This is what the LORD says: “Maintain justice and do what is right, for my salvation is close at hand and my righteousness will soon be revealed.-Isaiah 56:1
Isaiah’s
words at the left offer a really straightforward command to us. “Maintain
justice and do what is right…” The challenge is finding a way to do that when
all around you seems to conflict with these words of encouragement.
They are words of hope and promise as we
remember that maintaining justice and doing what is right is possible because
of God’s salvation - a salvation that is very close to us. But that promise can
be forgotten when all we see is so much injustice and wrongness.
I admit that I don’t follow the news
really closely. Sometimes it’s hard to follow when there seems to be no sign of
any good news. Often the problem is finding a reliable news source that I
trust. All the news outlets are accused of having one bias or another and it
becomes difficult to find the truth in what is being reported.
Even when you only pay attention to the
headlines (you can usually find at least a hint of unbiased truth by just
reading that much), there is more than enough injustice to go around:
- Ethnic violence in Africa
- Violent extremism in all parts of the Middle East and elsewhere
- Religion based persecution in Iraq
- Race based conflict in the heart of the US
The
list can go on and on. We live in a world that struggles to find justice. In
the midst of that reality we, as Christians, are called to maintain justice and
do what is right. We are told not to be conformed “to the pattern of this
world” (Romans 12:2) so we can’t be sucked into the injustice we face
every day.
Whatever your news source, look for the
injustice in what you read and figure out how you are personally going to stand
against it. Look around you in your daily work and find ways to seek the
justice that the world can’t seem to find.
God’s righteousness will be revealed as we
do what is right. The world needs us to do it.
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