There is something special about the Easter weekend for born again Christians. Even our President spoke of the hope surrounding this calendar event in his speech. And while  this year was a rather unusual Easter, it’s significance remained because, as Christians, we get to celebrate how Jesus showed up for all humanity and showed up for the glory of God the Father. Jesus showed up in our salvation, taking our sins upon himself, enduring separation from the Father and dying in our place. Jesus shows up for us, not only in having conquered death and grave, but also in our ongoing sanctification – sealed with the beautiful truth that we have  a comforter and helper with us: the Holy Spirit. Now, with great anticipation, we can await for Jesus to show up again at the consummation, when we will rise to be with him forever in glory. 

These strange times present a great opportunity for us to show up too. We can never show up like Jesus did (we cannot even attempt to, because he showed up perfectly and sufficiently), but we can show up in our deeds and tell a dying world how Jesus showed up to save them. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:35

My husband and I have been chatting about how we can practically demonstrate the love we have for one another to a watching world. 

• Give sacrificially
• Check up on the elderly and widows in your community by giving them a call – they are some of the loneliest right now
• Pray for those who have lost their jobs and are in need
• If you have tenants, think of lowering their rent during these trying times 
• Pay your domestic helper or gardener, even if they aren’t coming to your home, and check up on them telephonically
• Club together with others to buy groceries online for those who don’t have much and have it delivered to their door 
• Send encouraging video/audio clips to people who you haven’t spoken to in a while: tell them you love them and share the gospel
• If you know of any orphan homes around you, buy essentials for them online and have it delivered to them
• If you have colleagues who don’t believe, perhaps share some devotional material with them and  go through it together using available technology

This is not an exhaustive list, but it’s a start nonetheless! We can show the world how, in this Covid-19 period, we love not only in word but in action. We should be doers of God’s Word now more than ever, even during a state of lockdown. 

With the little the Lord has given you, think of how you can give to others. We don’t know how long this pandemic may be with us, but we may never have such an opportunity again. In our solitude, think of ways to show up! 

The post How Can We ‘Show Up’ During Covid-19? appeared first on Proverbs 31.

My name was M*. My home consisted of my biological mother, the man she was living with, an older sister and a younger brother. I have good memories of engaging with my little brother, but other than that, there weren’t many good childhood memories.

My biological mother made me believe I was ugly and worthless; she did this through her harsh words and emotional rejection. I knew no such thing as celebrating Christmas or any of my birthdays. I was there and had to be tolerated. There was no mistaking that I was unwanted and unloved. For a little girl, all I can remember was that I wanted was a loving family.

In 2006, my biological mother told me I needed to pack my things and that I was going on a trip by myself. She told me that a lady would come and pick me up and that I mustn’t be at home when she got back from work. And she left me there, standing in my room. L*(the social worker from Abba Adoptions) came and fetched me. I asked her if she was going to be my ‘new mom’ but she said ‘No’ and promised me that she would find me just the right mom and ‘forever family.’ Until then I was to stay with Tannie B* who was a place of safety. She also looked after special needs babies. I stayed with her for a year. My memory of that time was just of her loving me, caring for me and being so kind. It was the first time real love was shown to me.

While I stayed with her, an Afrikaans family sometimes looked after me on weekends, but it was always temporary, so I figured no-one would ever love me permanently. I remember my first day of becoming a Johnson so clearly. Dad_and_Mom were crying when they came to fetch me and my two brothers were so excited. I was so excited to be going to my new home with my new family who had chosen to love me and make me part of them.

I remember my mom asking me to do something and I just said ‘Yes,’ and she instructed me to say, ‘Yes, Mom.’ It was weird and new and wonderful and strange.

Before I was adopted, Mom lovingly made a scrapbook to introduce each member of my new family – Dad, Mom, my two older brothers and my sister in Heaven. It also had pictures of my new home and a pretty bedroom – just for me.

At the back of the scrapbook was a letter my mom had written explaining why they were giving me a new name; Mika Hope. I asked Tannie B* to read it over and over to me:

Dear M*

We already love you. We have prayed that if God wanted to bring a little girl into our family, He would do it when the time was right and would find the perfect little girl for us.

I know it might seem a little scary for you – but remember, my sweet little one, that God has prepared our family for you and you for our family.

In the Bible, God sometimes changed people’s names when He adopted them into His family. We would like to change your name to one that is similar to your name right now, but will be unique for you in our family.

We would like to change your name to MIKA HOPE. Mika is a name that comes from Japan and means ‘beautiful fragrance.’

We have chosen ‘Hope’ for your second name because no matter what has happened in our lives or what sadness we have gone through, God always gives us hope in Jesus.

We can’t wait for you to become part of our family so that we can start making special memories together.

All my love,

Your new mommy.

In the beginning I kept thinking that no-one would love me permanently. I believed the dream of a family would end soon. But as I began to settle in, I began to realise that I was good enough no matter my stubbornness and faults. As my parents showed God’s love to me, my heart softened and my independent will started changing. God was working in my heart and in all our hearts. He was writing new chapters to my story.

I remember one time, when I was eight, I was invited to a friend’s birthday party. I was the only little girl there who was not white. (That happens quite often when you are adopted into a white family.)

Anyway, my mom had just bought me pretty new sandals which I wore to the party. We then played a party game where we were divided into two teams and a sheet was placed over one team who were lying on the ground. We were covered except for our feet which stuck out. The other team had to guess who the feet belonged to. Before I lay down under the sheet, I ran to my mom and asked her to take my sandals as everyone would guess it was me because of my sandals. It didn’t dawn on me that I was the most obvious one to guess because of my skin colour!

I now have my own testimony of God’s grace and salvation in my life. As I look back, I can see God’s hand and how He was caring and protecting me.

I have been doubly adopted – physically and spiritually.

My identity is Mika Hope Johnson – I am half Coloured, half Indian and completely White.

But it is God’s adoption of me that has given me my true identity.

When God adopts us, He changes our past, our future and everything about us.

“He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace.” (Ephesians 1:4-6)

It is because of God’s adoption of me that I am not rejected because Jesus was rejected on the cross for me so that I could belong to Him and have a heavenly Father.

It is God’s adoption of me that reminds me that I am not unwanted or unloved, because He chose me before the foundation of the world.

It is God’s adoption of me that reminds me that His love is not temporary but that He will love me with an everlasting love.

It is God’s adoption of me that that promises me that He will never leave me nor forsake and that nothing can ever snatch me out of His hand.

God chose to show me this through my earthly adoption into the Johnson family. My family. My ‘forever family.’ God chose to do this through the work of Jesus on the cross. Adoption is a picture of the Gospel of Grace. I am grateful to be part of that story and to know that God is still writing my story. And because God is the author, I know it is a beautiful story and a good story and it will have a wonderful ending.

Mika is 17 years old and currently in Grade 11. Visual Art is her favourite subject at school and her after school activities include Highland Dancing and Hockey. She is planning on studying Nursing when she finishes school.

Continue to read this beautiful love story here as told from her mom’s perspective, our very own Prov31 contributor Leanne Johnson.

The post Forever Family appeared first on Proverbs 31.

I am an African woman.

I am an African woman who is white.

If you are a black African woman, I can see your nostrils flare and smoke coming out of your ears as you indignantly whisper ‘How dare she call herself African!!’

Your black African identity has just presupposed superiority over my white African identity. Seriously, that is what you have just done. Default prejudices and stereotypical expectations and assumptions have been reinforced. I am pleading with you, my black ‘sistas,’ to just breathe, count to ten and to not stop reading.

I am an African Woman.

I was born in Africa and have lived here all my life.

I concede that my lineage and roots cannot be traced to Mapungubwe. My ancestors were not slaves. For all I know, my ancestors could have been slave traders.

I am a 4th generation South African whose paternal great grandparents were from England and whose maternal great grandparents were French Huguenots. My maternal grandfather was a true Afrikaans boer, a sheep farmer from Cradock.

My paternal grandfather left school at the age of 14 to learn a trade to support his mother and nine younger siblings after the death of his father.

I was born in the summer of ’69, [the only significance of this is that it is the title of a Bryan Adams song].

I am a product of growing up under the Apartheid regime on the side of white privilege.

My birthplace is a little town called Queenstown in the Eastern Cape.

I have lived in South Africa, Uganda and Rwanda.

I am an African woman.

I have realised that if there is any group in South Africa that can be pitied from a cultural richness and heritage perspective, it is us English white South Africans. Please hear me out. Perhaps the only card I can play is that we are a minority group! [I hope you can find the humour in this irony].

South Africans who have cultural and tribal allegiances have unique traditions and practices, be that Zulu, Xhosa etc. These could be traditional marriage practices, lobola, coming of age ceremonies, and traditional dress.

The Cape Malays have a rich food culture and lingo.

The Afrikaners have koeksusters, melktert, braaivleis and rugby.

What easily discernible traditions or cultural practices do I as a white English South African have? Perhaps white privilege? Are you slowly starting to feel sorry for me? Do you realise why I have an identity crisis?

Thabiti Anyabwile has so transformed my thinking on this idea of racial identity. His premise is the following: ‘The category of race is a social fiction. It is not a real Biblical category.’ [He refers to Acts 17:26] ‘The idea of race is an illusion. Nowhere in the Bible do you find anything describing race.’

He goes on further to explain that there is one Biblical story. We are one human race descended from Adam.

In Genesis 3, Eve is called the mother of all living.

After the flood, the rest of humanity descended from Noah and his sons.

We are all unified as descendants of Adam and Noah. The table of nations in Genesis 10 illustrates that all are descended from Noah’s sons. It does not mention race, but rather class, language and ethnicity. Thabiti argues that before Christian unity, there is biological unity because we are all descended from the same parents. ‘As Christians, we need a thorough rethinking of anthropology… We need some truth-telling in a vigorous Biblical way.’ 

So in the church, dear ‘sistas,’ we do not have the right to look at one another in terms of racial categories. That would be a sin. That would be racism. And it is a sin in the way racism has manifested itself in the hearts and actions of people. This may be historically justified but that doesn’t make it right.

I do not have the freedom to look at you and behold first your skin colour and base an entire narrative on that and you do not have the freedom to do that to me. Because of our citizenship in heaven, I have more in common with my black ‘sista’ in the pew than I do with my white neighbour who is an unbeliever. That is what Christ’s blood bought on the cross. We are co-heirs with Christ. We are one in Christ. As Jesus said in John 8:32, the Truth will always set us free. What more wonderful truths could there be for you and me than contained in these verses:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.[Galatians3:28-29]

Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. [Colossians 3:9-11]

Where does that leave you and me?

It leaves us deliberately and intentionally changing the way we look at each other. I must look at you with different eyes. You must look at me with different eyes. We must view each other through the lens of the Gospel of Grace. We are ‘sista’s in Christ.’

Tim Keller articulates this so clearly: ‘Racial pride and cultural narrowness cannot co-exist with the gospel of grace. They are mutually exclusive.’

Identity crisis? What crisis?

I am settled in this. My identity does not need to come from my skin colour, my language, my traditions or my cultural practices. None of that defines me. It may explain me, but it does not define me. My identity is found in Christ and that trumps all else, because that is eternal.

The post I Am An African appeared first on Proverbs 31.

The great social activist – William Wilberforce said “You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.”

Whenever we find ourselves in situation like this; we hear people asking ‘where is God?’, but we know what they are really asking is “Where are the people of God?”I am calling Christians to push themselvesto be a part of the solution to the challenges at the universities.  I have been observing the situation at the universities and I have attended some of the meetings at the University of Pretoria. I push myself to read, watch and understand painful parts of my history. I want to allow the rhythms of truth to flow naturally through my psyche, my spirit and my mind. I need that specific beat, tempo, swing to be natural in my cadence as I fight for justice in this present age.  I need to keep liberation on my lips. I believe we must find a way to be part of the solution to the current challenges at the universities.Let us rise together out of the ashes.  Let education and lament ground us in truth—so that our actions may be ones that heal, restore and invoke justice.

The need for prayer cannot be overestimated. We need to pray that an everlasting solution will be sought between all the engaged parties. We need to pray that during these times, as Christians we will rise up and shine the light of the gospel. My call is that we walk and engage in the following 6 paths of love:

Mediation Role
The Christian has a wonderful opportunity to encourage love and peace by playing a mediation role between the students and the university management. I am aware that some Christians have been doing that at university of Pretoria and other universities. We need to be doing more in this area as we seek a permanent resolution to the current university challenges. We need to be aware that the mediation role it’s not easy as we can get tempted to take sides but it provides wonderful opportunities to shine the light of the gospel through promoting peace.
God is a peace-loving God, and a peacemaking God. The whole history of redemption, climaxing in the death and resurrection of Jesus, is God’s strategy to bring about a just and lasting peace between rebel people and himself, and then between people. Therefore, God’s children are that way, too. They have the character of their Father. What he loves they love. What he pursues they pursue. You can know his children by whether they are willing to make sacrifices for peace the way God did.

Preach peace and mediation from the pulpits
Many pastors either preach false rhetoric, give their own political views instead of giving the biblical view.Gather the issues together and meditate on them. Weigh them in the balances of the Bible.
Ultimately we want to communicate – even while engaging in students issues – that fees are not the main issue on this earth. Knowing the Creator is the main issue, as well as being reconciled with him and glorifying him in all that we believe and say and do. That’s what the church needs to constantly be calling people to.
This will better equip Christians (and the students) many of whom are part of the movement or at the very least, are affected by it.The main issue is God and the gospel. God is the Creator, Owner, and Judge of every person on the planet. Every one of us stands before him guilty of sin, and the only way to be reconciled to him is through faith in Jesus, the crucified Saviour and risen King. All who trust in his love will experience everlasting life, while all who turn from his lordship will suffer everlasting death.

Everything changes in a world of #FeesMustFall when we fix our gaze on the holiness, love, goodness, truth, justice, authority, and mercy of God revealed in the gospel. When we focus on God as the main issue, what we often think of as separate social issues- #FeesMustFall become intimately connected to our understanding of who he is and what he has done, and is doing, and is calling us to do in the world.

Making our facilities available for students in need
There are some Churches around the universities that have been providing a space for students to use the internet on their premises without any charge. This provides a wonderful opportunity where we open our doors to the world and they can use our space with the hope that it will breach the gospel gap and real meaningful conversations. It will show the students that we care about them and that we are sympathetic to their problems; it’s a great opportunity to extend the love of Christ. We can consider offering free Wi-Fi on our premises or providing our facilities as conference rooms or boardrooms or study centres for students.

Engage the students
Use your student ministries to engage with the students, to better understand the situation and their perspective. Many are scared, confused or just going along with the masses and are in need of someone to help them make sense of the situation. Be that someone.

Engage the faculty and teaching staff
One of the ways that we are salt and light and act as peace agents in this broken world is to live out a faithful presence in whatever place we find ourselves in, including campuses. As followers of Jesus, we are called to a mission of engagement in, not withdrawal from, the campuses. To faithfully engage the world and campuses means we must be fully present within it.

Offer free counseling to students and staff
Counseling will assist in guiding the students and staff towards emotional and spiritual wholeness. Counseling can help the staff and students identify the issues they face and recommend a path of healing and recovery.

Lastly, we need to understand that we are dealing with very complex social issues, and there are no simple answers to them. We must resist the temptation to take sides or to spread ignorant political or personal views about the situation. Instead, we must always prayerfully consider how we can bring the message of the Gospel in a practical way in a situation and society like this. This is ultimately the challenge.

I believe that the growth of Christian engagement in universities is hugely exciting. But the growth of activism means that the Church stands at a key time. There are clear indications that the consent parties will seek to engage the Church more than ever in finding solutions to the university challenges. It means that many ministries and churches will find themselves standing at crossroads.

On the one hand the Church must avoid going down a route where the person of Jesus and the good news he brings is marginalised and eventually forgotten. We must learn the lessons from history and avoid sliding into a completely ‘socialised’ gospel message that loses it personal challenge.

But equally, we must not take the route of half-hearted activism. The growth I have spoken of and celebrated is only a beginning. Still far too many churches are simply dipping their toe in short term initiatives and fairly shallow forms of community engagement. So much more could be achieved if resources and energy were focused into authentic community mission.

Rather than take these two routes, we are called to walk a more challenging path. The good way, the ancient path is to be found in the consistent message of the Bible: in integrating a love for God with a love for neighbour. As Jesus makes clear in Matthew 22:34-40, this sums up the whole message of the Law and the Prophets.

As ever, our example and our guide is Jesus. It is in him that we see the ultimate example of integrated social activism and what it looks like ‘to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God’ (Micah 6:8). As someone wise said ‘Hold fast to Jesus and to everything else remain profoundly uncommitted’.

But of course, we know that the path Jesus took was also one of hardship, threats and costly sacrifice. Through the resurrection we have assurance that he will one day fully complete his work of restoring and renewing his creation. But until that day when he will renew all things and put the world to rights, Jesus says ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.’ (Luke 9:23-24).

When we stand at the crossroads Jesus calls us to choose the road that leads to the cross.

#RiseUp #CryForSocialJustice#Peace #Love #PrayForSolution #FeesMustFall

By: Lutic Mosoane and edited by: Andy Mabaso

Lutic Mosoane is a generational changer, unashamed servant leader; Student Worker at University of Pretoria; CEO of City Gate Recordings, Youth Leader at Christ Church Tshwane and holds finance position at one of the public entities. Lutic’s passion is to see Africa transformed, by the gospel of Christ, where people are increasingly becoming who God intended them to be.

This article first appeared on: http://citygaterec.com/2016/11/22/feesmustfall-a-call-to-rise-up/

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