The Real Way to Change the World

[HKHaugan]

The Real Way to Change the World

Let’s start with Denis Prager’s insightful remarks:

“We were all taught that the most important battle we need to wage in life was with our own nature. Jews and Christians learned from the same Scripture that “the will of man’s heart is evil from his youth (Genesis 8:21).”  I add, “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.”--- Gen.6:5].”

“Therefore, being a good person involved a constant battle with our flawed human nature: our urges, appetites and innate weaknesses.  This battle was also the only real route to a better world. Every individual had to work on him or herself to be decent, strong, courageous and self-controlled, and every parent had to work, first and foremost, on raising such people.”

“The left, which proudly rejects Judeo-Christian values, has adopted the opposite of the Judeo-Christian view regarding pain in life.  Leftists…hold outside forces responsible for their pain. That is the reason for the litany of left-wing enemies: capitalism (fill a need and make a living doing it---what’s wrong with that?), patriarchy (male superiority), misogyny (hate for women), systemic racism (color inferiority/superiority), homophobia (fear of same sex attraction), transphobia (fear of gender manipulators), Islamophobia (fear of Muslims), sexism (gender prejudice), xenophobia (fear of strangers).”  Except for the first, capitalism, the rest have a common synonym, sin-filled attitudes, they are really sin-onyms, or just plain sin at work.

---Italics in the foregoing used to simplify--- 

These ‘enemies’ are man-made invisible concepts with a purpose, distract us from using the word sin.  Sin is a spiritual word and a spiritual problem only belief in God can handle.  That’s what an unbelieving mind doesn’t want to hear.  The sinful mind and heart desire control. A heart separated from God is afraid and tries to control circumstance by redefining evil to suit self. That’s called pride.  Fear and pride work together in the heart to influence the mind which in turn develops heart attitudes that classify persons into blame categories some of which are named above. The categories are invisible, invented, have no substance and are motivated by fear.  But in a secular mind they are the rationalized emotionally, justifying division, hatred, demonstrations, rioting and destruction.  The secular mind believes mass demonstrations and destructive action changes hearts.  They don’t.  Behavioral compromise maybe, but changed hearts?  No, only hidden resistance that comes out in other forms. Make more laws, make others suffer for presumed offenses, start movements based on stereotypes and give people what they don’t have to work for.  The heart does not respond well to legal, physical or dictatorial intimidation as means to a utopic end. It builds internal resentment with an external nod.

There are two elementary phrases in Scripture describing the real underlying factors, “Rulers, authorities and powers of the dark world” and “the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Eph.6:12).”  Therefore, categories of judgment are satanically inspired terms tempting any individual to think they are real and can be used to control.  Here lies the issue, sin, believing in self alone.  Sin uses judgmentalism based on appearance.  It shares a common theme, blame.  There is a need in the heart to blame someone or something (Gen.3:12-13) for the flow of uncontrollable forces manipulating the hearts of individuals in our social environment.  How easy it is to blame something outside one’s self for anything.  The real villain lies within.  It is the spiritual self-centeredness called sin. 

Sin is the resident condition in every human heart.  The heart’s self-centered attitude is getting the mind to rationalize and escape through a justifying excuse.  It is the heart of the accuser and the accused that need decategorizing.  The ‘rich’ are not to blame.  The ‘poor’ are not to blame.  The ‘capitalist’ the ‘socialist’ the ‘man’, the ‘woman’ and on and on.  Pick a category and the blame doesn’t fit but sin in the heart does.  The ‘first impression’ that perceived a category, the ‘attitude’ that birthed it, the ‘response’ it motivated; therein lies the spiritual reality of sin at work.  Can we see the fallen image of God here, the mind, the heart and the spirit? 

Human nature is like the fisherman who while casting, experiences an unexpected backlash full of twists and curls, which takes wasted time to undo.  The reason Jesus appeared on our scene was to undo the backlashed sin-led human nature spinning out of control.  John says it so well in his first letter to the larger Body of Christ, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work (1Jn.3:8).”  The devil was the first one who sinned (1Jn.3:9) and he has been at work ever since through fear and pride, getting frightened angry hearts to destroy and be destroyed.  If blame is to be attached, he’s the one to bear it. 

But our call is not to dwell on sin’s imperfections but on the positive fact that Jesus bore the blame for every human being’s sin and its frustrations by dying on the Cross in our place.  There He defeated the devil and his power by His suffering and death justified by His Resurrection.  His heart, mind and Spirit reveal the One God who has the final say.  When we have a personal spiritual relationship with Him, we are released from sin’s guilt, it’s pride in self and fear of an isolated lonely death which is replaced with the hope and promise of eternal life with Him. 

The task now is for us who believe in Jesus who brings bring order both to the world we can see and to the one we can’t see.  The one in which we live; our home, our family, our neighborhood and wherever we move about, both visible and invisible.  The very same process by which His movement among those with whom He came in personal contact was a one-to-one process of interpersonal contact. That’s what He did and what He asks us to do.  It isn’t through fame or government or military conquest but through our faith in the Lord Jesus that real change comes as we share relationally with the hearts in others.  That’s how He changed and is changing human history.  Jesus is the only One who can reshape our inward look to change our outward world, from sin within to love from above as we walk and talk out and about.