CHOOSING SIDES – WHAT CURRENCY DO YOU USE?

Colossians 4:6  Let your conversation be ALWAYS full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

A Facebook friend recently posted the following:  “I’ve had a few people block me recently for supporting Israel. If you agree with them. Please block me too.”

I can live with this.  We all have the right to share our convictions without the harassment and abuse of those who disagree.  This was indeed his right to post this request.  What was deeply concerning though was reading the comments of some of his friends who claim to be followers of Christ.  “F.. them!” wrote one friend.  “They are a lot of progressive idiots” wrote another.  “They are all Jew hating Nazis” wrote yet another.  My heart ached.  In the context of scripture that instructs us to flavour our words with saltiness and wholeness, these comments did not reflect a redemptive spirit.  I realised anew that  (James 3:11)  both fresh water and salt water cannot flow from the same spring.

My thoughts went back to a recent visit to the USA where I accidentally produced a South African R2.00 coin when trying to buy coffee at a local restaurant.  Roughly the same size and colour as a US Quarter, the waitress did not spot the inconsistency immediately, but it did not take her long to return with the faulty coin.  “Sir, with this currency you can’t buy that product,” she kindly said with a smile and pointed simultaneously to the coin and the coffee.

The currency we use when buying products will always reflect the nation we represent and become obsolete outside that context.  When attempting to obtain a spiritual ‘product’, transformed Christians, as citizens of heaven, will use Kingdom ‘currencies’, while those who choose to remain untransformed continue to use carnal currencies.

• We cannot ‘buy’ truth with the currency of fear.  We can only use the Kingdom currency of love.[1]
• We cannot ‘buy’ peace with the currency of suspicion.  We can only obtain peace with the Kingdom currency of grace.[2]

In December 2019 three people linked to the National Christian Resistance Movement (NCRM), also known as the “Crusaders”, were arrested in Johannesburg, South Africa.  Various firearms and ammunition, documents, and other items were confiscated by the criminal record centre (CRC).  The Hawks (police) were forced to make a rapid arrest after they received information that the alleged leader of the right-wing Christian organisation was about to launch a terror campaign targeting shopping malls and informal settlements.

The fact that radical Christian groups exist in South Africa (and most nations for that matter) is not a strange phenomenon considering that crime, violence, and corruption are no strange occurrences.  However, what took most people by surprise with the arrests in Johannesburg, was that those who follow the God of love could interpret their faith in such an unloving, unkind, and downright aggressive way.

Sunday Times columnist Barney Mthombothi perhaps best described the core issue of the matter when he wrote an article after several H&M (the Swedish retail giant) stores were trashed by Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) supporters.  “Rage, after all, is their only currency.” Mthombothi wrote: “And with the departure of their gift horse – former President Jacob Zuma – the party will look for something to be perpetually angry about, because this is the only currency they know.”

“Rage is the only currency they know…”  This principle ministered deeply to my soul and forced me to do some serious introspection.  What currency do I use, as a citizen of Heaven, when I communicate issues of the world?  What currency do I use when I communicate my convictions about Gaza, Israel, Hamas, Palestinians?  What currency did Jesus use in communicating Kingdom values?  Do they correlate or do they contradict one another?

The question we need to ask ourselves is what “currency” do we use in order to acquire Kingdom “products”.   The “product” might be noble and Biblical but, as the waitress rightly said, “With this currency, you can’t buy that product.”  

Listen to Galatians 5:16-23: “So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

What Galatians 3 in effect teaches us is that carnal currencies cannot “buy” Kingdom ‘products’.

• The currency of jealousy will buy suspicion
• The currency of suspicion will buy division
• The currency of division will buy fear
• The currency of fear will buy hatred
• The currency of hatred will buy anger
• The currency of anger will buy war
• The currency of war will buy destruction

These currencies may secure our kingdoms on earth, our properties and our safety, but it will exclude us from an eternal Kingdom, the Kingdom of God.  The only currency we can deal with as Christians, no matter how noble the intention, is to deal in currencies that belong to the Kingdom of Heaven.

• The currency of love will buy harmony
• The currency of harmony will buy forbearance
• The currency of forbearance will buy restraint
• The currency of restraint will buy truth
• The currency of truth will buy kindness, goodness, and gentleness
• The currency of kindness, goodness, and gentleness will buy peace

The next time I place a post or a comment on Facebook I will first determine the currency and consider what product I might eventually end up with.

 

[1] Ephesians 4:15  Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 

[2] Luke 2:14  “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”