980: Iran-Iraq War
1990: Gulf War
1991: Somali Civil War (Ongoing)
1998: Second Congo War
2002: Operation Enduring Freedom (Horn of Africa – U.S.A & NATO Forces)
2003: War in Darfur (Ongoing)
2003: Iraq War
2007: Operation Enduring Freedom (Trans-Sahara & Ongoing)
2008: Gaza War
2011: Syrian Civil War (Ongoing)
2014: Iraqi Civil War
2014: International Military Intervention Against ISIL (Ongoing)
2019: Gaza-Israel Clashes
2020: India-China Skirmishes

Here are 24 wars that I chose at random from the literal hundreds of wars, insurgencies and clashes between peoples around the world. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars:_1900–1944)

On an interesting note, around the 1990’s there was a surge of “Second” Wars or “Second” Conflicts. The seeming victory of the first was not a victory and, evidently, left seeds of hate to brew and bubble up only to go a second route years later.

So what then does this have to do with the Bible? With Jesus?

As a believer of Jesus Christ and that the Bible is the living and written Word of God. A history of humanity from start to beginning. The God of the Bible, the Creator of all, the Father of all people (believers and unbelievers) has given us a history of what the nature of mankind is.

Evil. Rotten. Sick. Deranged. Broken. Yet in His infinite wisdom gives a way out of this pattern and history of vileness and wickedness.

That is the way of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the very embodiment of love and peace. Jesus is increasingly relevant and when fully understood, through a perspective and lens of history, we see that only Jesus, no other deity, god, spirit, entity or being, has ever paved a pathway to peace.

No other man, guru, teacher or leader has given a literal and clear route to freedom and love.

Every other way is subjective. Only Jesus is objective.

Our world will continue to repeat this cycle of war, hatred, violence unless Jesus becomes the object of our affections. Not religion and not the church building.

I will leave you with this scripture from 1 Timothy 2:1-2:
1 First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

I pray this for the body of Christ, that is, the Christians of the world. As Jesus is known more intimately let us, His children and co-heirs, bring peace, prayer, the love of Christ, service and a godly way of living to the unbelieving world with the full confidence that this demonstration of peace and love that can only be known through the revelation of Christ Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit, will change people’s hearts and mind and will establish a more peaceful world. war