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Our motivation for fighting for justice aligns with God’s heart for the world. That is what spurs me on to continue advocating for victims of Human Trafficking.
He loves us.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. (John 3:16-17)
And wants us to love his people too.
Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow. (Isaiah 1:17)
This Christmas, consider what God has done for you, how much He loves you, and how you can better love His people.
Are you looking for a unique gift for someone this holiday? Or, maybe you have someone on your list that doesn’t “need” anything, but you’d like to give them something anyway? Here are two ways you can give the gift of freedom to someone across the globe and at the same time check off your Christmas to-do list!
Give the gift of freedom in honor of someone by donating to the International Justice Mission. Click here.
Send an Ecard and a donation in honor of a loved one from Love 146. Click here.
“break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts. What I’m interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad” (Isaiah 58:6)
“So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows”
I love the movie, Coach Carter, for many reasons. Tonight when I was watching it, one theme in particular stuck out to me. He saw the value that each kid on his team held. He stood up for them, fought for them, pushed them, advocated for them, and loved them. Not for his own reputation, not for the good of his career, but because he saw worth in each of them. Even the players’ own parents believed that high school basketball would be “it” for them. Not Coach Carter. He believed there was more. He saw their potential, saw their value.
I feel like that message is what drives me in my work and in what I am passionate about. At school, I feel like I have a responsibility to show my students that I love them, that they have worth, and they are valuable. It weighs on me, this role I have in each of their lives…this window of time…to show them what they are worth and how loved they are.
It’s the same when my heart breaks over the thought of a little girl, whose parents sold her to a brothel. She may believe that no one wants her, that she is of no value. She may be treated like she is worth nothing. But I know better. I cry for her. Long to tell her how beautiful she is and how perfect and loved she is.
God gives us our worth.
Not our parents, not the words of our peers, not the message we hear from media, not our fame or fortune, not our circumstances. Our value lies in our Father, our Savior who gave his life for us. He displayed once and for all that we are more valuable to him than anything else.
Lord, that we would know our worth in you, and show others how valuable they are in your eyes.
Follow You, by Leeland, is a new song we are using for worship this Sunday. My heart resonated with it so much, I had to share… enjoy
You lived among the least of these
The weary and the weak
And it would be a tragedy for me to turn away.
All my needs you have supplied.
When I was dead you gave me life.
How could I not give it away so freely?
And I’ll follow you into the homes that are broken.
Follow you into the world.
Meet the needs for the poor and the needy, God.
Follow you into the World.
Use my hands, use my feet
To make your kingdom come
Through the corners of the earth
Until your work is done
‘Cause Faith without works is dead
And on the cross your blood was shed
So how could I not give it away so freely?
And I’ll follow you into the homes that are broken.
Follow you into the world.
Meet the needs for the poor and the needy, God.
Follow you into the World.
I give all myself.
I give all myself.
I give all myself… to you.
These lovely summer mornings are coming to an end. I’ve enjoyed begining my day by curling up in my big papasan chair in the orange room, hazlenut coffee in hand, reading and praying. I’ve been excited to have my quiet time with the Lord lately, because I’ve been reading from this amazing book, Devotional Classics. It’s a collection of readings from guys like Thomas a Kempis, C.S. Lewis, Blaise Pascal, Bernard of Clairvaux, you get the idea. It’s a good reminder that God has been speaking the same things for centuries, and we humans keep struggling with the same things over and over. It’s good stuff.
Anyway, today I read an excerpt by Francois Fenelon (1651-1715) called A Will No Longer Divided. In it, he talked about the many joys of giving ourselves entirely and fully to God.
Here was the clencher for me…
“There is only one way to love God: to take not a single step without him, and to follow with a brave heart wherever he leads.”
It can be scary not knowing what will happen in the future, to literally take steps of faith each day. Instead, I usually think I know best, and it will probably just be easier to do things my way, thank you very much.
What’s crazy to me is, looking back, the times when I’ve felt most used by God are ALWAYS the times when I’ve taken a small step of faith and tried to follow with a brave heart wherever I felt like he was leading. I usually feel scared or silly even, at first, but then God blows me away with his faithfulness and love in the end.
“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.” Hebrews 10:23
I picked up the book I’ve been reading off and on for the last few months, Good News About Injustice by Gary Haugen, and headed to the pool today. (I took a personal day today and have not regretted one moment of it!) As I began reading, I sensed the Holy Spirit stirring in me and rising up again a passion in my heart that has been laying low for the last several months. This book is laced with Scripture about God’s heart and plan to use his children to fight injustice with Him. Sometimes I forget how inspiring and motiviating God’s Word can be! I just had to share one excerpt in hopes that you, too, can be inspired to ask God what you can do to be the hands and feet of Almighty God, the God of Injustice.
“…recall the story about the feeding of the five thousand. The disciples brought complaints about the hungry multitude to Jesus, and he responded compassionately by blessing the bits of food from a boy’s lunch – five loaves of bread and two fishes. ‘Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They ate and all were satisfied’ (Matthew 14:19)…imagine a scenario in which the disciples just kept thanking Jesus for all the bread and fish – without passing them along to the people. …imagine the disciples starting to be overwhelmed by the piles of multiplying loaves and fish surrounding them, yelling out to Jesus, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!’ – all the while never passing along the food to the people. And then beneath the mounting piles of food, the disciples even could be heard complaining to Jesus that he wasn’t doing anything about the hungry multitude.
This simple illustration struck my heart deeply. How kind of Jesus to include the boy and the disciples in his miracle. Surely he could have done it differently. Surely he could have commanded the heavens to unload manna and quail right on top of everybody. But how beautifully he included the boy’s tiny offering. Jesus (the Creator of all things, seen and unseen) no more needed those five loaves and two fish than my wife and I need our three-year-old’s ‘help’ in baking cinnamon rolls for visitors. But what a wonderful, life-changing day for that boy to be a part of Jesus’ miracle. How fun for the disciples to go among the grateful, joyful multitudes – to be the hands dispensing Christ’s supernatural power and love. How ridiculous, on the other hand, that they should imagine that the vast piles of bread and fish should be given to them for any other reason than to feed those who were in need.
So too with the ministry of God’s rescue for the oppressed in the world. How does God rescue the life of the needy from the hands of the wicked? Overwhelmingly, he does it through those who choose to follow him in faith and obedience. He doesn’t need our ‘help’ but he chooses to use us.
“Your calling is where your own greatest joy intersects with the needs of the world.” -Frederick Buechner
After hearing this quote tonight I felt like God is asking me to pray about what this means in my life…I often wonder and pray about my calling, but somehow looking at it in this way puts a new spin on things. What is my greatest joy? Where does it intersect with the needs of the world?
As I watched (and cried through) this movie the other night, I had so many conflicting emotions.
On the one hand, I was disgusted and broken by how these men and women were treated in the not-so-long-ago past. On the other hand, I was so proud of our nation – how far we have come in such a short amount of time. Maybe the recent inauguration and discussion about MLK day with my kindergarteners was still fresh on my mind, too.
But as I continued to process, I realized that much of my emotion had to do with the heart of God. One of the ways He has shown Himself to me over the last couple years is by revealing his heart for the broken and oppressed. Giving me a glimpse of His pain and His love for His hurting children is an act of love toward me. I began thanking Him for that gift – the ability to be broken over injustice instead of becoming numb to it. It may sound a bit backwards, but as I pray for God to teach me more about who He is, I continue to cry and hurt for people who are victims of injustice.
Lord, may this spur me to obedient action.
Isaiah 58:6-11 (New Living Translation)
6 “No, this is the kind of fasting I want:
Free those who are wrongly imprisoned;
lighten the burden of those who work for you.
Let the oppressed go free,
and remove the chains that bind people.
7 Share your food with the hungry,
and give shelter to the homeless.
Give clothes to those who need them,
and do not hide from relatives who need your help.
8 “Then your salvation will come like the dawn,
and your wounds will quickly heal.
Your godliness will lead you forward,
and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind.
9 Then when you call, the Lord will answer.
‘Yes, I am here,’ he will quickly reply.
“Remove the heavy yoke of oppression.
Stop pointing your finger and spreading vicious rumors!
10 Feed the hungry,
and help those in trouble.
Then your light will shine out from the darkness,
and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon.
11 The Lord will guide you continually,
giving you water when you are dry
and restoring your strength.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like an ever-flowing spring.
So I picked up Oswald Chambers’ book, My Utmost For His Highest off my shelf yesterday, dusted it off (it had been quite a while since I had last attempted to read through it) and read the page for January1. There was some good stuff in there about surrendering to God’s will (stuff I need to be hearing and praying for myself), so I thought I’d try again today.
Here’s an excerpt from January2 along with my response:
“Have you been asking God what He is going to do?” (duh, yes!! It’s pretty much the reason I’ve been throwing this spiritual tantrum the last couple months!) “He will never tell you.” (bam! This hit me like a ton of bricks. No wonder it feels like I’ve been banging my head against a wall!) “God does not tell you what He is going to do; He reveals to you Who He is.”
Here’s more…
“You do not know what you are going to do; the only thing you know is that God knows what He is doing. Continually revise your attitude (and boy do I need an attitude adjustment!) towards God and see if it is a going out of everything, trusting in God entirely. It is this attitude that keeps you in perpetual wonder – you do not know what God is going to do next. Each morning you wake it is to be a “going out,” building in confidence on God.
“Let the attitude of [your] life be a continual “going out” in dependence upon God and your life will have an ineffable charm about it which is a satisfaction to Jesus.”
This caught me right in the middle (now the end!) of a self-centered tantrum where I was so upset at God for not letting my life look like I wanted to to. And if it wasn’t going to look like I wanted it, He should let me in on His plans. Major attitude adjustment needed here! God is so good to meet us where we are at. I think I’ll keep reading this book, as it seems there’s more God might want to say. May 2009 be a year without any more tantrums.
I just began reading the book, Good News About Injustice by Gary Haugen. I can already tell this book will be life-changing. Just after reading the first chapter (twice) I feel like I have a deeper understanding of God’s heart for His people. Haugen writes about his time in Rwanda investigating the mass murders and somehow, in the midst of the tragedy there, he could see God’s passion and fierce love for His people. He says, These were tough moments for me [in Rwanda], but there was no longer any question about what this horrible injustice in Rwanda had to do with me, a suburban American lawyer who rode a bus to work during the week and taught sixth-grade Sunday school on the weekend. It had everything to do with me because of what my God loves and what my God hates.
They are precious in his sight; and because they are precious to God, they are precious to me.
Even though I feel helpless to make a difference sometimes, it is true that all God wants from us is a willing heart. He could do it on His own, but instead, He chooses to use us. Here’s one more quote from the book (although i’m sure it won’t be the last):
Many who lack faith will shrink away from the distant, dark world of injustice. Still others will water down the Word and imagine that they can love God without loving their brother…Others, by contrast, recognizing the voice of their Good Shepherd will respond with joy: “Here I am. Send me!” (Is. 6:8). They will embrace the orphans and widows of the world, as their Savior did. With the hurting, the oppressed and the abused in mind, these people will come to the Master with their meager offering, their widow’s mite, their inadequate loves and fishes and simply say, “Jesus, can you do anything with these?” And while the men “close” to Jesus will scoff, “How far will they go among so many?” Jesus himself will say, “Bring them here to me.”
love God, love people 