Solution to the Problems
02 Mar 2010 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: Devotion, Life, Religion, Women
PURSUITtake 2 – Week #6 Thanks for checking out PURSUITtake2 – here are some thoughts from last night’s PURSUIT class, taken from The Good Life written by Chuck Colson.
We know the world isn’t how it should be. We know in our hearts that we have sinned; guilt is the ever-present common ground for all human beings. We know the world is broken and we want freedom from deprivation, pain, and suffering. So we seek reconciliation – liberation – forgiveness – and we are driven to find the good life, a life of purpose and redemption.
Unfortunately, people chronically look for answers in the wrong places. Many think politics is the answer; to change people or laws. For centuries, political leaders have promised redemption through utopian government solutions that always lead to tyranny in one form or another.
Other people look to education to solve the problem; to change people by educating them away from ignorance and poverty. The 20th century has produced the best educated, intelligent, and well-read generations in history, yet it also produced more bloodshed than all the previous centuries combined. While education is important, salvation for the world’s problems does not come to us through education.
Some believe that money will buy the good life; to change people just change what they have. But the rich have just as many problems as the poor do with guilt and meaninglessness, but the poor have other concerns to distract them while the rich are left naked in their emptiness. Capitalism is the best economic system for creating a prosperous society, but it works well only when it is tempered by moral restraints. Without morality, capitalism is pure greed.
Other supposed roads to salvation are through psychology – change what people feel; social change – change how they relate; biological – change their bodies; even religion – change what they believe. But each answer comes up short by either leading us into disease, death, or indifference.
We just can’t get away from our old selves and this nagging emptiness of the soul. Only the biblical worldview passes the test for truth, conforming to the way things really are. It alone correctly identifies the problem as originating in the human heart, and it reaches into the heart not only to deal with guilt, compulsion, and anxiety but also to answer the heart’s deepest longings. We can not simply work on the symptoms of the world’s problems; we simply must find a solution for the very root of the world’s problems.
Ephesians 2:8-9. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. John 3:16 tells us that out of his love for us, God sent his only son to be the substitute on our behalf. As Jesus hung on the cross he cried out, It is finished, not I, but “it” is finished. Isaiah 53:4-6 tells us “it” included all of our grief, sorrows, transgressions, disfigurements, illness, sins – all Paid in Full.
The redemption that Jesus brings to us also brings reconciliation with God and our neighbor. Reconciliation enables us to build Christian community – the church of Jesus Christ. As his church, God calls us to be agents of reconciliation to the world, sharing the gospel through our words and our actions. Over time, the gospel transforms us as we live out the solution to a messy world before all of mankind. My friend’s faith in Jesus Christ is the victory!
Discussion Questions:
1. What alternative “solutions” to the mess of life do you most often encounter? Why do you think people resist the truth and seek other alternatives?
2. Consider how other worldviews handle the problem of guilt. What hope do those worldviews offer for the future? What hope does the biblical worldview offer?
