CAPA Corner

    This past week of shootings has been a most difficult one for our nation and our local community. Questions abound from the most basic of “What actually happened?” to the most puzzling of “What do we do now?”
    I recognize that for many there is a long history, a deep distrust, and many severe wounds in their lives. I do not minimize any of that nor insist that our societal problems are simple. But I do offer considerations, the first of which is:
The real issue is our human inability to love adequately.
    The issue is not even the presence of hatred but the absence of the ability to love. Without God’s grace we cannot be the people Christ died for us to be. Jesus Christ came and died making it possible for us to be adopted by God becoming brothers and sisters of one another and creating a new race of people – the Redeemed.
    Let’s not only accept of ourselves that we are unable to love as we need, but embrace it and come to Christ’s inexhaustible supply of grace just as we are, desiring for Him to change us. Which brings up the second consideration:
The real answer is a transformation.
    This is one of the ways that as a follower of Jesus Christ one can easily be misunderstood. When a born-again believer says, “Jesus is the answer,” he or she is not presenting Christianity as a philosophy, a policy, a value, or a creed.
    To say “Jesus is the answer”, or more appropriately to say “Jesus is Lord”, is to look to a spiritual, supernatural transformation of the individual. One of the ancient prophets was moved upon by God to write of this in these words, “And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. (Ezekiel 11:19-21 ESV).
    This transformation can only be done in us individually by Jesus Christ. The results will form a society of people with new hearts and new spirits, a nation of people who honor and value others as being created in the image of God Himself.
Jeff Stanfill
Covenant Church