With all the noise in the world, do you hear the voice of God? Your calendar tells you what to do, but do you remember who you are? Being comes before doing. This is a call to put first things first. Return to the Lord with this daily pattern of prayer and devotion. Set aside this time as a sanctuary. Find a space free of distraction and follow this pattern.
Invocation
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Word
After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb…For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’ ‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’” (Revelation 7:9-10;17)
In this article on the Bible and race, pastor and theologian Tim Keller discusses what our resurrected bodies will look like and how they will reflect different aspects of the body of Christ. He also offers a nuanced viewpoint on political ideologies.
And Revelation 7:9 tells us that in the new heaven and new earth, the people of God will be of “every tongue, tribe, people, and nation.” Our bodies are not unimportant, discardable containers for the soul. They will be resurrected and much of our pre-resurrection lives will be brought into the new creation. The resurrection body of Jesus was both different and yet recognizable, and it contained the nail prints of the cross (John 20; Luke 24). Revelation 7:9 tells us that our resurrection bodies will keep their ethnicity. Final redemption, then, does not erase racial and cultural difference. Different cultures have their own particular glories and splendors, analogous to the differing gifts of the body of Christ.
There is always a danger of putting so much emphasis on the unity of the human race that we come to insist that race is unimportant as the older liberalism taught, namely that we should be completely ‘color-blind.’ But it is also possible, especially today in the time of the newer progressivism and identity politics, to put too much emphasis on irreconcilable diversity, so no racial group has the right to “speak into” the experience of the other, which obscures our common humanity.
https://quarterly.gospelinlife.com/the-bible-and-race/
How does placing too much emphasis on the similarity of all people discredit God’s diverse creation? How does placing too little emphasis on our God-given humanity keep us from the vision see forth in Revelation 7:9?
Prayer
Lord God, may we be a people committed to the work of justice. May our voices carry justice like a melody, coupled with action as harmony. May we speak clearly and act justly that the world never questions who we are or what we stand for. Amen.