Changed people change the world. Without being too simplistic, God’s strategy for saving the world is you. By saving you—and me and everyone who comes to faith in Christ—God is saving the world. There is no other plan. Changed people change the world.
The only way to make things right with the world is to discover what’s wrong with the world. And people are what’s wrong with the world. Or, more exactly, the reign of sin and death over people is what’s wrong with the world. Since Eden, sinful humans have made a mess of God’s beautiful planet. This is why Jesus came to release His reign of righteousness by forgiving sin, defeating death and destroying the works of the devil. Broken people are the problem; healed people are the solution.
The kingdom of God comes in the world through the regeneration of the human heart that flows out into everyday human behavior. Any utopian vision for saving the world outside personal transformation is destined to fail. Without personal transformation, the poison of sin reinfects human behavior. No matter how much behavior modification we learn, fallen humans revert back to form. We are born alienated from the life of God, which makes sin and death inevitable. This is why we must be regenerated.
The change that changes the world starts in the human spirit when we receive Holy Spirit. Then our regenerated spirit flows up into our soul—the emotions, will and mind—and out of the body as countenance, speech and behavior.
“Inner healing,” which reintegrates our fragmented soul through balanced emotions, a harnessed will and a renewed mind, flows out as “outer healing,” healing that manifests in righteous behavior grounded in love for God and others. This love in action—the basis for all kingdom influence—mends broken relationships and releases kingdom shalom into our metron and through our metron into all nations.
This is how the kingdom comes. The kingdom can only come in the world as it comes first in us. It starts in the heart. Changed people change the world.
For more on this topic, listen to the full episode of Kingdom Strategies on the Charisma Podcast Network here. {eoa}
