Martin Luther King Jr.’s Legacy

Audio By Carbonatix

As we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I’m reminded of how Dr. King had a powerful mission combined with deep insights into what it meant for people to love one another and what it meant to pursue God. He continually put himself in jeopardy and made sacrifices to pursue what was right. He was arrested over and over, his house was bombed, he was threatened and intimidated, he survived an assassination attempt, and he was ultimately murdered for his unrelenting pursuit of racial justice.

After one of his arrests for participating in a protest against segregation, he wrote his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” where he explained his reasoning for doing what he was doing, and he also did his best to convince his fellow pastors to join in the fight for racial justice.

One thing he couldn’t square in his head was how racial equality didn’t have support from many white churches and pastors. After traveling around the south and seeing so many churches that he knew didn’t support his work, he wrote, “Over and over I have found myself asking: ‘What kind of people worship here? Who is their God?’”

As I think about those powerful questions, I am challenged by the idea that I need to make sure that I’m living my faith out in a way that truly does line up with what God calls us to. I want to set a positive example by living a life of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. I hope we are all inspired by his legacy and we find ways to follow his example of loving one another and treating every single person we come into contact with like they are a beloved child of God!