Hebrews 12:28
Good News Translation (GNT)
28 Let us be thankful, then,
because we receive a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Let us be grateful and
worship God in a way that will please him, with reverence and awe.
This past week Robert Mugabe, the world’s longest ruling dictator of 37 years, was deposed by a carefully orchestrated, bloodless coup d’etat. Mugabe had emerged the victor in a bloody civil war that rocked the idyllic, prosperous, and peaceful Southern Rhodesia or just Rhodesia. Hundreds of innocent people were killed after the war by simply stepping on land mines that had been planted throughout the country.
Mugabe started a systematic genocide attempt on the Ndebele people who had put up the strongest resistance to his assuming leadership. He methodically drove the successful white farmers out of the country and gave their farms to his favorite military generals who had no desire or skill to farm. The net result was that when he took office, the country was exporting food to the nations around: after his policies took effect, starvation overtook the country. The international community has had to step in and feed his people.
The pictures above show how he squandered the limited wealth of his country to build himself a mansion that rivals the mansions of European nobility and royalty. As the country ran out of money, he printed vast amounts of paper money until the Zimbabwe dollar became literally worthless.
King Ndebele, a boyhood friend of mine, once wrote, “When the British were here, we had freedom but not independence. Now we have independence, but we don’t have freedom.”
As we see the steady erosion of our rights and freedoms in our own country, I appreciate more and more the promise that we will, in God’s own time, receive the “kingdom that cannot be shaken.”
Let us indeed “be grateful and worship God in a way that will please Him, with reverence and awe.”
No comments:
Post a Comment