I don't know about you, but when I read books or hear stories about people who have done great things for God, I'm incredibly impressed, but at the same time, I start listing in my head all the reasons why I CAN'T do what they did. I'm talking about people who have up and moved to foreign countries to do mission work or started their own non-profits from scratch or people like the girl who wrote Kisses from Katie. It can feel overwhelming to some of us--I'm not in a place in my life to start a nonprofit, and most of us have job, family, and/ or financial/ debt responsibilities that keep us fairly grounded in our day-to-day lives and can keep us from pursuing huge, bold steps of faith--leaving us to find small ways to make a difference in our lives day-to-day. Yet sometimes the small things are not so small.
I've pulled together this list for you all in the hope that it will inspire you--yes, YOU--to make your corner of the world a better place and touch it with the light of Christ. Although some of the items on this list do require a lot of time, money, and planning (like 22 and 23), most of them don't. You can do a lot of these things right now--for example, 6, 8, 17, and 28. Some of them without even leaving your computer, in fact. So here's the list. And I will definitely be adding to it as I get more ideas.
1) Sponsor a child through World Vision or, if you already do, become a child ambassador to help more children get connected with sponsors.
2) Be a microphilanthropist, which basically involves donating the price of your morning latte or some other small expense to a good cause each day, like this guy.
3) Participate in Operation Christmas Child.
4) Do something you already probably like--shopping online--for a good cause by using Amazon Smile, where Amazon automatically donates a percentage of each purchase to the charity of your choice.
5) Next time you're at Walmart, get some extra deodorant and shampoo and socks and donate it to your local rescue mission or homeless shelter.
6) Send someone a text message that says you're thinking about them or praying for them--in my experience, these can totally make a day.
7) Invite people over to your house for dinner. You don't even have to be able to cook. You can connect with people and minister to them just as well over pizza delivery as a gourmet meal.
8) Do a beginning-of-the-year home cleanout and donate unused clothes, shoes, jackets, canned goods, etc. to the food pantry/ thrift store/ Goodwill.
9) Donate blood.
10) Celebrate 100% tip day and tip an unsuspecting waiter or waitress the full cost of your meal.
11) Connect with old teachers and thank them for the difference they have made in your life.
12) Visit residents in a nursing home.
13) Get a haircut and donate to Locks of Love, which provides wigs to kids with medical conditions that have made them lose their hair.
14) Write a handwritten letter to an old friend.
15) Go on a short-term mission trip.
16) Call your parents, grandparents, or other important people in your life.
17) Pay for the coffee of the person in line behind you.
18) Send thank-you notes.
19) Write cards or put together care packages for the troops overseas.
20) Volunteer at an adoption agency or crisis pregnancy center.
21) Volunteer at a soup kitchen or community food bank.
22) Go on the World Race mission trip or support someone else who's going.
23) Explore the option of being a foster parent.
24) Send thank-you notes to people who have positively impacted your life.
25) Run a race for a good cause, like Race for the Cure or myriad other races of varying distances that support local non-profits.
26) Pray for the nations of the world. One way to systematically do this is with Operation World, which can help you be aware of prayer needs in countries you never even hear about, like Togo or Tajikistan.
27) Get connected with local volunteering opportunities through Volunteer Match.
28) Commit to only putting kind, encouraging things on the Internet . . . Twitter updates, Facebook statuses, blog posts, comments on other's articles, encouraging emails, etc.
28) Check out Freerice.com. If you like trivia games, this site is for you. Basically you can play vocabulary games for free, and grains of rice get donated to needy areas for every correct answer you give.
29) Make a different to-do list for your day or week: not all the errands you need to run or chapters you need to read, but people you can help, causes you can support, and little things you can do to show the love of Christ around you.
30) Deliver on all the commitments you've already made to help the people closest to you. We often get so caught up in helping "the community" or "the world" that we forget that there are people in our everyday lives that we've told we would help with one thing or another. For example, I told N. awhile back that I would help him with cover letters and J. that I would help her with Moot Court, but I haven't done those things yet, and I need to. Today.
If you have other ideas, let me know in the comments!
Showing posts with label social justice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label social justice. Show all posts
Monday, January 20, 2014
Saturday, January 4, 2014
There's So Much To Do.
And I am not doing enough of it. Let me explain.
I feel so restless tonight, readers. I've been reading a couple of inspiring books lately that are basically calls to radical, Spirit-filled Christianity. Recklessly abandoning the comfortable and truly following Christ, instead of just giving Him his little corner of our hearts or His two hours of our Sunday morning. And I want to do that, because I have decided to follow Jesus.
But following Jesus is, of course, not a one-time deal. It's not just about securing our salvation and then being done with it. Our faith needs to show up in our good works, in our love for others, in our compassion. That's not what brings us into right standing with God, but it's for sure what we need to have because we are in right standing with God.
And the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. There are millions of people on this planet who have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. There are millions more who don't have the Bible in their own language. There are so many people, both in our own communities and abroad, who are struggling with hunger and poverty and abuse. Children the world over lack access to an education and die of readily preventable diseases. Women and children are forced into sex trafficking all over the world and, in fact, the United States. Babies are abandoned by the side of the road just because of their gender. Thousands of children in orphanages and foster care want nothing more than a family to love them. More people than we really want to think about don't have access to some of the very basics of life, like clean drinking water, warm clothes for the winter, basic medical care, and homes capable of protecting them from the elements. There are lonely elderly people in nursing homes that long to have someone come visit them, homeless people in our own cities who just want a hot meal or a jacket to wear, kids that just want someone to take them in and show them love.
Are you getting where I'm coming from? There's so much to do! Homes need to be built, the Gospel desperately needs to be shared, the hungry need to be fed, children need to be fostered and adopted by loving parents, and so much more. My generation is more passionate about these issues than probably any generation that has come before, probably in part because modern technology and the Internet have opened our eyes to the magnitude of the need worldwide. Some of my generation has wrongly traded social justice for faith, believing that compassion rather than Christ is what saves you, and that's so misguided. We need to have compassion because of our faith, not instead of our faith. But no matter how we look at it, we're a generation that craves maximum impact with our lives.
I know I do. I want to impact people. I want my life to be one that matters, where many people have a better life because I lived. Moreover, I get tired of my predictable life and want to reject the familiar and pursue Jesus wherever He leads me, to places I've never been before, both literally and figuratively. The Christian life should be an adventure, full of divine appointments and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit and the miraculous favor of God enabling us to impact others for Him. Because really, that's what it's all about. It's not about us just chilling in our cozy little corner of the world. We need to get our hands dirty and our hearts heavy with the plight of those who suffer, and do something about it.
But do you ever just feel sort of stuck? That's exactly how I feel tonight. It's like, I'm here in my comfortable home sitting on my comfortable couch knowing that there is much to be done, people and hearts that need to be reached, but not knowing what exactly to do about it. Or having a voice of negativity drowning out the ideas I do have. Maybe I should volunteer at a soup kitchen. But you don't have time, the voice says. Maybe I should write that devotional e-book I've wanted to write for years. But you don't really know how to write, it says. Maybe I should go on a short-term mission trip. But it reminds me that I don't have any money.
But you know what? Maybe I should volunteer anyway, write the book anyway, and go anyway. And maybe you should too, and find a way to do what needs to be done in spite of the fact that it's bound to be awkward, expensive, inconvenient, uncomfortable, ridiculed, or perhaps all of the above. We need to start doing it anyway.
Because following Jesus implies that there is motion involved. We pursue Him, we run after Him, we go where He leads. And chances are good that can't all be accomplished sitting on the couch. So get in motion. Do it.
Write the book. Or the check. Or the blog post.
Go to that foster care meeting.
Sponsor a child.
Visit the prison, the orphanage, the homeless shelter.
Have that conversation.
Just do it.
I feel so restless tonight, readers. I've been reading a couple of inspiring books lately that are basically calls to radical, Spirit-filled Christianity. Recklessly abandoning the comfortable and truly following Christ, instead of just giving Him his little corner of our hearts or His two hours of our Sunday morning. And I want to do that, because I have decided to follow Jesus.
But following Jesus is, of course, not a one-time deal. It's not just about securing our salvation and then being done with it. Our faith needs to show up in our good works, in our love for others, in our compassion. That's not what brings us into right standing with God, but it's for sure what we need to have because we are in right standing with God.
And the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. There are millions of people on this planet who have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. There are millions more who don't have the Bible in their own language. There are so many people, both in our own communities and abroad, who are struggling with hunger and poverty and abuse. Children the world over lack access to an education and die of readily preventable diseases. Women and children are forced into sex trafficking all over the world and, in fact, the United States. Babies are abandoned by the side of the road just because of their gender. Thousands of children in orphanages and foster care want nothing more than a family to love them. More people than we really want to think about don't have access to some of the very basics of life, like clean drinking water, warm clothes for the winter, basic medical care, and homes capable of protecting them from the elements. There are lonely elderly people in nursing homes that long to have someone come visit them, homeless people in our own cities who just want a hot meal or a jacket to wear, kids that just want someone to take them in and show them love.
Are you getting where I'm coming from? There's so much to do! Homes need to be built, the Gospel desperately needs to be shared, the hungry need to be fed, children need to be fostered and adopted by loving parents, and so much more. My generation is more passionate about these issues than probably any generation that has come before, probably in part because modern technology and the Internet have opened our eyes to the magnitude of the need worldwide. Some of my generation has wrongly traded social justice for faith, believing that compassion rather than Christ is what saves you, and that's so misguided. We need to have compassion because of our faith, not instead of our faith. But no matter how we look at it, we're a generation that craves maximum impact with our lives.
I know I do. I want to impact people. I want my life to be one that matters, where many people have a better life because I lived. Moreover, I get tired of my predictable life and want to reject the familiar and pursue Jesus wherever He leads me, to places I've never been before, both literally and figuratively. The Christian life should be an adventure, full of divine appointments and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit and the miraculous favor of God enabling us to impact others for Him. Because really, that's what it's all about. It's not about us just chilling in our cozy little corner of the world. We need to get our hands dirty and our hearts heavy with the plight of those who suffer, and do something about it.
But do you ever just feel sort of stuck? That's exactly how I feel tonight. It's like, I'm here in my comfortable home sitting on my comfortable couch knowing that there is much to be done, people and hearts that need to be reached, but not knowing what exactly to do about it. Or having a voice of negativity drowning out the ideas I do have. Maybe I should volunteer at a soup kitchen. But you don't have time, the voice says. Maybe I should write that devotional e-book I've wanted to write for years. But you don't really know how to write, it says. Maybe I should go on a short-term mission trip. But it reminds me that I don't have any money.
But you know what? Maybe I should volunteer anyway, write the book anyway, and go anyway. And maybe you should too, and find a way to do what needs to be done in spite of the fact that it's bound to be awkward, expensive, inconvenient, uncomfortable, ridiculed, or perhaps all of the above. We need to start doing it anyway.
Because following Jesus implies that there is motion involved. We pursue Him, we run after Him, we go where He leads. And chances are good that can't all be accomplished sitting on the couch. So get in motion. Do it.
Write the book. Or the check. Or the blog post.
Go to that foster care meeting.
Sponsor a child.
Visit the prison, the orphanage, the homeless shelter.
Have that conversation.
Just do it.
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Are We Going to Just Let This Happen?
Compassion for people in need, and helping people in need, is SO important. And for anyone who claims to follow Christ, it's simply non-negotiable. If we as Christians won't help those who hurt, who will? If we won't feed the hungry, visit the sick, and comfort the grieving, then who will? Forgive me if I get a little too preachy and long-winded in this post or if my writing is a little more raw and unrefined than it usually is, but this is just too important not to talk about, and this is one of my deepest passions.
The question that's been on my heart lately is this: Are we going to just let this happen? Are we going to just let people in Africa starve, or children in Romania freeze in the winter because they don't have warm clothes or blankets, or let people die of preventable diseases, or children be conscripted into armies and sex trafficking? And we can, of course, bring the question closer to home: Are we going to just let that fellow student be bullied and not be a friend? Are we going to let the struggling single mom end up unable to pay her rent and care for her children? Are we going to ignore the needs of thousands of children in foster care, or children who don't really have any adult they can look up to in their lives? Ultimately, are we going to leave our neighbor--whoever that is and whatever color their skin is and wherever they're from and whatever their "issues" are--laying beaten up by the side of the road?
Are we really ok with this?? When people just don't care about the needs of others, I just want to yell at them and be like, "Doesn't it even bother you to think about the same happening to you? Wouldn't you be hurting and lonely and desperate if you were in their situation?" Maybe we just lack the empathetic imagination we need, the ability to perceive the plight of others and to care enough to get off our butt and do something. How can it NOT bother you? Compassion requires that we be able to imagine the suffering of another, to put ourselves in their shoes, to, as a fabulous quote from To Kill a Mockingbird puts it, "step into their skin and walk around in it." We desperately need this empathetic imagination. I crave it. Lord, let me feel what they feel, cry with them and rejoice with them. I need to feel my neighbor's tears on my face and their smile on my lips.
And before I write another sentence, let me make a couple things clear. In my opinion, it is totally false that everybody should move to Africa/ Asia/ a Third World country to help with the need there, or that it's "lesser than" to be more passionate about helping people who hurt right here in the US, or in our neighborhood, than in foreign lands. I'm not going to mince words--it's simply B.S. to create gradations of compassion or to say that one person's way of showing it is less worthy and valuable than another's. I've read plenty of books that pretty much suggest exactly that, and I beg to differ. We're not all called to show compassion in the same way. We're not all passionate about meeting the same needs, and it is not my intention to guilt-trip anyone if some of the needs I've mentioned already are not where YOU feel led to pour out your efforts. In fact, maybe we'd have an easier time showing compassion if people would just stop judging how other people show compassion and shed the holier-than-thou attitudes like last year's fashion. No, we're called to rectify ANY injustice. ANY. Any sorrow or heartache, any pain, any loss, any desperation, any need.
And secondly, if you've read my blog for long enough, you know I'm not a fan of the "religion of social justice" and compassion is not what gains us right standing with God. But Jesus talked and talked and talked about helping the poor, the widow, the sick, and the orphan, and I just can't sit back and ignore it anymore. And throughout the Bible, God has always emphasized how desperately important it is that His people be a people who help. You can't say it much more clearly than it's said in Jeremiah 22:16: "He defended the cause of the poor and needy. . . . Is that not what it means to know me?"
Or in Isaiah 58, and this passage is so amazing I'm just going to copy the whole thing: "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter--when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? . . . . If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings." Spending ourselves on behalf of others . . . wow. That is the high calling we have.
And probably the most important statement Jesus ever made about this topic was this: "Whatever you do for the least of these, you have done for me." And I believe we could also say, "Whatever we don't do for the least of these, we have not done for Christ." Since Jesus didn't turn his back on me, I cannot--and I will not--turn my back on them. Jesus had the ultimate compassion. He wrapped himself fully in our pain and heartache. He walked among us and bled and cried and felt deeply.
None of us can give it all or do it all or be it all, but we all can do something! We all have either time, or money, or talent, or a VOICE to offer for people in need. It's time for us to start considering whether, by NOT doing anything, we're acting like we're ok with it, and in our silence and in our inaction giving a tacit seal of approval to suffering.
For me, I am most passionate about helping children. I don't particularly see myself being a mother myself, but I have pictures on my fridge of the two beautiful little girls I sponsor in Africa and we write letters back and forth and I feel like they are "my" kids. I want to be an attorney so I can fight for children who have no voice, for children who live in abusive and broken homes, to give a future to children who don't have one. This fall when I start school again, I want to start volunteering at my local adoption agency. Maybe your passion is the homeless, or fighting for unborn children, or opening your home to people who've hit hard times. You decide how much you can give, and that's between you and God. No one is "better" than anybody else just because they happen to give more hours of their time or dollars from their pocket, or even a greater percentage of their overall resources. We are all called to help, to defend others, to fight for those in need, and to speak up for those who can't speak up for themselves.
Are you going to let this happen? If not, what are you going to do about it?
The question that's been on my heart lately is this: Are we going to just let this happen? Are we going to just let people in Africa starve, or children in Romania freeze in the winter because they don't have warm clothes or blankets, or let people die of preventable diseases, or children be conscripted into armies and sex trafficking? And we can, of course, bring the question closer to home: Are we going to just let that fellow student be bullied and not be a friend? Are we going to let the struggling single mom end up unable to pay her rent and care for her children? Are we going to ignore the needs of thousands of children in foster care, or children who don't really have any adult they can look up to in their lives? Ultimately, are we going to leave our neighbor--whoever that is and whatever color their skin is and wherever they're from and whatever their "issues" are--laying beaten up by the side of the road?
Are we really ok with this?? When people just don't care about the needs of others, I just want to yell at them and be like, "Doesn't it even bother you to think about the same happening to you? Wouldn't you be hurting and lonely and desperate if you were in their situation?" Maybe we just lack the empathetic imagination we need, the ability to perceive the plight of others and to care enough to get off our butt and do something. How can it NOT bother you? Compassion requires that we be able to imagine the suffering of another, to put ourselves in their shoes, to, as a fabulous quote from To Kill a Mockingbird puts it, "step into their skin and walk around in it." We desperately need this empathetic imagination. I crave it. Lord, let me feel what they feel, cry with them and rejoice with them. I need to feel my neighbor's tears on my face and their smile on my lips.
And before I write another sentence, let me make a couple things clear. In my opinion, it is totally false that everybody should move to Africa/ Asia/ a Third World country to help with the need there, or that it's "lesser than" to be more passionate about helping people who hurt right here in the US, or in our neighborhood, than in foreign lands. I'm not going to mince words--it's simply B.S. to create gradations of compassion or to say that one person's way of showing it is less worthy and valuable than another's. I've read plenty of books that pretty much suggest exactly that, and I beg to differ. We're not all called to show compassion in the same way. We're not all passionate about meeting the same needs, and it is not my intention to guilt-trip anyone if some of the needs I've mentioned already are not where YOU feel led to pour out your efforts. In fact, maybe we'd have an easier time showing compassion if people would just stop judging how other people show compassion and shed the holier-than-thou attitudes like last year's fashion. No, we're called to rectify ANY injustice. ANY. Any sorrow or heartache, any pain, any loss, any desperation, any need.
And secondly, if you've read my blog for long enough, you know I'm not a fan of the "religion of social justice" and compassion is not what gains us right standing with God. But Jesus talked and talked and talked about helping the poor, the widow, the sick, and the orphan, and I just can't sit back and ignore it anymore. And throughout the Bible, God has always emphasized how desperately important it is that His people be a people who help. You can't say it much more clearly than it's said in Jeremiah 22:16: "He defended the cause of the poor and needy. . . . Is that not what it means to know me?"
Or in Isaiah 58, and this passage is so amazing I'm just going to copy the whole thing: "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter--when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? . . . . If you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings." Spending ourselves on behalf of others . . . wow. That is the high calling we have.
And probably the most important statement Jesus ever made about this topic was this: "Whatever you do for the least of these, you have done for me." And I believe we could also say, "Whatever we don't do for the least of these, we have not done for Christ." Since Jesus didn't turn his back on me, I cannot--and I will not--turn my back on them. Jesus had the ultimate compassion. He wrapped himself fully in our pain and heartache. He walked among us and bled and cried and felt deeply.
None of us can give it all or do it all or be it all, but we all can do something! We all have either time, or money, or talent, or a VOICE to offer for people in need. It's time for us to start considering whether, by NOT doing anything, we're acting like we're ok with it, and in our silence and in our inaction giving a tacit seal of approval to suffering.
For me, I am most passionate about helping children. I don't particularly see myself being a mother myself, but I have pictures on my fridge of the two beautiful little girls I sponsor in Africa and we write letters back and forth and I feel like they are "my" kids. I want to be an attorney so I can fight for children who have no voice, for children who live in abusive and broken homes, to give a future to children who don't have one. This fall when I start school again, I want to start volunteering at my local adoption agency. Maybe your passion is the homeless, or fighting for unborn children, or opening your home to people who've hit hard times. You decide how much you can give, and that's between you and God. No one is "better" than anybody else just because they happen to give more hours of their time or dollars from their pocket, or even a greater percentage of their overall resources. We are all called to help, to defend others, to fight for those in need, and to speak up for those who can't speak up for themselves.
Are you going to let this happen? If not, what are you going to do about it?
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Knowing Nothing But Christ
I had an old blog that I started keeping during the summer of 2010, but I just wasn't consistent with it. I decided to go ahead and delete that one and get a fresh start with this blog and see if I can keep it up, but I did find some old posts I had written that I'd like to go ahead and share again here. I'll probably post some of these in the next week or so.
This is one of the posts I wrote in 2010. It's on an issue I still think is really important now:
I feel really concerned by people, particularly in my age group, who are Christians but when asked about their "religious views" (on Facebook or anywhere else!) they say/ write something like the following:
If you read 1 Corinthians 1, you'll find that without the cross and the resurrection of Christ, vague notions of "love" and "justice" would probably honestly fit into Paul's category of the "wisdom of this world" and the philosophy of the present age--a wisdom he says is made foolish by the message of Christ! Now don't get me wrong--I'm not trying to say anything bad about love, justice, peace, or anything else I referenced on that list above. But those ideas have NO power devoid or separated from the power of the crucified and resurrected Christ! The early apostles did not sit around talking or preaching about those things. No, they preached the message of Christ and --empowered by that message--went out and LIVED those things. They were out living love so powerfully that thousands of people were coming to Christ every day! We can't just speak about feel-good concepts that don't really have a lot of meaning without Christ. In fact, Paul writes that he determined to know and preach NOTHING but Christ and Him crucified and resurrected. Maybe that is offensive, but sometimes, the truth is offensive.
As Paul did, we as Christians need to recognize the message of Christ which literally ruptures the flaky "wisdom" of our world and has the power to make us overturn our ideologies, change our commitments, relinquish our privileges, and dismantle our hierarchies. All I'm asking is that we not water down Christ to some wishy-washy, vague notion of peace, love, tolerance, justice, etc. And no worries--I'm guilty of doing this too and need to be reminded of it too! We need a little more of Paul's language of the interruption, offense, and new creation found in Christ to enter into our modern Christian discourse. We need to be praying that God will raise up people in His church who are not afraid to speak the truth. Love and justice can and should stem from our lives as saved people--but they are not our salvation, Jesus is! We need a rupture in our philosophy, like 1 Corinthians 1 gives witness to. We need to speak of Christ as the power of God and the wisdom of God.
So go. Be guilty of turning the world upside down. You won't be the first.
This is one of the posts I wrote in 2010. It's on an issue I still think is really important now:
I feel really concerned by people, particularly in my age group, who are Christians but when asked about their "religious views" (on Facebook or anywhere else!) they say/ write something like the following:
- LOVE
- peace
- Social justice is my religion.
- I have a broad and inclusive perspective.
- God is too big to fit into any one religion.
- It's all about love...
- And you get the idea.
If you read 1 Corinthians 1, you'll find that without the cross and the resurrection of Christ, vague notions of "love" and "justice" would probably honestly fit into Paul's category of the "wisdom of this world" and the philosophy of the present age--a wisdom he says is made foolish by the message of Christ! Now don't get me wrong--I'm not trying to say anything bad about love, justice, peace, or anything else I referenced on that list above. But those ideas have NO power devoid or separated from the power of the crucified and resurrected Christ! The early apostles did not sit around talking or preaching about those things. No, they preached the message of Christ and --empowered by that message--went out and LIVED those things. They were out living love so powerfully that thousands of people were coming to Christ every day! We can't just speak about feel-good concepts that don't really have a lot of meaning without Christ. In fact, Paul writes that he determined to know and preach NOTHING but Christ and Him crucified and resurrected. Maybe that is offensive, but sometimes, the truth is offensive.
As Paul did, we as Christians need to recognize the message of Christ which literally ruptures the flaky "wisdom" of our world and has the power to make us overturn our ideologies, change our commitments, relinquish our privileges, and dismantle our hierarchies. All I'm asking is that we not water down Christ to some wishy-washy, vague notion of peace, love, tolerance, justice, etc. And no worries--I'm guilty of doing this too and need to be reminded of it too! We need a little more of Paul's language of the interruption, offense, and new creation found in Christ to enter into our modern Christian discourse. We need to be praying that God will raise up people in His church who are not afraid to speak the truth. Love and justice can and should stem from our lives as saved people--but they are not our salvation, Jesus is! We need a rupture in our philosophy, like 1 Corinthians 1 gives witness to. We need to speak of Christ as the power of God and the wisdom of God.
So go. Be guilty of turning the world upside down. You won't be the first.
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