Perspective

Mexico 2008

Perspective...

How can we see, how can we understand the way we should?

Everything becomes relative... the horrific becomes history, rendering it commonplace. The deaths of 6 soldiers who died fighting in Afghanistan have a greater impact on us than the deaths of 6 million Jews during the holocaust or the 53 million victims of Roe v. Wade - but soon even last week's casualties grow old, and we become jaded to the sorrow others face. We can't afford to dwell on it, to let ourselves take on the cares of the world, can we? How would we be able to enjoy life?

Waiting 20 minutes at a restaurant for our food to arrive makes us more upset than the fact that 20,000 children died that day of malnutrition.

You say, "I had a horrible day," because the rain ruined your hair or you didn't pass a test. Not because your father was thrown in prison for being a Christian, or because you lost your home in a tsunami.

Is it all relative? No, it's not like the pain we face should be ignored or belittled because someone else is experiencing a greater pain. But maybe, just maybe, we are becoming so fixated on the petty trials of the North American middle class that we are closed off to the greatest needs. Are we just doing what's easy? Only what will ease our consciences?

Are we becoming dull to real needs? We need to look outward. The gospel must be central, but if we say we love God, 1 John says we WILL love those who are made in God's image, not only those who help boost our image.

Jesus preached a message of repentance. His first concern was for spiritual things. But this was the miracle of the incarnation - that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. He carried our afflictions, healed our diseases, fed the hungry, gave sight to the blind, and brought the dead back to life. Shouldn't we also care about those kinds of needs? In Matthew 9:36, it says Jesus felt compassion for the people who were like sheep without a Shepherd. These were people to whom He offered the "gospel of the kingdom," and whom He also healed and fed physically. Jesus said, "Whatever you do to the least of these, you did it to me." That isn't just a positive statement, because He also said,  

"Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:41-46)

What is our perspective?

Speak

The persecuted church and the issue of abortion have been on my heart lately.  Maybe they seem unrelated to you, but they are linked as issues on which the church must stand, even in this dark and fallen world, to lift up the downtrodden and relieve the oppressed. If you haven't seen the documentary 180, a film by Living Waters that compares abortion with the holocaust, I'd highly recommend watching it. As I've been studying the holocaust lately, I'm horrified by the atrocities that were sanctioned by society. True, the holocaust happened 60 years ago, but it is sobering to realize that my grandparents were alive at the time, and likely knew little about it. The parallels between the age we now live in, and the world around the time of Hitler are seen in almost every way - socially, religiously, morally. The church in Germany had become merely a social institution, rather than the body of Christ. And I can't help but wonder, what has become of the church today? Still, there were some then, and there are some now, who shine even brighter in the midst of this darkness. The international day of prayer for the persecuted church was this past Sunday - let's remember to keep these brothers and sisters continually lifted in prayer.

I want to share a few quotes with you today - may the Holy Spirit use His Word and the words of these wise men to awaken our hearts and minds to action - to care for the widow, the orphan, the unborn child, and our persecuted brothers and sisters, in the name and power of Christ. God is alive! May we prove this by our lives.

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"Where the world despises other members of the Christian family, Christians will love and serve them. If the world does violence to them, Christians will help them and provide them relief. Where the world subjects them to dishonor and insult, Christians will sacrifice their own honor in exchange for their disgrace. Where the world seeks gain, Christianity will renounce it; where it exploits, they will let go; where it oppresses, they will stoop down and lift up the oppressed. Where the world denies justice, Christians will practice compassion; where it hides behind lies, they will speak out for those who cannot speak, and testify for the truth." - Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"I am concerned that there is no outcry. I can well understand that there are people who are led to starve children to death because they think that they are doing something right for society or are following a principle of Hegel that is utilitarian for society. But I cannot understand why the other people, and I know that there are many, don't cry out. I am concerned about this because when the first 273,000 German aged, infirm, and retarded were killed in gas chambers there was no outcry from that medical profession either, and it was not far from there to Auschwitz." - C. Everett Koop, M.D.

“Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life, to raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue.  The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life and that is nothing but murder.” - Ethics by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Either life is always and in all circumstances sacred, or intrinsically of no account; it is inconceivable that it should be in some cases the one and in some the other." - Malcolm Muggeridge

"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute." (Prov. 31:8)

"We forget that man stands alone before the ultimate authority and that anyone who lays violent hands on man here is infringing eternal laws and taking upon himself superhuman authority which will eventually crush him; the eternal law that the individual stands alone before God takes fearful vengeance where it is attacked and distorted.... Leaders or offices which set themselves up as gods mock God." - The Fuhrer Principle by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body." (Hebrews 13:3)