I confess. From time to time I feel a tinge of guilt for reading the news before I start writing my blog posts. Why immerse myself in the latest updates on intransigent wars, the dalliances of public figures, the social slop spread all over social media, mass shootings, who cursed who on TV last night, the latest corporate fraud, and on and on and on? And that’s just the national news. The local murders, carjackings, bank robberies, etc, etc, don’t even merit national attention.
Is that spiritual, reading about all that?
Nope. It’s not. And yet I find taking a daily dip in the moral and spiritual toilet that is current day America somehow inspiring. Why? Because it reminds me of how important ministry is, and in particular, ministry to people in our churches and communities who are in need.
“Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good,” we Christians are commanded in Romans 12:21. Good is stronger than evil. The Resurrection proves this fact. Therefore, people who practice good will always overcome people who practice evil. So every morning I read the news about truly evil people doing truly evil things and think, “Chumps, have I got something for you.”
And then I start writing.
The gifts we believers have to give to the world are the love of Christ and the good news of salvation from God’s wrath through faith in his son. If you don’t think the world deserves God’s wrath, then you haven’t read this morning’s news. And if you do read the morning news and then despair, then you aren’t practicing the love of Christ. Because the love of Christ overcomes all evil. Anyone who has ever practiced it immediately realizes this amazing reality. Practicing the love of Christ is like a spiritual and social water purification pill. Suddenly the toilet becomes sparkling white. Loving like Christ is like wearing a hazmat suit in a world filled with spiritual asbestos. Listen to how James describes what results from practicing the love of Christ: “Pure religion and undefiled before our God and savior is this: to visit widows and orphans in their distress, and to keep oneself unspotted from this world.”
Yes, I read the news. Isaiah read the news in his day too. It wasn’t good either.
Woe to the sinful nation, a people whose guilt is great, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption! They have forsaken the Lord; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him. (Isaiah 1:4)
But the news, as bad as it was, inspired Isaiah to write the following:
Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow. “Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.” (Isaiah 1:17-18)
Spiritual and social transformation are as simple as this: an army of God’s people doing the good God has called them to do. That’s what Isaiah wrote after he read his news. And that’s what I write after I read mine.
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
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