A genunine REVOLUTION of VALUES
These are revolutionary times.
All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. We in the West must support these revolutions.
It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of Islam, economic disaster, our proneness to adjust to injustice, Western Christianity which initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Islam has a revolutionary spirit. Therefore, Islam is a judgment against our failure to make Christianity real and follow through the wittness that we initiated, living as Disciples of Christ, the reality to live in Christ is the call. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring His Kingdom come and eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores, and thereby speed the day when “every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain.”
A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every Christian must now develop an overriding loyalty to Christ in order to demonstrate the best in their individual societies.
This call for whole heartiness that lifts from the self preservation reflected through individual pursuits of the church, concern beyond one’s family, church, denomination, tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This is often misunderstood, this often misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by our programs and ministry of the church as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of Christianity.
When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love’s reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of John: “Let us love one another, for love is God. And every one that loves is born of God and knows God. He that loves not knows not God, for God is love.” “If we love one another, God dwells in us and his love is perfected in us.” Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.
We can no longer afford to worship the god of self or bow before the altar of prosperity. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of selfishness. And history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says: “Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore, the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word” (unquote).
“There is no fear in Love; because perfect Love casts out fear”….Jn 4:18
That is so true of the teaching that I have been flooded with of late. I’ve found myself caught between being told that God wants me to do great things for Him and that He wants my heart repositioned wholely toward Him. Unless we are found in the loving embrace of a passionate savior, all our works for God are birthed in self-willed good intentions. In His heart we are the fulfillment and perfection of His great love for us and the earth.
I’m just going throught the song of solomon and I’ve never taken so long to read a chapter in my walk, there’s just so much of a challenge to our hearts position and reaffirming of God’s heart that it fills my mind, heart and spirit constatntly.
Keep up the great blog Steve.