Redemption Pt. 3

Read Redemption Pt. 1 and Pt. 2 before you read this post


The comforting thing about the existence of evil in this world is that when it is the darkest, thats when you see the light shine the brightest. God works for our good and our good is for His glory. 
People can choose to bring about redemption in this world but totally leave God out of the picture. They would want to spread ideals such as peace, love, joy, but a peace, love, and joy outside of God. It is ultimately just a peace, joy, and love because . . . just because. And you know, thats fine! I applaud people like those because they are people who are so close to truth that they are able to really market that out to an unbelieving world. What I mean is, these people are just reaping the fruit of the victory of Christ without believing in Him. In an unbelieving world, the only thing that can appeal to a depraved humanity is reaping of this fruit without committing to a belief. These result is people keep doing good and ultimately that is what spreads until someone asks the question, what for? That is why I love these people. But sadly what I've come to find is, people who decide to spread these ideals and do good outside of God, don't reproduce anything. They just briefly cover up evil for a moment.
Its like the stars (and I don't mean to sound corny here). I was sitting on my roof the other night just wishing I could be living in a foreign country right now where the stars shine brighter. Well its not that the stars shine brighter in another country as much as it is our own artificial light blotting out the true light. Our man made light enshrouds the skies when deep down we long to see the real light. Thats what spreading these ideals outside of God does. They just cover up the truth with ephemeral man made ideals. While they are good to appeal to the masses, they are not truth. 
And the truth is God's redemption provides us with something eternal. God's redemption gives us the solution our soul longs for. God's redemption is the thing that lasts.
For example, Kurt Wyman's best friend, Bobby, could have decided to not respond at all to his friend's death. But instead, he decided that he was going to find the man who killed his best friend in jail and minister to him so that he might be a believer. You see, Bobby is giving that man something tangible! It would have been so hard and pointless for Bobby to go to the jail and talk to him about love because that discussion outside of God leads to a dead end. That fruit doesn't reproduce outside of God because it doesn't make sense why it should be reproduced. But a love that stems from God reproduces more love, joy reproduces joy, peace reproduces more peace, and thats how fruit should be!
I knew a person a while ago (whose name I will not mention) who was just burdened by the fact that he himself couldn't change anything in another person's life. Now I realize why. The victory we have in Christ is the line in which insufficiency meets grace. We were never meant to do this whole "change the world" on our own because us on our own is insufficient. But when we bring Christ into the picture our insufficient self meets the grace that tells us we are righteous and able.
So you see, plugging ourselves into God's redemptive work is the only logical solution for really changing this work.
Final post coming up next!