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How do we become better people?
How do we become more kind to others?
How do we live more honestly, decently, ethically, and morally? How do we change ourselves for the better? These are the sixty-four thousand dollar
questions mankind has been asking for generations? And there are no simple answers. If it were so easy to become better people,
we would be living in a utopia by now. There wouldn't be war, terrorism, murders, rapes, robbery, injustice, poverty, starvation, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera....
So
rather than first asking how do we become better people, let’s first ask how
did we get into this mess in the first place? How did our world become so unfair,
unkind, and unjust?
Christians believe that God is the Supreme Being who created
everything in the universe, and according to His divine will and providence,
keeps them in existence. God is
infinitely perfect and the source of all life, knowledge and truth. God is all-holy, almighty, all-eternal,
all-good, all-knowing, all-present, all-wise, all-loving, all-just, and all-merciful
(just to name a few).
Surprisingly, Christians believe that just by natural reason we can
come to know God. All you have to do is
consider the universe we live in…. All
the created realities from the stars in the night sky, our sun and moon, the earth
we live on, the wonder of nature, all the creatures that inhabit or world (from
the smallest to the greatest), or our own human bodies give evidence of God’s
existence. Consider the phenomena found
in nature and the physical, mathematical, life, and social sciences that study them and
try to explain them with varying degrees of success. Yes, mankind has learned much over the ages,
but it’s still only a drop in the ocean compared with what we still don’t
know. But actually there’s a much
simpler way to know God: just look deep within yourself—into the recesses of
your mind and heart—and you’ll know there IS a God!
In
the beginning, men and women perfectly reflected God’s own perfect holiness,
goodness, wisdom, knowledge, power, and love.
They were free from suffering and death and were given the freedom to
choose or free-will. By obeying God,
they could remain in this wonderful state of perfection; but by disobeying God,
they’d lose the wonderful gifts He gave them.
Our
God-given ability to freely choose
or free-will means that God will not force us to love him or to obey him, nor
will God force us to act honestly, decently, ethically, and morally in our
dealings with other people; but ultimately, God will hold us all accountable for
the way we lived our lives and how we treated other people.
Unfortunately,
men and women fell from this original state of perfection through pride,
selfishness, and disobedience to God.
They lost these wonderful gifts God gave them, and this is what brought
suffering and death into the world.
Since
the fall of man and woman, all generations that followed have failed to live up
to God’s moral and ethical laws; this is what Christians call original sin and it disrupted man’s intimate, loving
relationship with God our creator.
As
a result of this original sin every man and woman was born into a fallen
state of separation and alienation from God and became subject to suffering,
death, ignorance, and a strong inclination to sin and to disobey God. Men and women lost God’s wonderful gifts of
holiness, justice, grace, great knowledge, control of their passions, and
freedom from suffering and death.
History
has clearly shown that we cannot save ourselves or reverse the effects of this
curse of original sin—only God
can! Every generation that has
come and gone has tried and failed miserably.
Some would argue that the world is slowly getting better and we’re more
advanced than previous generations. Our
technology and scientific understanding have grown. They could argue that we’re no longer stuck
in the dark ages and there’s relative peace in most of the developed
world. But before long, someone or
something will change all that: murder, mayhem, misunderstandings, conflict,
war, famine, natural disasters, sickness, disease, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera…. The more things change, the more they stay
the same. And deep down inside each of
us we know that the world is basically unfair, unkind, and unjust?
Fortunately,
God didn’t give up on us! He immediately
began to save the human race from our fallen condition. The history recounted throughout the Bible
recounts the unfolding of God’s plan to save the human race from this curse of original
sin.
God
made covenants (or solemn, unbreakable agreements) with our forefathers
beginning with Noah and continuing with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob/Israel, and Moses. He sent prophets (or seers) to tell us the
right way to live and warn humanity of the consequence of bad behavior.
God spoke to us in various ways throughout the ages reminding us of his love for us and his desire for us to return to him through righteous living. And eventually, God spoke to us directly through His own Son Jesus Christ. God’s redemptive plan to free mankind from this curse of original sin and restore our original destiny to share God’s blessed life was fulfilled through the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. We couldn’t save ourselves, so God sent His Son into the world to do it for us.
