This is putting our influence into play for the benefit of the civil society.  Too many believers are detached from what goes on around them.   Our influence can come into play to do what is right.  This can be in so many ways;

1. To elect capable people into political offices and not ethnic, tribal or religious cronies.
2. To get people to register to join political parties of their choice and go out and vote.
3. To be alert to electoral malpractices and move in community watch to prevent rigging and report electoral fraud.
4. To build and assist to run clinics and hospitals, hospices, orphanages and other welfare projects including homes for the handicapped and the homeless.
5. Repairing of roads and clearing of gutters and ensuring environmental cleanliness.
6. Drilling of boreholes and water purification projects for availability of drinkable water especially in rural areas.
7. Being active in Parent Teacher Associations to ensure Theo-centric education and being alert/mobilising for improvement in education in schools and resisting subtle paganism being taught to children.

The struggles to stop or eradicate “underground” slave trade, child labour and human trafficking for prostitution must continue in full force. Influence will stop or reduce consumption of alcohol (through prohibitive taxation and other disincentives) , drug abuse, smoking of hemp/substances etc.

William Wilberforce, John Wesley and several other leading believers of their era all fought for the rights of workers and proper wages, healthcare for the poorest and stood against the slave trade – which persisted stubbornly.

All that is required for evil to prosper is for good people to be silent and too busy or spiritual to care.  We must influence our members on social issues so that they are armed to influence others in  the wider society.  Perhaps the Churches especially in the developing nations and poorer countries have not done enough…forgetting that God is not only interested in spiritual life but also very concerned about the civil society.   We are to pray for those in government that we may have a peaceful life.  We must join and encourage others to resist all oppressive laws.  Our civic responsibilities must be carried out.  Electricity bills, taxes and levies must be paid and we should influence others to so the same.  The task of social change cannot be left to unbelievers.  As a result of the Church’s apathy, one inadvertently associates the Church with the evil doings of oppressive and corrupt governments.   For example, Church leaders did not protest the evil of the Czars and so when the communist revolution came to Russia, the Church perceived as aligned with the oppressors was also attacked.  It is the duty of the Church to make the mind of God known to the civil society.  We should make it clear where God stands on national civil issues and matters touching  our local environment.

Hear the word of God  …

Isaiah 58  [3]  Wherefore have we fasted, say they , and thou seest not? wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledge? Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours. [4]  Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high. [5]  Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him ? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD? [6]  Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? [7]  Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

[8]  Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward. [9]  Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am . If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity; [10]  And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday: [11]  And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.

 (Excerpts from “Leadership Minister’s Conference” )

God bless you.

Bode