"It is time now to turn with all the purpose at our command to the major unfinished business of this nation. It is time to adopt strategies for action that will produce quick and visible progress. It is time to make good the promises of American democracy to all citizens-urban and rural, white and black, Spanish-surname, American Indian, and every minority group."
It sounds like something President Obama said yesterday, but it is not. This excerpt is taken from The Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, also called The Kerner Report, of 1967.
I have wanted for a few years now to write a piece titled Worship and justice, but until today, I did not have a story to accompany the title. Yet today I feel it incumbent upon me to make clear the connection between the two, and to advocate for both.
A spiritual change
Our world, arguably more than at any other time in history, is in need of an ideological and spiritual shift. America is certainly not on its own, but rather at the centre of a world heaving under the weight of three things: human egotism, the obtainment and exertion of power, and of misdirection.
We were created in the image of our maker. When God created us he called us "good." Somewhere down the line humanity has lost its way and it's time to focus on finding it again.
Nelson Mandela famously said, "No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite." Yet, somewhere along the way some of us have been misdirected; ill-advised or encouraged to make a stand at the wrong time and there have been mistakes made, mistakes which have resulted in lives lost.
". . . Employed as a private guard, 55-year-old Julius L. Dorsey, a Negro, was standing in front of a market when accosted by two Negro men and a woman. They demanded he permit them to loot the market. He ignored their demands. They began to berate him. He asked a neighbor to call the police. As the argument grew more heated, Dorsey fired three shots from his pistol into the air.
The police radio reported: "Looters, they have rifles." A patrol car driven by a police officer and carrying three National Guardsmen arrived. As the looters fled, the law enforcement personnel opened fire. When the firing ceased, one person lay dead.
He was Julius L. Dorsey. . ."
This excerpt was also taken from the 1967 report. Could it not have been seen on the news this morning in 2016? When is a good time for justice to finally be served? When is a good time for the truth about God's vision and plan for humanity to prevail?
I think now is as good a time as any. So I am using the insignificant profile I have to shine a light on an international issue, and praying others would do the same, for the light I shine can light up a room, but the light we shine together can cut through steel.
What the world needs is more people mobilising prayer and worship as a means of bringing about justice and truth in life. We need more siding with love than hatred, but not the love that is fashionable and that reads well; love that acts in private, off the social media screens and away from the cameras. That kind of love is worship in action.
The true source of justice
There is an inherent link between worship and justice, since God is the ultimate convenor of all that is good and evil in this world; he is the true source of justice in it.
Man can no more achieve justice in the world than he can recreate the feeling of giddiness he has when he first kisses the love of his youth. Our justice is as temporary as that feeling, and it diminishes with the years. True justice however, just like Godly love, which is given freely, is eternal and can only be obtained in the eternal realm.
There is a link between worship and justice because one can not be experienced in its completeness without the other. If we would just turn back to God in worship, then we would begin to see justice served; we would get an inkling of it in this life with the promise of its fulfilment in the life to come. The corollary of justice being served is God being praised, and yet without a speaking point into the lives of his people God lacks any real presence in the lives of so many.
I have used America as an example here but could as easily have used Australia, England, Spain or the Philippines, and many other countries around the world.
We have tried justice on its own. We have looked for it in the political sphere, the social and certainly the physical. Now let's try the spiritual.
David Luschwitz, a young Australian with the words 'Faith in Humanity' inscribed on his body, and a belief that we will overcome, that we will yet see the glory of God on earth as it is in Heaven.
To read more of David's writing and to hear his story head to www.davidluschwitz.com
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David's previous articles can be found at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/david-luschwitz.html