How Much Do We Care?

Courtesy latimes.com

Many people want those who do wrong to be brought to justice, but often neglect the greater need of those same people being brought to Jesus.

A friend of mine recently said in reference to the Christopher Dorner manhunt that he hopes that Dorner is brought to justice, but more importantly that he is brought to Jesus.  This statement carries some weight to it given that this friend has been a part of the law enforcement community for about eight years.  This poses an important question in my mind.  How much do we truly care about people who we deem to have gone too far?

In his manifesto, Dorner wrote that he believes the Bible to be mainly a work of fiction.  While I strongly disagree with that sentiment, in a way I can understand it.  Many supposed followers of Christ and the Bible do not follow His teachings found therein. Among other wrongs, Christians often fail to be positive examples for those who do not profess to follow Christ.  In simple terms, we do not practice what we preach.  We discriminate, we oppress, we stand idly by as injustice upon injustice is heaped upon those we deem less fortunate than ourselves.

God is not happy with injustice, and His followers should follow suit. We need to stand up for those who are being discriminated against.  We should seek to correct and prevent the wrongs caused by evil men and women, and this correction and prevention begins with us.  Instead of seeking revenge against those who have wronged us we should seek reconciliation.  If they reject our efforts, then at least we did our part.  Often this act of kindness may not only diffuse the current situation, but also prevent future ones.

We often view people such as Christopher Dorner who commit terrible crimes and reject Christianity as being too bad for God to love.   However, that could not be further from the truth because while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  As the saying goes, "While there is breath, there is hope."  Let us not give up on others for God has not given up on us.

Let God Take Care of It

Psalm 109:1-5  ¹ O God, whom I praise, do not remain silent, ² for wicked and deceitful men have opened their mouths against me; they have spoken against me with lying tongues. ³ With words of hatred they surround me; they attack me without cause. ⁴ In return for my friendship they accuse me, but I am a man of prayer. ⁵ They repay me evil for good, and hatred for my friendship.

Life got you down? Have you been falsely accused by wicked and deceitful people? Has your friendship been repaid with evil? Don't get even. Let God take care of it.

While other psalms have been about praise or the natural world, Psalm 109 is about payback. However, this is not payback in the usual sense. This is about divine payback. David, the author, has had people treat him very poorly, and in return he asks God to do some things to these people. Here are the things that he asks God to do.

• Appoint an evil man to stand against him so that he will be found guilty in a court of law
• Have his prayers condemn him
• Shorten his life so another takes his place of leadership
• Make his children fatherless
• Make his wife a widow
• Make his children become wandering beggars
• Have all his property seized by creditors and plundered by strangers
• Have all his descendants cut off and blotted out from the next generation
• Remember the iniquity of his fathers
• Never blot out the sin of his mother
• Always remember their sins so that their memory may be cut off from the earth

A little extreme? Probably, but the key point I want to make here is that these are all things he asked God to do. These are not things that he said he would do to them. We are not given the exact time in his life when he wrote this psalm, but it is safe to say that he was in a position to exact some sort of revenge upon his enemies at this time. However, he left it to God to take care of the situation.

David's attitude stands in direct contrast to the prevailing attitude of society where those who exact revenge upon evil people are glorified. This attitude is most notably reflected in popular movies, especially action movies where an individual or a team of individuals take the law into their own hands against evildoers. However, we should not think that we can avoid partaking in this attitude simply by avoiding watching movies and television. The desire for revenge comes from within the human heart, and the only way to silence it is to surrender our hearts to God.

Help me Lord to fully surrender my heart to you, so that when I am mistreated I will not look to myself, but to You, for help.