Good v Evil

 

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing….  Edmund Burke

What a challenging and scary quote.  It is so easy when we hear of tragic stories from around the world and acts of evil, to feel completely useless, to lack hope for the situations these people are faced with. 

How often do you listen to the these stories on the news and think “Oh that is really terrible but what can I do about it?” and then get caught up in what you are doing and easily forget what you have just watched.  Just recently on the news I watched about how the people in Kenya are facing famine and the NEXT story on the news was about how in a bid to win the chance to host the 2018 World Cup, England had bought the 24 wifes of the FIFA representatives designer Mulberry handbags…  I was actually shocked at the contrast between the stories.  In one story we are hearing about people dying because they do not have the basic needs and immediately after we hear a story of unnecessary extravagance.

Below are two of my favourite Bible verses:

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.  Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy” Proverbs 31 v 8

“He has showed you, O man , what is good.  And what does the Lord require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humblly with your God.” Micah 6 v 8

The Bible screams out at us to stand up for those who dont have a voice and to act justly and to love mercy.  To be Jesus to those people around us who are desperately in need.  The thing is, we dont even have to go to the other side of the world to find those in need… we just need to look in our local towns all around us to see people who need to encounter Jesus. The truth is that even though there is clearly a battle going on between good and evil, we know that because of Jesus’ death on the cross we have hope, we have the victory.

Jesus can and will empower us when we decide to take a stand. 

So what can we do about it?  There are many organisations out there who actively seek justice to ensure that God’s will is done here on earth.

• We can pray for those people who are on the frontline working with the oppressed seeking to set them free from their captors.
• We can organise fundraisers to help these organisations raise money to carry on their work.
• We can inform our family, friends and church family about what these organisations are doing.

Check out:

International Justice Mission: http://www.ijm.org/

Tearfund: http://www.tearfund.org/

Release International: http://www.releaseinternational.org/

These are just a few organisations, there are MANY more… Let us know what you think and if there are any other organisations out there that you know of that do this work.

 Lesley