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Worship and Justice
Started by Kathryn on 28 September 2008 - 1:58pm
| 28 September 2008 - 1:58pm | |
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God has a heart for justice. When Jesus came to earth He declared His intentions clearly: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour." - Luke 4:18-19 There is an important link between worship and justice - since worship involves the whole of our lives, we can't just ignore the wrongs that happen in the world and stay in a nice fluffy bubble! Here are a couple of well-quoted verses to do with worship and justice: "I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring Me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-ending stream!" - Amos 5:21-24 "He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." - Malachi 6:8 How can we go about keeping our actions in line with justice? Discuss :D |
Ive been thinking alot about this lately the podcast from Tim was really challenging. Im hoping to look into how I can go about doing something for those less fortunate than me any ideas?
There's a good little book by David Ruis called The Justice God is Seeking, which is really good for some background knowledge on how worship and justice interlink!
Seems that is a pretty big question; how to live a life of Godly justice. For me, (setting aside the difficult question of where the balance falls between grace/faith evidenced by works) it seems the biggest item is being truly inspired by God. Not in an artsy-fartsy way, but more of a practical one. Though I may claim to know God's love, grace, mercy, kindness, omni-'s, or other parts of His character, do they really affect me, do I KNOW them? To truly KNOW God requires that your actions change, that you walk more in line with His justice. How could I not act if I am truly affected by God's character? I think then, for me, the question becomes a bit more manageable.
The ways to find God true in your life, to be affected by Him are a bit easier to pin down. I'm begining to believe that the foundational way to truly find God is to involve yourself in a healthy Christian community; from there the rest (i.e. living a life in Gods justice) comes into focus alot easier.
I just want to say a little on this subject. I have been on a couple of missions and going on them really does help you to put the theme of this thread into practice and it also gives you the drive and deeper passion to see justice brought to those in suffering. If you have face book I suggest that add the Badger application from Tearfund, basically it brings up issuses and gives you the means to email the person who can change that issue whether it be about Global warming or getting stores to change to fairtrade. It basically puts them in position of seeing that these issues are needing dealt with and the more people who respond the more likely changes will be made. And they deal with Global issues through this aswell.
It's easy to get paralysed because of the hugeness of the issue (and the number of different issues).
If you want to get involved begin acting locally and be prepared to get your hands dirty.
1) See what needs there are near where you live
2) If there's an organisation meeting those needs, help out
3) If there not, ask God how you and your church might be able to meet the needs.
I think you and the people you help will get more out of that approach than through short terms missions oversees, or petitioning and letter writing, or praying for people that you never meet. (Not that any of those things are bad...)
No I totally agree in home mission as it where, what can be done in on your own dorrstep and as christians thats the mission we are all called to. But I do believe that staying in you own locality its soo easy to just get into the routine and not get a big picture. I think and this is through my own experience, that getting to somewhere totally different on mission and learning there what is happening and what God is doing and how Christians deal with injustice there helps to widen your eyes in a way that is soo much harder to happen when you stay in your relatively comfortable home. That for me has made my eyes open of injustice back here.
In terms of the petitioning theres things we cant do that we need to do that for, it has it's place and if Christians in the number they are responded to things whether it be issues, laws etc and petitioned against them there could be an incredible change through that. And it doesn't matter if you never meet them, if it could potentially change someones life in a positive way we should try to be doing them if we can.
But yeah I totally agree with the three steps you have suggested but we as Chrisitans need to address the fact of Global injustice aswell.
I made some cards for our shoe box appeal on saturday and it was just a little thing but I know the children who recieve the boxes will be delighted with them doing operatin christmas child
Check out
http://www.hopeforjustice.org.uk
it's encouraging Christians to stand against injustice.
Yay! I went the The Stand and was quite challenged by what they were saying about human trafficking and modern slavery. I was struck by the stories of what's happening in the UK, I didn't really associate trafficking with it. I have heard about people being trafficked over here from the rest of Europe to work as prostitutes, but I had no idea that it could happen to people from this country to start with!
Here's a timely reminder for our advent season.
Shoebox appeals and Secret Santas are great ways of grasping the humble nature of this time of year. Check out the Advent Conspiracy @
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVqqj1v-ZBU
John 3.16 --> 1 Jn 3.16 Here is love.