Collective Reconciliation: A Requirement of Divine Justice
BEYOND THE DECADE PRAYER GUIDE: July 2024
Reconciliation proceeds from a place of healing. It is indeed part of the healing process. God himself is the healer and the source of all healing. That is why God is the initiator of any transformational reconciliation process that ensures lasting peace and prosperity. And anyone who would like to be part of a reconciliation process must have received healing from the wounds of Jesus, the Son of God, who became our sacrifice. And it is good that for the past three months, we prayed for healing for the total person of all people of African descent. This is the reason Paul stated that the ministry of reconciliation has been entrusted to Christ’s followers. (2 Corinthians 5:18–19).
As one preacher correctly stated, when Adam and Eve sinned, they did not lose a religion, a set of rules for life, a philosophy or a practice, but rather they lost their relationship with God, their Father.
Reconciliation is required when relationships have been messed up and marred due to bad decisions, exploitation, sinful behaviours, and ignorance. When Adam and Eve sinned, it was God who initiated a reconciliation process by promising the coming SEED of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent. (Genesis 3:15).
The reconciliation process God instituted in response to Adam and Eve’s sin required a prescribed sacrifice that foreshadowed the coming SEED. Adam and his family members were required to offer those sacrifices. Through the sacrifice, they received healing (forgiveness), restored fellowship with God, and strength to live and prosper in their relationships. Through the sacrifice, God’s justice is executed. God is love and love by nature demands justice. Divine love does not condone sin, entertain it, or relish in it.
Cain, the first son of Adam and Eve, decided he would use his own system of reconciliation, in other words, he was rejecting God’s prescribed sacrificial system. But what he did not understand was that it was only through God’s prescribed system of reconciliation that healing, fellowship, and strength are secured to live in peace and prosperity in his relationships. The consequences of his action proved God’s prescribed sacrificial system to be true. Cain could not access the healing and strength that flowed from God’s prescribed sacrifice because he rejected it. God would graciously counsel Cain, but it all fell on deaf ears. Wounded and weekend by his jealousy, he murdered his own brother, and became the first recorded murderer in the world.
Cain’s action, like Adam’s, chose a path for his descendants, a path devoid of recognition of his violence, refusal of responsibility, and not willing to make things right. In the absence of God’s prescribed reconciliation, Cain’s descendants although very much gifted: clever, industrious, and creative, largely rejected the knowledge of God clearly demonstrated by Lamech’s sense of justice, in the sixth generation: “Lamech said to his wives, “Adah and Zillah, listen to me; wives of Lamech, hear my words. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me. If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times.” (Genesi 4:23–24). Lamech’s brand of justice is what pertains in worldly-based reconciliation processes.
Cain built a city (Genesis 4:17–18), and his descendants in his city developed a culture of godlessness, because their progenitor had rejected God’s prescribed sacrifice for reconciliation. “What stands out in the cultural elements in the city of Cain, viewed as a “seed of the serpent” (1 John 3:12), is the absence of the mention of God, a sharp contrast with the other family on earth, those men and women belonging to the “seed of the woman” (Genesis 3:15). For example, when Cain built a city, he named it after his son (Genesis 4:17). Instead of honoring God, Cain and his seed, honor humanity.” (redeemerbible.org).
In my engagement with Africans on the continent, I have encountered many who flat out would not recognise the role of our ancestors in the violence of slave-trading, or think of bearing such a responsibility, and could not see what it was that must be reconciled, since the Arab and the ‘White man’ created the demand for slaves in their view.
Pray that every African will understand and desire divine justice as God requested of Cain. “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.” (Matthew 5:23–24). “But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:24).
Pray that Africans will not only grieve over the consequences of slave-trading which opened the doors to colonisation and exploitation by both Arabs and the West, but more urgently seek genuine reconciliation with descendants of African slavery. Everyone who rejects God’s prescribed reconciliation through Jesus’ sacrifice lives outside of God’s presence, where materialism and humanism are worshipped. “Cain’s descendants gradually degenerated in their moral and spiritual condition till they became wholly corrupt before God. This corruption prevailed, and at length, the Deluge was sent by God to prevent the final triumph of evil.” (Easton’s Bible Dictionary). Any reconciliation process outside of God’s standard hardens hearts. Cain was not sorry for what he did. He was more concerned about his personal safety. He was more concerned about the punishment for his sin he thought was too much. There is no proper grief over the sin, sufferings, or deaths which occurred and broke God’s heart. What kind of reconciliation are we looking forward to, hopefully not one that we stand to gain materially!
Pray that African Traditional leadership will open communication lines with the God of the Bible about the subject of the slave-trading by our ancestors. In Genesis 32, God called Jacob to it, finally, whose past was fraught with schemes to get his way. Jacob had to embrace God’s requirement for divine justice through reconciliation with Esau from whom through deceit, he had tricked out of his birth right. Jacob’s treatment of Esau is reflected in the way African ancestors on the continent stole the inheritance of the slaves they sold to both Arabs and the West. Pray that God will call our traditional leadership to a wrestle match and take out their hip of rebellion and unrepentance, so they will seek God’s prescribed reconciliation with descendants of African slavery.
Pray that African traditional leadership will heed God’s counsel for his prescribed reconciliation that Cain rejected and feigned, luring his brother under the guise of reconciliation only to murder him. A positive response to God’s counsel restores not only our relationship to him but access to his earthly blessings. Cain’s curse was that he would not be able to cultivate his land near East of Eden where the blessings were. He had to move further east from there, to the land of Nod. Our traditional leaders must heed the counsel of God, so they don’t become fugitives like Cain on earth chasing after vain gods and degrading practices, which offer no proper reconciliation characterized by hope, peace, and love.
Pray that the spirit of the ‘elder brother’ will not work in and deceive descendants of African slavery from receiving reconciliation gestures from descendants of slave-trading from the African continent. (Luke 15:11–32). There is a French proverb that states that “the victim sins more than the culprit,” and this is very well illustrated in the story of the Prodigal Son in the Bible. The prodigal, like the African slave-traders in the past, squandered all their profits from the slave trade, while the elder brother represented by those sold into slavery laboured hard under their slave masters. But in the end, both the elder brother and the prodigal needed to be reconciled to their father whom they had wronged. Accusations will only distance the ‘elder brother’ further and further from the Father, who is God Most High. “And he said to him, ‘Son, you have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live and was lost and has been found.’” (Luke 15:31 & 32).
Pray that God will forgive every reconciliation process in the past (between and among tribes, and between descendants of slave-trading African Tribes and descendants of African slavery) that deviated from what He has prescribed in the Bible.
Praise God that through Western Slavery, God harvested his ‘TITHE’ from the African continent, as a significant number of the slaves and their descendants became Christians, and through one of them, Seymour, Pentecostalism was reborn afresh in the USA in the early 1900s, spreading all over the world with signs and wonders. We indeed serve the God who calls light out of darkness. “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ… (2 Corinthians 4:6–18).
Praise God for the many Black American Christians through whom God birthed spiritual songs, which continue to fortify the faith of many Christians around the world. Transformational songs are birthed through suffering. Praise God for how the faith of God’s ‘TITHE’ of African Christians in the Americas have enriched Christianity. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8–9).
Reconciliation has a price tag, a very, very, high one. God paid with the life of his Son. And God expects us to follow his example. Pray that God prepares the hearts of traditional leadership of every tribe in Africa to understand the price required for reconciliation. God’s way of reconciliation demands that we not only give up our hearts to him to transform us, but also that we give our selves to those we have wronged. Pray that Africans on the continent will understand this aspect of reconciliation. Africans will have to lose something for proper restoration of healthy relations between and among tribes, and between Africa and the African Diaspora. What are you willing to give or lose for this to happen to honor God? “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain” (Hebrews 11:4). Reparations and atonement are part of the reconciliation process. “Reparations and atonement signal responsibility to address the root causes of continued dehumanization” of descendants of African slavery both on the African continent and those returning. “Therefore, reparations must go beyond symbolic apologies and include practical steps towards mental and institutional reforms” on the African continent also. (Gill & Thompson, 2021).
God richly bless you as you endeavour to intercede for everyone of African descent to be set free to fully live for Christ Jesus, our only Lord and Savior, so we can fulfill our assignment as a people God has planned to use in His Last Days Agenda.
Beyond the Decade Vision is led and implemented by Beyond the Decade Coalition. To learn more about the Coalition, its members, and its mandate, visit www.beyondthedecade.org.
