Free Because We Are Called to Counter Culture by David Platt Page B

social issues of our day.
    Inevitably, God will lead us to act in different ways. Not every one of us can give equal attention to all the issues I’ve described. No one can fight sex trafficking while fostering and adopting children in the middle of starting a ministry for widows and counseling unwed mothers while traveling around the world to support the persecuted church   —and so on. Nor should any one of us do all these things, for God sovereignly puts us in unique positions and places with unique privileges and opportunities to influence the culture around us. But what is necessary for all of us is to view each of these cultural issues through the lens of biblical truth and to speak such truth with conviction whenever we have the chance to do so. Then, basedon consistent conviction, we seek how individually as Christians and collectively in our churches the Spirit of Christ is leading us to compassionate action in our culture.
    In order to help us in this, I’ve offered some initial suggestions for practical requests you and I can pray in light of these issues, potential ways you or I might engage culture with the gospel, and biblical truths we must proclaim regarding every one of these issues. These suggestions will also point you to a website where you can explore more specific steps you might take. I encourage you to consider all these suggestions and to humbly, boldly, seriously, and prayerfully consider what God is directing you to do. Let’s not merely contemplate the Word of God in the world around us; let’s do what it says (see James 1:22-25).
    To be sure, what we conclude about countering culture may prove costly for youand me. But by that point, I don’t think this will matter much. For our eyes will no longer be focused on what is most comfortable to us; instead, our lives will be fixed on what is most glorifying to God, and in him we will find far greater reward than anything our culture could ever offer us.

POVERTY
    When I traveled through a series of snow-covered Asian villages, I saw what happens when severe poverty turns simple illness into almost certain death. We met people and heard stories of men, women, and children who had died or were dying of preventable diseases. One village we passed had recently experienced a cholera outbreak. Up to sixty people had died in a matter of weeks because of a simple stomach infection due to impure water and poor hygiene. In case you read quickly over that last sentence, that’s a huge portion of an entire community who died of diarrhea.
    On the same day I was walking through these villages, I read in Luke 10 Jesus’ summary of all God’s commandments to his people: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself” (verse 27). That last phrase jumped off the page in light of the picture I was seeing. “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
    As myself?
    I wondered what I would want someone to do for me if I lived in one of these villages. Wouldn’t I want somebody to help me? Or what if it were my kids or the children in my church dying of preventable diseases? What if half your children or my children were dying before they turned eight? If this were us, or if this were our kids, or if this were the children in our churches, we would do something.Ignoring such urgent needs simply would not be an option.
    Yet this is exactly what so many of us in the Western church have done. We have insulated and isolated ourselves from the massive material poverty that surrounds us in the world. We have filled our lives and our churches with more comforts for us, all while turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to abject poverty in others. We need our eyes opened to the implications of the gospel for how we live.
PRAY
    Ask God to:
Intervene on behalf of the poor, both close to home and around the world.
Soften your heart to identify with the poor and work for their