The United Nations and other global organizations are declaring a world-wide food crisis. Food seems in short supply and prices are rising beyond the reach of nations and peoples. How can this be? Do we fail to grow enough food to feed today’s population? Is it a distribution issue? Is this the result of political manipulation or exploitation? Is this an issue of the “haves” unwilling to share with the “have-nots”?
I do not pretend to be sufficiently informed or educated to answer all these questions. Again, I fall back on my own personal field of “expertise” and search my Bible. Revelation 6:5-6 speaks of economic hardship resulting in famine. Jesus warns us that the interplay between money and food will result in grave hardship in each generation. And yet we must ask ourselves, if Jesus warns us of such consequences, then why aren’t we prepared to prevent them? Why don’t we focus global attention on them and combat them effectively?
The answer to these questions is painfully obvious to me. A single word answers them both: sin. Sin turns our hearts towards self. What serves me, benefits me, comforts me, or satisfies me is the one true agenda of my life. We don’t like to admit it. We deny it. We claim otherwise in the religious moments and circumstances of our lives. But our actions speak louder than our words, confessions, and denials.
I do not believe there is a shortage of food. There is plenty of productive ground in America laying fallow. Price controls, politics, economics, racism, religion, etc. all complicate a desperate situation. There is no shortage of opportunity to meet this need. However, there is an over abundance of sin in our world. So what can we do?
To feed a world we need to change hearts. Only Jesus Christ can change hearts. David cries out in Psalm 51 for God to create a new heart within him. A Christ-like heart will not be swayed nor deterred by personal economics, prejudices, religious differences, or any other obstacle. Faithfulness, love for God and love for neighbor, compel the believer to act. So, the answer to a global food crisis is not the United Nations, the United States, or any other man-made organization. It is rather an organism named the Body of Christ, called and empowered to win a world by changing one heart at a time. It is time for the Church of Jesus Christ to get to work…feed a world…save a world.
