Ever Wish the World Were Different?

Nena Arias | October 7, 2014 

Do you ever wish the world were a better place and not so messed up? Does it scare you to see all that is happening on a daily basis? We see world unrest, the threat of more war, droughts, famines, crime, violence, revolutions, counter-revolutions, the economy in deep trouble, increasing unemployment, divorce, sexual perversion, the break-up of the family, parental irresponsibility, increasing social tolerance and approval of homosexuality, killing babies in the mother’s womb, drug addiction, a culture of lies, distrust and abuse of government—and the list goes on and on to the point of overwhelming us with things that used to be so abhorrent and reprehensible; they are now our “daily bread”.

Newscasters remind us all day every day exactly how hard it is to get along with one another. If you are married, you married a sinner and your spouse married a sinner. If you have children, they have sinners for parents and you have sinners for children. All the people we love are sinners. Your relatives and neighbors are sinners.  All of the politicians we elect are sinners and yes; even our pastors, preachers and teachers are sinners. These are facts.

Do you wish you could do something about all I have described but ask yourself “What can I do and where do I begin?”

Is God a sick sadist who enjoys seeing people suffer in order to feed His ego? Is that what makes Him feel superior, or is there another way to understand all this? Yes, there is another way! God tells us that His design of this world and us was a very different plan in the beginning. However, something happened to mess it all up and He has worked ever since to do damage control and make it perfect again, all this and yet respecting our free will, which He will never violate. What we see is the result of our choices. 

To solve our problems we must first recognize the source of these problems. We have tried to “fix” all that is wrong with inadequate understanding by refusing to accept God’s superior knowledge of all things. We, therefore, end up trying to cure a cancer by applying some antiseptic and a band-aid.

We endeavor to fix the economy merely by increasing taxes and borrowing more money, thus creating a bigger economical problem. We try to fix commerce through inflation, which creates recession and the vicious cycle never ends. We are told if we throw more money at education it will get better, but it only gets worse. We are also told if we only give more to the poor they will come out of poverty, but we have created more generations of poor people who can’t even conceive the idea of taking care of themselves. I could go on, but you get the picture. We fail miserably because we focus on the periphery and not the root cause of our problems. 

The root cause is within the heart of every man, women, young person and yes, every child. The prophet Jeremiah put it this way: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9 

 Our sinful heart causes us to selfishly care more about pleasing ourselves than others. This is why a business partner can commit fraud and swindle his life-long friend, robbing him blind taking the shirt off his back and even taking the food from his table and the mouths of his children. 

By the same token, and by virtue of being created in the image and likeness of God, our spirit also has the truth of our design innate in our conscience (spirit), which alerts us of what is right and what is wrong. So, we either ignore that truth as it nudges us when we tell a lie or commit a wrong deed, or, we plainly choose to rebel against it because we think we have a vantage point and somehow we will escape the consequences of our selfish and deceitful decisions and actions. Most of us know what we ought to do to live right, but we fail to be consistent because we have a sinful heart problem. Besides, good works alone will not save us, and the fact is, we have a debt with God. No one is excluded from this, our parents, educators, politicians, presidents, teenagers and even pastors. All of us can be greedy, envious, self-centered, angry, lose self-control and sin against our neighbors because we have been dealing with these issues from infancy.  

If we are honest we will admit we need fixing and no amount of wealth, education, legislation or even jails and prisons can help us because we have a pre-disposition to sin against our Creator and ourselves. We continuously violate our original perfect design. This deplorable condition causes us to think we can run on batteries instead of plugging into the source of life that is Jesus Christ. Pretending that God doesn’t exist or care about us does not exempt us from reaping the fruit of the chaos that we sow.  Hence, the messy out-of-control world we have created; our moral rebellion judges us severely and it will only get worse unless we run to God for help and healing as we receive His forgiveness and learn to apply the principles in His Word to all areas of our lives. 

Turning to Almighty God, our Creator needs to happen individually and collectively if we hope to have a better world. Inner change begins when we surrender to the Life-giver. When we stop spinning out of control our world will also reverse the demise it finds itself in. It is our surrender to God’s power that begins the whole process. Endeavoring to change the world around us without changing the world within us is futile.

The world groans and travails to see the manifestation of the sons of God. How serious are you about wanting the world not to be so messed up? Begin changing your inner world through the only power that can accomplish it, the power of Almighty God.

“I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abides in Me and I in Him, the same brings forth much fruit, for without Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5

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