Category: Social Justice

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How God Is Using Trump To Reshape The World

I have largely kept silent on my views surrounding American politics and geopolitics in general. However, this week, two things happened: 1) I was inspired by a brilliant Ted talk by Ian Bremmer (watch it here), and 2) I felt that God was releasing me to share my perspective.

My perspectives are based on considering the world through the lens of community – a global community – and through the lens of an unfolding plan of God.

First, let’s get a little historical context. According to the United Nations website:

In the summer of 1945, leaders from 50 countries gathered in San Francisco to agree upon an international treaty to enshrine the equal rights of all people and maintain peace.

This resulting treaty, the UN Charter, is the founding document of the United Nations, which pledged to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war. In over 70 years since its creation, the United Nations maintains international peace and security, protects human rights, delivers humanitarian aid, supports sustainable development and climate action, and upholds international law.

Four years later the North Atlantic Treaty was signed by 12 countries. According to NATO’s website:

NATO’s purpose is to guarantee the freedom and security of its members through political and military means.

POLITICAL – NATO promotes democratic values and enables members to consult and cooperate on defence and security-related issues to solve problems, build trust and, in the long run, prevent conflict.

MILITARY – NATO is committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes. If diplomatic efforts fail, it has the military power to undertake crisis-management operations. These are carried out under the collective defence clause of NATO’s founding treaty – Article 5 of the Washington Treaty or under a United Nations mandate, alone or in cooperation with other countries and international organisations.

Both the UN and NATO were created against the backdrop of the devastation of World War II and a fragmented Europe. Having seen the ravages of war, the world decided to take a step away from individual interest-seeking toward global cooperation and peaceful co-existence.

Fast forward to today. Self-interest is on the rise across the globe. Without going into the details just yet, what I believe we are seeing is community dynamics. Think of the following 4 stages of community:

  1. No community – Individual interest is the order of the day. Those with more power (financial, political, social, physical/military) have a disproportionate influence on swaying circumstances to their advantage.
  2. Formation of fake community – A decision to put the good of all above the good of a few held together by enforced norms, codes, or laws. Equal rights for all group members are pursued with a focus on ensuring those without power are treated fairly.
  3. Destruction of fake community – Individuals with power (financial, political, social, physical/military) rebel against the enforced norms that do not suit them and steer back to individualism.
  4. Formation of true community – There is a possibility for true community only if individuals can find the motivation to persevere through the conflict of the previous step and come out on the other side with a deeper understanding of and genuine value for others. True community is formed when individuals voluntarily choose to love others as they love themselves without trying to make others conform to their personal preferences. This is true unity in diversity.

I believe that pre-WWII, was the era of no global community. For the last 80 years, what we have seen is a fake global community and increasingly so as international organizations and local governments have ramped up efforts to enforce harmony, cooperation, and the valuing of all members. 2025 for me, is the year when we are officially not pretending to get along or go along anymore. The trend has been going on for a while, but 2025 seems like an inflexion point. Here are some of the indicators that I have been seeing:

  • Brexit
  • The global rise in popularity of right-wing political parties
  • The global rise in anti-immigrant sentiment
  • The war in Gaza
  • Russia’s attack on Ukraine
  • US withdrawal from the World Health Organization
  • Trump
    • Pulling out of anti-bribery agreements
    • Pulling out of environmental agreements
    • Hard stance on immigrants
    • Tarriffs on China

The Trump factor is pivotal in this global shift, and what is even more interesting for me is the widespread Christian support for Trump and his policies. So, generally, we have a shift toward self-interest supported by Christians. How did that happen? How did a group that should be the ethos of selflessness come to be associated with the exact opposite? Well, I believe there are two things at play:

  1. American Christians got tired of being told that they had to call men women and women men. They got fed up of being forced to accept LGBTQ+ narratives but increasingly being suppressed from advocating and pursuing lifestyles based on Christian values. The pendulum had swung so far in the direction of protecting the rights of a minority that the majority’s rights were being trampled. An untenable situation.
  2. There is a question that must be answered about the values of Christians in America: Are their values based on what Christ taught or on the American dream of freedom, wealth, and success? Is the church in America American-Christians or Christian-Americans?

So what is God doing in all of this? I believe that this current era of destruction of the fake global community is absolutely part of God’s plan to get to true community, starting with the church. This will be a season of testing and refining for the church. All of the dross hidden under a veneer of Christian make-up will be coming to the surface. It already has. The name-calling, vitriol, and hate that spewed from the church during the US elections revealed the hearts. It was rampant everywhere, but the church should have been a light in the darkness.

There is no hope for global community and peace until and unless the global church stands united in love that is bigger than gender, race, economic status, social status, and country. Christ loved the world and died for the world. There is no non-immigrants first or America first or rich people first in the kingdom. In fact, Christ is decidedly on the side of the weak and powerless. Let me address a few of these issues head-on from scripture.

The Immigrant & The Poor

Leviticus 19:33-34 (NIV)

33 “‘When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. 34 The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

1 John 3:16-18 (NIV)

16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

Matthew 25:41-45 (NIV)

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

Wealth

Matthew 6:19-21, 24 (NIV)

19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

Power

Matthew 20:25-28 (NIV)

25 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

The Environment

Revelations 11:16-18 (NIV)

16 And the twenty-four elders, who were seated on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshiped God, 17 saying:

“We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty,
    the One who is and who was,
because you have taken your great power
    and have begun to reign.
18 The nations were angry,
    and your wrath has come.
The time has come for judging the dead,
    and for rewarding your servants the prophets
and your people who revere your name,
    both great and small—
and for destroying those who destroy the earth.”

Community

Philippians 2:3-4 (NIV)

 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

Mark 12:31 (NIV)

The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

The present age calls for great courage from the church. Not the self-righteous kind of courage that looks like outrage against our persecutors. Persecution is par for the course. Rather, it is the courage to fight with prayer and sacrificial servanthood instead of laws, economic bullying, and military might. You see, the great mistake at this point would be to trade one fake community for another – a more Christian-favourable one. Community cannot be made through laws or sanctions or tariffs. Christ modeled the only pathway to peace and unity – love expressed in sacrificial servanthood. We, the Christians, must have the courage to serve and love those who hate us. This is the narrow way.

Copyright 2025, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.
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The Quiet River

In October my wife and I visited Niagara, NY. It was a wonderful time of connection with an old friend and connection with God in nature. One day we did a 10km walk/hike along the Niagara River gorge. At every turn was a new vista of vibrant autumn colours against the backdrop of the vast blue of the sky or the deep blue of the river. We felt like we had stepped into a special moment curated by God just for us.

After walking for quite a while along the river, we came to a stone staircase leading us back to the upper rim. At the top of the stairs was a bench overlooking the river. This is the view taken from that spot.

As we sat on that bench, the river laid out before us and a gentle breeze blowing off the river, a stillness fell over us. We had visited the waterfall earlier and been impacted by the sheer power of the millions of gallons of water flowing over the Horseshoe Falls and exploding onto the rocks below. But here on this bench, we felt like Elijah after the wind and earthquake and fire. God began to speak in a gentle whisper.

“In this season you are that river,” he said. As my spirit unpacked what that meant with His Spirit, He showed me the quiet power of the river. A power that is not boisterous or loud but quietly undeniable. I had been going through a season at work where God was reshaping what it meant for me to influence my workplace for the kingdom. I have a strong justice value system. I feel very strongly about being treated fairly and even more strongly about others being treated fairly and with dignity and respect. In the face of injustice, I can be passionate and adversarial.

But what God was showing me in the river was a different way to stand up for justice and righteousness. God was showing me the power of this mighty river was not only in the foaming white waters but also in the slow steady flow. The same type of steady inexorable flow that formed the Grand Canyon.

God was telling me to quiet my soul. I heard Isaiah 30:15…

This is what the Sovereign Lord,
the Holy One of Israel, says:
“Only in returning to me
and resting in me will you be saved.
In quietness and confidence is your strength.

He was calling me back to rest in Him and see the wonders that He would perform. Not me, He, the Holy One! In that moment I saw clearly the constant gnawing anxiety just below the surface that I had been living with for the past few months. I saw my unease and disquiet and fret. Even during this vacation, how many of my thoughts were still at work? I exhaled and began to take some deep breaths. When last had I even really breathed?

As I sat on that bench in Niagara a few days before the US elections it was not lost on me that my struggle to grasp Jesus’ way of impacting my world was a microcosm of a global church crisis of an identical nature. We all want to see righteousness and justice established on the earth but the critical question is how. I see us, the church, getting louder, more desperate, and more anxious. We are a lot more froth than depth.

I am still unpacking this lesson and what it means in practice to be the quiet river. But what I do know is this: There is a power to affect our world through prayer (God for us) and presence (God with us) that can only be accessed from a posture of abiding rest in Him and quiet confidence in the victory that has already been won. Being present in the moment to God and to people with a heart to love and to serve backed up by powerful governmental prayer from a pure heart is more powerful than any policy or legislation at the organizational or national level.

After telling His disciples about the Father sending the Holy Spirit to them when He was gone, Jesus said (John 14:27 NLT):

I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.

Thank you Jesus for Your gift of peace. Teach us to return to Your peace and to remain in Your peace.

Shalom,

Copyright 2024, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.

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Revival Starts Here

As I sat with God in my usual spot this morning, engrossed in another world, He drew my gaze to what was happening outside of my window. It was an overcast morning. Still. Like a blanket of silence had been pulled over the sky. But as I looked out, something was happening to the left, just outside of my field of view. Suddenly, thick rainclouds poured into view, scurrying low across the mountains. It seemed like an invasion of grey, driven by invisible winds that were blowing in the entirely wrong direction! Here in Trinidad & Tobago, the prevailing winds are from the Northeast. These clouds were moving in from the South… Strange.

In moments, the skies delivered its payload. The mountains that had been so clearly visible before became shadows behind white curtains. White, blinding rain. The winds picked up, jerking treetops violently, rattling doors and pelting the rain slantways off of roofs. I rushed to close my window as a gust spattered raindrops across my open journal. The scene evoked a cry of worship from my heart. What are you saying, God? Is this a picture of the shaking that is coming? What could it mean Lord?

I sat and watched and worshipped in awe and reverence as lightning flashed and thunder rolled. The rain curtains billowed, undulated and vibrated, making visible the gusts of wind moving through the valley (still in the wrong direction). David must have been in the mountains with his sheep on a day like today when the words of Psalm 29:4-8 came to him:

The voice of the Lord is powerful;

    the voice of the Lord is majestic.

The voice of the Lord splits the mighty cedars;

    the Lord shatters the cedars of Lebanon.

He makes Lebanon’s mountains skip like a calf;

    he makes Mount Hermon leap like a young wild ox.

The voice of the Lord strikes

    with bolts of lightning.

The voice of the Lord makes the barren wilderness quake;

    the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

9 The voice of the Lord twists mighty oaks

    and strips the forests bare.

    In his Temple everyone shouts, “Glory!”

A storm is coming – a shaking – and it will not come when or how we expect it. It will come suddenly from the South.

Revival always starts with shaking or judgment in the house of God. I believe there are 6 phases of revival:

  • Judgment in the house of God
  • Repentance in the house of God
  • Restoration in the house of God
  • Judgment in society
  • Conversion in society
  • Reformation in society

Judgment in the house of God

The word judgment probably evokes images of the wrath of God and fire and damnation but that is not the heart of God as revealed in Jesus Christ. The heart of God is that we would repent of our self-destructive ways and turn to Him. The heart of God is to save us from paths that lead to death and put us on the path to abundant life. Judgment is a warning, “Danger ahead! Turn around now!”

God often gives a verbal warning to his people first and if we do not heed the verbal warning then he takes more drastic action to get our attention. Today, God is issuing a verbal warning. I believe there are at least 3 areas that God is putting his finger on in this country:

  1. Idolatry in the church. The time of God’s people running after money and luxury cars is over. The time of leaders dominating their congregation to build their empire, enrich themselves, and feel powerful is over. It is time for the Doctors, Reverends, Apostles, Prophets, Pastors, and Bishops to lose the titles and become servants and brothers and sisters. It is time to abandon the man-made antics and bring back true worship and the awesome Presence of God. The time of leaders seeking to control others is over. It is time for kings to serve and empower their people to rule as kings and queens. It is time for men to stop dominating women in the church and start unleashing powerful women leaders.
  2. Division in the church. The time of withholding fellowship from brothers and sisters of different denominations or ideologies is over. The time of racial division and class division in the church is over. It is time for Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Anglicans, Pentecostals, Evangelicals, and all the streams of our common faith in Jesus Christ to join together to learn from each other and serve our country together. It is time for churches in West Moorings to work together with churches in Enterprise and churchgoers in Lange Park to dine with churchgoers in Beetham. Unity in our society starts with unity in the church.
  3. Neglect of the poor and vulnerable by the church. The time of using tithes and offerings to enrich leaders instead of taking care of the needs of all is over. The time of churches on every corner but addiction, domestic violence, incest, abuse, and gang violence also on every corner is over. The time of staying clean and self-righteous in our churches while others go home to battle it out in the mud is over. It is time for us to bring the tangible love of Jesus out of the church walls and into the broken homes in our communities. It is time to not just talk about Christ but to walk with sinners like Christ.

Repentance in the house of God

Whether we heed these warnings or not is up to us. Repentance does not just mean that we feel convicted, or that we pray that others would change. Repentance is doing something different. We cannot afford as people of God to continue doing what we have been doing and going the way we have been going. The time for change is imminent and the need is urgent.

I will talk more about the remaining phases of revival in future posts but for now, I want to end with a call to action.

If you are interested in joining together with other like-minded believers in Trinidad & Tobago to conspire together about how we can take action (to be change agents in the 3 areas outlined above), then contact me.

Let’s start a revival in our country!

Copyright 2022, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.
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Kingdom Perspectives on Gender Equality

It’s been a while. I’ve been in a bit of hibernation. God has been reshaping my focus. New things are in the pipeline. Meanwhile, I was inspired to do a vlog on gender equality.

Check it out:

Copyright 2021, Matik Nicholls.

All rights reserved.

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Dear Church Family

This moment in time in America is God-ordained. Not only is the ‘coming to a head’ of race relations God-ordained, but also the fact that it happened when the world is at home and paying attention is God-ordained. The fact that blacks and whites have taken to the streets regardless of the very real danger presented by Covid-19 tells us that for many this issue is so important that it is literally worth dying for…

I sit here in the island of Trinidad where brown people are the majority. While I share not only ancestry with African Americans but also a history stained by slavery, I cannot pretend to fully understand what it means to live in America. Yet… I feel the pain of my blood brothers. I cannot ignore it and I refuse to be silent about it.

I am a Christian. That means something to me. It means that I see myself especially connected to my brothers and sisters in Christ of all races. So, in the flesh I am connected with African Americans through our shared heritage and experience, AND at the same time, in the Spirit, I am one family with my sisters and brothers of faith in America. This means that I have loved ones on both sides of this divide. In the body, in the church, there is hate… there is division and worst of all there is silence… and it hurts. It is not only the pain that one part of the body feels when the other is wounded but also the add-insult-to-injury-pain that comes when one part of the body dismisses and devalues the pain of the other.

So, I have a few things to get off my chest today.

To my white church family:

DO NOT TURN AWAY. STOP AND LISTEN. As I said, this time is God-ordained. Today, there is an opportunity presented to you. Do not miss it. The parable of the good Samaritan was Jesus’ response to a question. The question was, “Who is my neighbour?” It was asked by a Jewish lawyer who wanted to argue himself out of the requirement to love your neighbour as yourself. I see the same attitude in my white church family today.

The history of the church and race relations in America is riddled with an attempt to define black people as some ‘thing’ other than our neighbour. First, they were sub-human. Then they were 3/5 human. Now they are criminals. That is one argument I hear in the church to deflect the commandment to love: “George Floyd was high.” “George Floyd was less than an upstanding citizen.” The other argument is that our outcry is rooted in a demonic or non-Christ agenda. “Have you seen the BLM agenda?” they say. So, we are either criminals or demonic. Neither worthy of compassion it seems.

Jesus gave no such qualifications to the definition of neighbour. In fact, the focus of the parable was not the worthiness of the wounded man to receive help (that was taken as fact). The focus was on who was ACTING like a neighbour to the wounded man. We too have to choose whether to keep walking like the priest and the Levite, or to stop and tend to the wounds of our black brothers and sisters like the Samaritan. Choose. Silence is not an option that Jesus gave. The church has been silent far too long. The reason Jesus scripted the Samaritan as the ‘hero’ in this parable was an indictment to the religious leaders. It was an indictment to the ones who should have taken care of their brother but didn’t. Let’s be different.

Listen, I get it. I have visited the USA on more than 10 occasions, and I have never felt victimized. Policemen have been helpful, and for the most part I have felt safe. For many years my personal experience caused me to be ambivalent to the cries of my black brothers and sisters. Over the years, I have had to have several conversations with my family and friends who either live in the USA or studied there, to truly understand their experience. It changed me. This is not about statistics. There is no answer in statistics. Talk to people on the other side. Listen to them. This is about listening to a family member that is suffering. Uncle John may be a wonderful man to me but if my daughter said that he was abusing her you better believe that I would take her seriously (even if the statistics said that most uncles do not abuse their nieces). My experience does not give me the right to ignore and invalidate someone else’s experience. And the love of Jesus compels me to stop and tend to the wounds of my family; to show compassion.

To my black church family:

DO NOT LOSE FOCUS. STAY THE COURSE. I know you are hurting. I know you are tired. I want to remind you that we (and I say we because of the trans-Atlantic slave journey that we share) are the people who believed in the Jesus that our slave masters told us about despite the fact that they did not act like Jesus. In fact, we believed it more than them and still do! https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/02/07/5-facts-about-the-religious-lives-of-african-americans/

Our faith has been integral to our survival. We have only made it this far because of Jesus. Do not forget that! Speak out. Protest if you feel led too. Take action where you are led to. Engage the issues vigorously. But do not for a second think that your victory will be by your power, not His. I repeat, this is a God-ordained moment. What I mean by that is this: God has brought this issue into world view and by so doing issued a demand on the church to change. God did that. In typical God style He did it through a plague and an oppressor who refused to take his knee off the neck of his victim.

We only come out of this better as a church if we refuse to hate. If we refuse to shame. If we remain committed to relationship with our white brothers and sisters, many of whom have good intentions. Celebrate those who are willing to take a stand, and there are many (this too is from God.) There are many making safe space for black church members to be vulnerable about their experience and we in turn have to make it safe for white church members to be vulnerable about their perceptions. This cannot be done without the active work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We need Him now more than ever! But I know we can do it… because we have done it… Listen to the prayer of a slave woman in 1816 quoted in the book ‘Conversations with God: Two Centuries of Prayers by African Americans’.

“Oh Lord, bless my master. When he calls upon Thee to damn his soul, do not hear him. Do not hear him but hear me. Save him. Make him know he is wicked and he will pray to Thee. I am afraid, O Lord. I have wished him bad wishes in my heart. Keep me from wishing him bad though he whips me and beats me sore. Tell me of my own sins instead and make me pray more to Thee. Make me more glad for what Thou has done for me a poor slave.”

Only God can so work in the heart of a human to truly live Jesus’ call to bless our enemies. I believe that few have lived this to the degree that African Americans and women have, and that is more precious than freedom. If African Americans were to gain equality and lose this love in our hearts we would have lost all. I say this not to manipulate into submission but to exhort you as a brother in flesh and Spirit to treasure and guard the love of God that lives so richly in your heart.

Finally, to all my church family. Let us come together to heal and be the Body of Christ like we never have before.

Here are three videos that demonstrate those safe spaces that I spoke about:

  1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1P6AXjXnXc
  2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL83Wqlmffc
  3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYku4vlwnTQ

Be blessed,

Copyright 2020, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.