"What would you do if you had to worry about landmines every time youwent to the store, took a drive in the countryside or went to see your
doctor?"
"That’s the reality for millions of people in about 80 countries. With such large numbers of people affected by landmines in countries that may seem very far away, it’s sometimes easy to forget about the problem."
Please visit stoplandmines.org to learn more and watch a powerful commercial.
I think it's the responsibility of Jesus-followers to do something about problems like landmines. But because so many evangelicals consider themselves conservative Republicans, and because social issues are usually taken up by liberals, and because conservatives and liberals (politically) don't much like intermingling, evangelicals have often lost the Jesus-centered approach to world problems and social issues in our neighborhoods.
One of the first things recorded in the Bible that comes from the mouth of Jesus is the reading of Scripture in the synagogue in Nazareth at the beginning of His ministry.
Luke 4:18-19, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
I've read this passage numerous time over the years and I've always spiritualized it as only meaning preaching the gospel to sinners. But you cannot get past the terminology he read from Isaiah 61. This proclaiming is more than words to the poor, the captives, the blind, and the oppressed of the year of the Lord's favor. He lives it and breathes it and becomes what he has said by healing and helping and serving and loving.
Shouldn't our lives be like that? Doesn't taking up our cross daily and following Jesus mean that we are still in that year of the Lord's favor and our job is to proclaim these same things to the world? And doesn't that come not only in huddling in our churches/hide-a-ways and saying biblical things but by actually finding the poor and serving them and responding with a call for justice to the oppressed?
There is rarely a time when the verbal proclamation of Jesus isn't tied to a physical healing or serving or some loving act. And if we are going to help with landmines on the other side of the world or with the oppressed in our community, we need to know the real Jesus and love as He loved. Speaking isn't enough.