Where is Your Trust & Confidence?

Where is your trust?

What have you placed your confidence in?

These are important questions to ask. They have a significant impact on how we live.

Jeremiah 17:7-8 says:

"But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
     whose confidence is in Him.
They will be like a tree planted by the water
     that sends out roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
     its leaves are always green.
It had no worries in a year of drought
     and never fails to bear fruit."

When I read these verses, I'm left asking the questions I opened this post with.

Where is my trust?

Where have I placed my confidence?

Have I placed my confidence and trust in the Lord? Or have I placed it elsewhere?

When we place our trust and confidence completely in God, we're reaching out to the Source of Life that will sustain us whatever comes our way. We are then sustained, even through the hard times. We will continue to flourish because we've tapped into a Life Source that cannot be taken from us.

Where is your trust?

Where have you placed your confidence?

Living Social Justice

So, if we're supposed to be involved in social justice, as I wrote last week, what does it look like for us?

How do we actually make it a part of what we do?

How do we do it well?

In many ways, I think this is a bigger problem than we realize. Unfortunately, we haven't always done this well in the church. And in our struggle to figure out how to do it, we've actually done harm - mostly unintentionally.

I think our struggle to figure it out and do it is actually the reason why it might seem easier to try to avoid social justice and try to separate it from what we preach.

But, I also think the fact that it's so difficult at times is exactly why we need to be intentional about being hands on with it. We can't try to separate it from the gospel or leave it for professionals. We need to be involved ourselves.

I also wonder if part of our struggle with how to do as that we often think it has to start with changing to laws of our society. And that seems impossible or overwhelming, so we don't try. Or, we don't like how people have tried to do just that in the past and don't want to be associated with that, so we do our best to avoid those associations.

But, what if that wasn't where we were supposed to start?

What if we have it backwards from how we're supposed to be doing it?

What if it was supposed to start with us in the trenches doing the work, being involved with people?

I'm not saying we should be quiet and not say anything. I'm not saying that there aren't issues where we need to make our voices heard. But, I do think our voices will be better heard and considered if our actions reflect what we're saying. When we're living what we talk about, our voices are ones that people can't ignore as easily.

So, it has to start with our daily lives, with our interactions with people. We start with loving people - all people. We love even those who are living lifestyles that we disagree with. We earn the right to speak about those things, by loving people first.

Where can we make a difference for people as we go about our daily lives?

I believe that if we claim to be Christians, then we need to be involved in these issues, just as Jesus was. And Jesus' example in the gospels is one of loving people and caring for them even when His society saw them as other. We start with the people in our paths and put that love in action as we interact with them.

As I've wrestled with this, I've realized just how important it is that we all begin with the little things. For me, it can become too easy to think I'm off the hook because of where I work. But, nothing could be further from the truth. I may work where this is part of our every day life, but if I'm not living it in all of my life, I'm missing out on what intends for me, and my voice is silenced.

Who are the people on periphery of your everyday life that society, or your upbringing, or your thinking has taught you to see as other?

How can you change you interactions with that person now?

What about Social Justice?

Is social justice part of the gospel?

Should the church care about it?

I've watched with interest over the last few weeks that debate that has begun about the role of social justice and the gospel that we, as the church, should be preaching.

The debate began with a statement from some well-known Christian leaders and scholars saying they didn't believe that social justice was a part of the gospel that the church should be proclaiming. Shortly after this statement was published, other Christian leaders and scholars began to talk about how the gospel is incomplete without social justice (here and here).

There are wise and godly men and women on both sides of this debate. People whose thoughts and writing I turn to when I'm wrestling with an issue myself - to help me think it through and form my thoughts based on Scripture. I've spent time reading the arguments on both sides of the debate. And I went back to Scripture to see what it says.

Ultimately, it's God's Word where my understanding needs to come from. As I was studying Scripture on this topic - Jesus' words and actions while He was walking on this planet and at how the early church lived their faith - I came to what seems to me to be the conclusion that makes the most sense to me.

What we often call social justice today is absolutely a vital part of the gospel. If the gospel we're preaching doesn't include this, or even intentionally ignores it, then we're presenting an incomplete gospel to those we're trying to reach.

If this is true, then the church should be at the forefront of these issues in our society.

Not as a political force.

Not in the same way that our world might tell us social justice should look.

But as the hands and feet of Jesus doing the work.

These days the term social justice can divisive. There's more than one definition people throw around for it. I want to be clear on what I'm saying, so before I go any further, I'm going to explain what I mean when I use it.

For the purposes of the rest of this post, social justice is about being involved in caring for, providing dignity, and providing opportunity for those who are commonly seen as less than in our society - whether because of homelessness, addiction, mental health struggles, poverty,r ace, sexuality, or any other way we separate people into groups. It' snot about taking away from one person or group to give it to another. It's about opportunity and removing barriers for people - through education, support, etc. It's about loving and caring for those in our society who need help.

When I look at Jesus' teaching in Scripture, I see a focus on helping the poor and caring for those seen as less than in His day. Jesus treated every person He encountered with dignity and love - whether lepers (Luke 10:11-19), or the woman who was unclean because she had been bleeding for 12 years (Mark 5:25-34), or the Samaritian woman at the well (John 4:1-26).

All of these examples are of people Jesus' society would have said He could ignore and treat poorly, but Jesus didn't do that. He gave them His time, His attention, His healing.

In Matthew 25, Jesus speaks this clearly on this:

"Then the righteous will answer him: Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?
The King will reply: Truly, I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." (Matthew 25:37-40)

I'm not sure where it could be more clear that we need to be involved in these things.

We also see the early church was involved for caring for the poor among them and in their communities. Wee it described in Acts 4:34-35. In Galatians 2:10, we see a conversation between Paul and the apostles that placed and importance on caring for the poor.

Finally in James 1:27 we have the clearest words on this:

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after widows and orphans in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

Two things listed that God is looking for in us, and the first is about caring for the poor and defenseless in society.

I see no way around it. Social justice is a vital part of the message of the gospel the church is to be proclaiming to a broken and hurting world. We cannot separate the two.

We may all have different ways we're involved in this based on how God has created us. But, we have no excuse not to get involved.

If you're still reading, I realize I probably stepped on your toes a bit with this. I know studying this stepped on my own toes too. But, I think this is too important an issue to just stay quiet on. Sometimes we need to face the uncomfortable truths we say we believe and see if our actions match them. Whether you agree with me or not, we have to wrestle with this and figure out what it looks like for our lives.