Do What Is Right

“This is what the Lord says: ‘Maintain justice and do what is right, for my salvation is close at hand and my righteousness will soon be revealed.” – Isaiah 56:1

In his book “Race and the Christian,” Timothy Keller writes: “I knew a man who was the head of a set of car dealerships in the South. The way in which things were done was you could come in and negotiate, and the salesman had a pretty big window of what they could give you the car for. They would negotiate, you would negotiate, and it was a lot of horse-trading going on, except there was car-trading, I guess.
The salesman couldn’t go lower than this, but they could get this high, and so it was a tradition. Somebody did some research and found out that men always were better negotiators with the salesmen than women, and white men and black men were better negotiators than African-American women.
When somebody actually looked at what was going on, African-American women were regularly paying far more for their cars and were actually subsidizing the price for white men.
With that information, the dealer had two options.
On the one hand, he could say, “Because we’re not deliberately trying to hurt African-American women, we make better profits this way; we have no responsibility.” Or, we could pursue justice for all people and take a deeper look at the system.
The owner, a Christian man, ultimately decided he did have a responsibility to change the system. Ultimately, he changed the entire way he sold cars, beginning by creating a set price, with no haggling allowed.
At first, his own profits went down, with a noticeable loss of white male car buyers. Nevertheless, he says it’s the only way to be just. Over time, however, as word got out about their change in pricing, a noticeably higher number of women and minorities began buying their cars from their dealerships.
What does righteousness look like? Do we have eyes to see systemic injustice?  And are we willing to do something about it?”

In all things, do what is right to bring glory to Christ. Today, in prayer, ask the Lord how you can do what is right today.

“The time is always right to do the right thing.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

God’s Word: “Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.” – Isaiah 1:17