What's Goin' On?

Read Ezekiel 36:26-27 NLT

"And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.  And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations."

So for these last couple days - aside from it being hot as all Hades outside - I’ve also been havin’ a time getting my thoughts together to post a blog entry. More specifically, I’ve had some difficulty translating all of what’s been goin’ on in my head regarding these recent “judicial events” and collecting them into coherent, linear thought on paper (or blog). I’ve attempted to wrangle my thoughts together whenever & however they come and jot down whatever random stuff surfaced. In other times, I’ve attempted to turn down the volume of my own thoughts & opinions and really check for God’s voice and His infinite wisdom regarding these recent events amongst the cacophony of voices vying for “our” attention in the news media or on social media. On most of the major social media outlets I use, I’ve come across a singular theme in one form or another. A consistent, unified thought that has been more common than not. It’s rung louder to me and has been for the most part, the center and nucleus of the cries and criticisms and complaints of many. I’ve read and listened to folk’s laments of the horrors of “evil people in the world”. Statements ranging from: “How could this happen!?” “What kind of person could do something like this?” “Where’s the humanity?” “Why can’t there just be peace?”....to sentiments, like....“The laws are jacked up” “This justice system is jacked up”. “The government is jacked up” “America is jacked up” “The WORLD is jacked up”!!!! Of course, "jacked up" is a relatively tamed replacement for the much stronger 4 letter wording that was really used. ;-)

But seriously, though, fam...I feel & share the pain; the angst, frustration and sadness of the many who’ve voiced their passionate convictions. The stuff I here on the news on the daily angers me, dude. It really does. It gets to a point where I gotta click off and unplug from it.  I hear the words of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" buzzin' in my head and consider the fact that a song written in '71 is still as relevant in theme over 40 years later. Really? No one witnessing the cruelty, the genocide, the isms & schisms, rape, bullying, murders, unjust practices, etc. that we witness worldwide would doubt that there is something truly awry and outta wack with this world we live in. Folk want change, man. Revolution, even. Why can’t there just be peace? Why do things have to be like this? Why can’t folk just get it together, fa' goodness sake? Stop the foolishness! Why do all cruelties and injustices - of any kind - continue to exist AND escalate in frequency? If people are so smart and we have all this information - more than any other generation, prior - why does it seem/feel like society is regressing? There are whole genres of books written to address issues like these. Political pundits, social philosophers and self-help ‘gurus’ are paid big bucks to give “expert insight” into the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of it. Gosh, man...various religions will teach that we have some sort of problem that needs some sort of solution. They’ll differ on the problem and even on the solution but there is one thing that is constant among them all.

• in Buddhism, for instance, the problem is desire and you ‘save’ yourself by ceasing all desire;
• in Confucianism, you ‘save’ yourself through education, reflection, self-cultivation and moral living;
• in Hinduism, you ‘save’ yourself by detaching from your separated ego and living in unity with the Divine;
• in Islam, you ‘save’ yourself by living a life of good deeds;
• in Orthodox Judaism, you ‘save’ yourself through repentance, prayer and working hard to obey God’s laws and being a good person;
• in the New Age (or Integrative Spirituality), you ‘save’ yourself through seeing yourself as part of the Divine Oneness and seeking to live in harmony as part of the One.
• in Daoism, you ‘save’ yourself by aligning with the dao to have peace in you and harmony around you.

All of these religions and schools of thought, respectfully, will posit that the problem is different - i.e. sin or a lack of consciousness or inner-connectedness, etc. So, the solutions are different. But one constant remains the same: THE OBJECT OF YOUR FAITH IS ALWAYS YOU. Did you catch that? YOU are always the object of your faith. YOU “SAVE” (or reconcile) YOURSELF. YOU learn something. YOU do something. YOU experience something. Ultimately YOU - the imperfect, flawed you - are the object of your faith....and your faith is only as good as the object in which it is placed, so go figure. ;-) While religion comes along and says, “here’s what you do to ‘save’ yourself.”.....Christ flips the whole thing and says, “No...it’s not about what YOU do. It’s about what I, Jesus, have done FOR you. Place ME as the object of your faith...trust in Me (God in flesh) and in what I've done FOR you. It’s not about YOU saving yourself. It’s about you being saved by a Savior”.

So, Warner.....what does all this nerdy, comparative religion, mumbo jumbo have to do with recent events? Welp.....I’m glad ya asked! :-) The most voiced solution for society’s ills are to change or create and enforce better laws that would, in turn, better serve & protect society as a whole. 

“Maybe if we just change the laws, people will act better.” And if we’d just adhere to these various laws - both public rules of conduct AND personal ethics & mores - then society would be better. Because after all, humanity is basically good. Right? If we’d just live by the “Golden Rule” - like Jesus said - then this world would be a better place.”

Well....I’d humbly submit that while just laws & order and personal ethics are indeed absolutely imperative to achieving some sort of civility...it is essentially impossible to effectively legislate morality. You cannot legislate the human heart. What I mean by this is that while you can convince someone intellectually on what the “right thing” to do is  - and in some cases, you could even force them do it - you cannot supernaturally change the essence of who they are in their heart...which is what ultimately needs to be changed. Laws, ethics & morals, at best, deal with the symptoms of a depraved heart of man. They don’t fix it, at all, fam. They don’t repair the breach. It’s like treating a gunshot wound with a brown bottle of peroxide while leaving the bullet sitting inside. The peroxide IS good....but it won’t keep the wound from infection or festering and getting worse. The fact is that you cannot control nor change human nature. It is God and God alone who can supernaturally change the human heart. Only God can do that. Only He has that power. The world only truly changes when human hearts change...and only God through His Spirit and the redemptive sacrifice of Christ can accomplish that.

You see, Christ gives the most accurate description of the condition of our hearts. He doesn't tell us that we are immoral. He doesn't tell us that we need more education. He doesn't tell us that if we just do our best to live by the “4 Noble Truths” or the “8 Fold Path” or by certain hours of inner reflection & meditative disciplines that we will eventually get "there" and be better. Jesus tells us that our core problem is by no means ethical and therefore isn’t something that will ever be able to be solved through human effort. The REAL issue is within our hearts...within the very core of us. Sin has so devastated all of humanity. All of humanity is marred, morally corrupted, infected and affected by sin.....we're ALL in that same condition. Nothing in ourselves can ever attain the solution to that. THAT is the human condition. And the purpose of the coming of the Son of Man/Jesus into the world is to rescue sinners - you and I - from this condition with its inevitable result. Jesus bore our sin in His body on the cross and paid for them in full.  Out of love, He took the judgment of that sin that we deserve upon Himself and anyone who trusts in & takes what Jesus did on the cross as their own will have their sins removed. Debt paid. Because of Christ's goodness....not our own. Thus begins the divine heart transformation...aka sanctification. And that's what makes the "Good News"...good news! :-)

Before change in policies or change in gun laws, mental health, better parenting or even (dare I say) prayer in school, lay the unflinching, unchanging issue of humanities indwelling sin nature (or the breaking & rejection of God's holy moral law. That lay at the root of ALL the horrific and terrible things happening in the world. It’s real easy to point out the evil in the world around us...but have YOU recognized the evil in your own heart? At the core of the problem of evil in the world is the problem of evil within us....ALL of us. If you want to pause long enough to raise the question of “Why is there evil in this world?”, you would do well to first try and find an answer to the evil within. Men/women won't change - can’t change until hearts change. And the ONLY heart changer is God through His Living Word...THE GodMan...deity in flesh, Y'shua HaMoshiach....Jesus Christ.  Every other "way" is only temporarily addressing or dressing a symptom.

It's a terrible thing to be lost and not know it. It's wonderful news when you know you're lost and somebody says, "come with me. I'll get'cha outta here." And that right there is the Gospel, family: that Christ takes you & me out of our lostness & sin and into the glory of His presence in which He created us. Beautiful...

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"For if we are beside ourselves [mad, as some say], it is for God and concerns Him; if we are in our right mind, it is for your benefit." ~ 2 Corinthians 5:13 (Amplified Bible)