I know it looks long but it litterally
only take 5 minutes to read…i timed it. 🙂
I’m in Uganda this month. I’m working
with Child Voice International. During our first week here we were
debriefed on the history of northern Uganda. For twenty years
northern Uganda was terrorized by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)
lead by Joseph Kony. The LRA is notorious for kidnapping children and
using them as child soldiers and sex slaves. To help force them into
submission they are usually forced to kill or torture their
relatives, friends, or fellow captives. Cutting off of limbs, facial
features, and cutting out unborn children and letting both mother and
child slowly die are common practices.
Its surreal. The landscape is so
beautiful here. It’s hard to imagine that on the very ground I stand
such horrific things occurred. Everyone has a story here of how LRA
has impacted their lives. Everyone seems to have lost at least one
family member. In fact, you are lucky if it was just one. Hearing
the stories of women that you can see right in front of your
eyes is crazy. Even now I wish I could express the stories and
emotions that run through my head.
I guess with all
these stories and ideas in my head I start to think…ok, what do I
do now? I feel two responses rise up within me. I think that these
people need Jesus and the salvation He offers, but they also need
help and hope for this world. I’m starting to learn that Jesus came
to do both. He came not only to offer us heaven one day, but He came
to set things right. He came to bring His kingdom. I think Jesus was
serious when He told us to pray ” Thy kingdom come, thy will be
done on earth as it is in heaven.” Jesus started His ministry by
reading the prophetic words of Isaiah saying,
” The Spirit of
the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news
to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and
recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are
oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Luke 4:18-19
In reading When
Helping Hurts, by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert, some ideas I’d
had were put into words. We sometimes seek the King but not the
kingdom. Or we swing the other way and try to seek social justice
(which is a lot about what the kingdom is about) but leave out the
King which doesn’t work either..
I don’t think we
can take the Lord’s word lightly when it says…
“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. If anyone has material
possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how
can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with
words or tongue but with actions and truth.” 1 John 3: 16-18
or
“Religion that
God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after
the orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from
being polluted by the world.” James 1: 27
So we can’t just
worry about loving God and trying to be good, and we can’t just get
caught up in the next charity. Christianity is so much more than just
a good quiet time, Sunday attendance, and moral convictions. And if
you lead and start the next biggest poverty relief project…great,
fantastic, kudos to you. But if you do it without Jesus you are
merely putting a band-aid on a severed arm.
To sum up- It has
been finished. We live under a new covenant. We may be living in
the “now” but “not yet” period,
But the Kingdom is at hand…
and “we are to embody Jesus Christ by doing what He did and what
He continues to do through us: declare-using both words and
deeds-that Jesus is the King of kings and Lord of lords who is
bringing in a kingdom of righteousness, justice, and peace. The
church needs to do this where Jesus did it, among the blind, the
lame, the sick , the outcast, and the poor” (corbett &
fikkert). I dare say it starts in our living rooms, classrooms,
offices, and churches….but it doesn’t stop there. It can’t stop
there. Our world is too messed up for that…but that’s why Christ
came. And I’m convinced that we are what Christ brings His kingdom
through. He left us the Holy Spirit to guide us and empower us.
But we can’t see
the unjust things in this world and simply feel bad for a few
moments and then claim amnesia. We can not hear about the horrible
things and sit in anger against God. We can no longer know about the
crap of this world and choose doubt or lose hope. They aren’t
options. We don’t have time for that and there is no need for that
junk.
So if you are a
christian reading this I hope it puts a fire in your belly. If you
aren’t-I hope you are confused. Because I’m finding out the gospel I
believe is utter foolishness to this world. If you are at least moved
by the injustice I hope you include the King when trying to make this
world better. Justice and hope is what His heartbeat sounds like and
without Him you aren’t just missing a piece but the whole picture.
