I struggle daily with keeping my perception as a journalist and my Christian perspective in line so that I do not cross the line into a worldly view. The struggle is real because as a journalist, as you who read me regularly know, I do have strong opinions. 

But first and foremost is my walk with Christ and not causing anyone to stumble and to always be Christlike in my responses and posts on social media. I fail many times and it’s usually because I don’t wait on God to give me the words I need to say. I’m getting better but the noise around us keeps trying to drag you back in and to speak without thinking.

During all of this, I have tried not to delete anyone on my friend’s list because I believe everyone is entitled to their opinions and I hold no ill will against anyone who disagrees with me. However, there are very few people in the world that feel that way anymore. They want to take you task, just want to argue and could care less what you think unless you agree with them. It’s a sad fact of life these days which grieves my heart.

However, God has shown me that if people are stealing your joy in Him, you need to let them go. Your strength is found in the joy of the Lord and you shouldn’t let anyone or anything happening in the world steal that from you. It’s something the enemy, the great deceiver, satan, uses to get us distracted. We are at war with unseen forces and though we have to put on the armor of God daily, we have to realize God has our back and He will let us know when we need to act.

I’ve had several conversations lately about the silent majority. We are in the fix we are today because of the silent majority. There is a time to be silent and there is a time to speak up and we have gotten those mixed up for many reasons.

We want to be peacemakers, don’t like conflict and don’t want to agitate people. This has gotten us nowhere and I believe it’s past time for the silent majority to speak up. But we cannot do so in anger or hate, we have to do so with love. If you ask Him and trust Him, God will give you the words to say.

As long as you cave in or don’t speak out about injustice, it continues and things get worse. As far as cave in I mean to the radical craziness going on. We don’t apologize for who we are, we don’t change our stance because we are afraid or because we get threatened or someone calls us racist for whatever opinion they choose to use against us. We have to trust God. I’m sorry but if you call someone racist, I would have to say you need to check yourself.

We are letting mainstream media divide us further and we don’t have to let them. 

Having just returned from visiting the Ark Encounter and Creation Museum in Kentucky, it was confirmed to  me what I have always said, we are all one race, one blood — the human race. It’s just our skin pigmentation that is different because of melanin levels. Fact is, we are all related, we are descendants of Adam and Eve, every one of us.

Racism is a consequence of sin in a fallen world infused with evolutionary thinking. The consequences of racism on a personal and social level are huge. The word “race” is often used to classify people based almost solely on physical characteristics. If you buy into evolution ideas, these so-called races descended from different ancestors separated by location and time. But, based on biblical history, the term race must be incorrect. We are all one race (“one blood” in Acts 17:26), the human race, descended from two ancestors, Adam and Eve. Therefore we all have sinned and need God’s grace and the salvation He offers. All humans are equal before God.  We have been programmed to look at skin color; exterior instead of the inside of a person. We need to look at people as God sees them. 

It is only when we stand boldly and confidently on God’s Word, we correctly understand the unity and diversity of the human race. We became separated with different languages at the tower of Babel.

People migrated from Babel and as the different groups became isolated from others, they most likely married within their language group so they could communicate with each other. As they intermarried, certain characteristics, determined by their genes, were carried within each group. These characteristics would begin to dominate due to the small pool of genes in the group. As time passed, different people groups displayed distinct physical characteristics. Such as Asians tend to have almond-shaped eyes and dark skin, whereas Europeans have round eyes, fair-colored hair and skin. 

Even within our own families we can see subtle differences.

Statues only offend you if you allow them too and if you erase history, it will be repeated.  When you look at each of the statues from all eras of history you have to know it’s not about racism at all. It’s a systematic cleansing of our history. 

Fact is, we’ve done enough talking about racism and fanning its fires. It’s time for action, especially from Christians. We need to do away with the word “race” when talking about different groups of people in the world. Even scientists agree there is only really one biological race of humans. We make skin tone a major issue, mainly because we have been taught that way by the world view.

The Bible does not use the word “race” when talking about groups of people. It describes all humans as being of one blood in Acts 17:26. So if the Bible, nor God uses the word, we shouldn’t either. We should treat all humans as if they are family, because in reality they are. But we as people need to be reprogrammed. Only by allowing God to do that reprogramming and standing on His Word is that even possible because of all the years and years of propaganda and nonsense we’ve been taught. 

The church has fallen down in keeping to the true word of God and even pastors spout words of hatred and don’t try to solve the issue. They try and sugarcoat things. As I discussed with a friend recently, when pastors started getting paid enough they did not have to work another job, many began to only preach about things that tickled their congregation’s ears so they did not worry about being replaced. It happens slowly, but it does happen time and time again. Used to be that all pastors were called to preach. Even our theological colleges and seminaries have watered down the gospel and focused too much on telling you what and how to preach instead of letting God take the lead. 

We cannot just read God’s word, we have to be students of the Bible and do research and constantly ask God what He wants us to learn and what we can do to be more Christlike and not add to the racism issue. It begins with each of us and we have to let God show us the way. Blessings.

VICTORIA SIMMONS Is a columnist, author, motivational speaker, minister and publisher of The Georgia Post/Byron Buzz. Contact her at: vsimmons54@gmail.com