Contending for our all

Dr Melba Maggay from CPX on Vimeo.

"I need a deeper rootedness in God, a closer walk with him so that
I am able to hear the thud of his footfall in our history. Amid the
gore, and grime, and grinding poverty, among people who serve
quietly in the armpits of cities, making a space for grace in the
squalor and violent hate, life springs forth from the Word, bringing
a fresh blast of wind, carrying the weary and the wounded on
its wings. . . ." (Filipina theologian, and educator)

How should we respond to the physical and spiritual poverties of our cities? How should we accept our responsibilities as believers of Christ? What should our mindset be? And where is God in the midst the injustices and sins running rampant in our dying city.

(Bethge on Dietrich Bonhoeffer)...The man who felt the whole weight of the pacifist position and weighed the "cost of discipleship" concluded in the depths of his soul that to withdraw from those who were participating in the political and military resistance would be irresponsible cowardice and flight from reality. "Not" as his friend Bethge says, "that he believed that everybody must act as he did, but from where he was standing, he could see no possibility of retreat into any sinless, righteous, pious, refuge. The sin of respectable people reveals itself in flight from responsibility. He saw that sin falling on him, and he took his stand. Here he acted in accord with his fundamental view of ethics, that a Christian must accept his responsibility as a citizen of this world where God has placed him.

We need to win the battles that are being waged inside our hearts and mind and soul. In the midst of the horrors and injustices that are happening around us, we need to step out of our safe zones. That looks different for each of us. In the West, time is a high value. And then there is the "stuff" we hold dear. On the mission field, missionaries in tinted windowed vehicles travel from their subdivisions to their destinations, and no one is the wiser.

(John Owen)...[More important than all ] is a diligent endeavor to have the power of the truths professed and contended for, abiding upon our hearts, that we may not contend for notions, but that we have a practical acquaintance within our own souls. When the heart is cast indeed into the mould of the doctrine that the mind embraceth, when the evidence and necessity of the truth abides in us, when not the sense of the words only is in our heads, but the sense of the thing abides in our hearts, when we have communion with God in the doctrine we contend for. Then shall we be garrisoned by the grace of God against all the assaults of men.

If we are in Christ and he is in us, then we should understand his vision for the city and his people. If God has changed our minds and our hearts, and made our thoughts and affections his, then we are prepared to fight his battles for his people. We have been commissioned to act as his social and spiritual agents to right the injustices of the enemy, bring relief to the sick, hungry, oppressed and down-trodden.

Great lessons can be learned from Melba Maggay, John Owen, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. We need to submit our wills and hearts and minds to the teachings of Jesus, and allow the Holy Spirit to rush into our lives and shape our thoughts, hearts and actions. We certainly are not at a want for more evidence of the need. And we have been more than educated and indoctrinated with various teachings in different mediums. We cannot allow the words of the wise, and the teachings of the holy to acquiesce to useless platitudes.

What say you? There are peoples and cities out there to be won for Christ. We are Gods' instruments for change and relief, and He has already won the battle. Rev 17:14 They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful."

"Tragically, the Philippines’ social, economic and political problems
remain dire." Maggay continues, “There is a hardness to evil, a mystery
to its persistence, that cannot be fathomed nor remedied by mere
politics. . . . We continue the fight. Yet we need to mine more deeply
the resources of our faith if we are to make even a small dent in the
monolith of injustice that fazes us.”