The answer to solving injustice and poverty is for us to mend our relationship with God. The only way we can mend our relationship with God is through faith in the Gospel message. The Gospel tells us that God provided a means for our relationship with Him to be made right through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross. When we believe that Jesus is our Savior, who paid the price for our sins in His once for all sacrifice, our relationship with God is mended, and we receive a new heart. A heart that abhors injustice and poverty. A heart that does not desire to assert its own selfish desire for success and power over others. If one truly follows the commands of Scripture as put forth in Philippians 2:3-11, injustice and poverty will be eradicated.
“Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. ” (Philippians 2:3-11)
Here is the catch though, men are not going to serve others, counting others more important than themselves and take up the self-sacrificial attitude and actions of Jesus, unless their hearts are changed and sin no longer has dominion over them. Imposing a system or ideology on society without any regard for the corrupting effects of sin will always lead to failure, but exposing a man’s heart to the Gospel will lead him to be humble and self-sacrificial, even to the point of death.
So then, the answer to solving the world’s problems of injustice and poverty should not begin with an argument for Communism or Free Market Capitalism because both systems, to their detriment, neglect the corrupting affects of original sin; rather, it should begin with the proclamation of the Gospel. For the Gospel alone is the only thing that can deal with the real problem behind injustice and poverty, which is the problem of sin – “For all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” (Romans 3:23)
. (CASEY LEWIS)