The world's system versus God's system

As we near Resurrection Sunday, it's good to look at the world's system versus God's system - which values the individual in a unique way. What is the difference and how does this battle fit in with our part in repentance revival?

Parts of this might be in my personal blog sometime  in the future, as well as this ministry one, in case you see similarities.

Don't worry, this won't get as complex as a college philosophy course. Simply put, the world's system ignores God and deems imperfect people able to create perfection on their own. God, however, states that imperfect people require a perfect Saviour to save them from their sin. However, once saved, they may choose to be part of His perfect plan. And, He places high value on us, loving us before any of us ever knew him.

These definitions help in understanding a few things.

1. Our sin nature causes the world's problems.

People like to think they are either perfect or can become perfect. However, "By one man sin entered into the world and death by sin, so that death passed unto all men, for that all have sinned.(Romans 5:12)

The system people create will never be perfect because of our sin nature. We can try to legislate it out and there will always be people doing evil no matter how much we try to stop them. We can try to try to talk people out of it and some people will insist on doing evil no matter how much we reason with them. (And God did create a perfect reasoning and logic, butGod doesn't choose based on things people value like strength and looks and other things. As 1 Cor.1:27 says, "God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;"

Our problem isn't just that we're imperfect, it's that this imperfection goes against a perfect, holy God who can't allow any sin into His perfect heaven.

We all have an idea of what justice is, and we hope it comes to this world. Many political leaders try to ensure justice is done, and some do a very good job, while others don't. There is always so much arguing over which are doing which, but the point is, only God can produce perfect justice because only He knows every detail of every heart and how they match up against His standard of perfection.

That standard - "Be ye perfect, even as My Father in Heaven is perfect"(Mat.5:48) - means nobody can escape punishment for their sins, unless they are forgiven.

Forgiveness is something else we like to do, but often we like it only when it pleases us as people. I explain here what forgiveness is, but put simply it's letting go and no longer punishing the person. Sometimes people are more apt to forgive if the person is useful to society, or of the same class, or something else, but perfect forgiveness means something different. It means cancelling all one's sin debt.

That seems like it'd be impossible to combine the two - how can justice be meted out if everything is forgiven. However, God made a way.

2. Absolute, perfect justice met absolute, perfect forgiveness at the cross.

 Ravi Zacharias has said that there are four things all people have a concept of, even if it is not an accurate one - love, evil, justice, and forgiveness. In Romans 1 and 2, we see that even without the Mosaic Law, people consciences and attitudes cause them to be a law in and of themselves, and that people don't always follow their own standards. Even if they did, though, they wouldn't measure up to what God did.

God's love is perfect. It is unconditional, as discussed here. He defines perfect love because it is not based on any attribute that a person has. God simply loves because he loves. This was evident at the cross.

Perfect evil was also present. A hatred of all things good, the trial and execution of a Man, jesus Christ, everyone knew was innocent, one who had never done anything wrong. Even Pontius Pilate said he found no fault in Him. Yet, god allowed the evil to come upon His Son - called that because Jesus Christ is God in flesh - two of our earliest shows (1, 2) discuss Christ's deity, with others later as well, such as this showing how doctrines of Jehovah's Witnesses go against what the Bible says.

Perfect justice was meted out in that all of the world's sin was placed on Jesus Christ - He was made to be sin for us, even though He Himself knew no sin.(2 Cor.5:21) he bore our sins in His own body.(1 pet.2:24) Many other verses can be used to show this, but the important thing is, along with that perfect justice - every single sin every committed being punished - we see perfect forgiveness, becasue every one of our sins is forgiven if we simply trust Jesus Christ to save us.

Here is God's simple plan of salvation - you can also see it on our website, where even the front page has a simple ABC's of salvation - Admit you're a sinner, Believe Jesus Christ, God in flesh, died to take the punishment for your sins and rose from the dead, and Choose to Call on Jesus by faith to forgive you. You are only a single, sincere prayer of repentance away from eternal life - life that begins the moment you trust in Jesus to save you. You can call on him to save you right now, in fact.

Our radio show page features many good shows on the simple fact that we must trust Jesus Christ by faith to forgive us, and everything else is world, God made it so that it is "by grace are ye saved

 through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast."(Eph.2:8-9) it is only after we are saved we can truly do works for the Lord, when we are in Christ Jesus.(Eph.2:10)

3. God gives us a Done system, not a Do system.

 So, with people always trying to come up with their own ways to make things better, we are trying to do things. That was the rich young ruler's mistake when coming to Jesus in Luke 18 - he asked what he could do rather than admitting to God that he couldn't do it on his own and needed His help. Countless other people accepted that, we even see a prayer in the Bible, "Help thou my unbelief"(Mark 9:24), a prayer answered "yes" to because God rewards those who humbly come to Him for help.

 The Bible says we must have faith like a little child because they trust completely. They know they have to rely on others for things. That, of course, is why I've emphasized so much elsewhere things like the need to be a good role model.

Because we don't have to do anything to earn God's favor - only trust Him - we are free to do as we should without fear of failure if we fall short. A person who follows Christ should not purposely sin, but we have that sn nature that we will fall into sometimes in small ways, and if we're not careful in big ways. We recognize we are just sinners saved by grace. We can't do anything to please God ourselves. God loves us simply because he is love. We love him because He first loved us.(1 John 4:8,19)

Though we don't have to do anything to please God, we should still work to please Him - not because we have to but because we want to. It is our reasonable service, as Romans 12:1 says in part. Think of what all Christ suffered to save us from our sin and the penalty for it, eternal punishment in a place only meant for the devil and his angels(Matt.25:41). We should want to follow Him and do all He says out of our love for Him out of gratitude. He doesn't send anyone there - people go there when they reject His forgiveness and salvation..

4. God's System respects people more

I mentioned that God's system respects the individual in a unique way. It really repsects others more than the world's competing, person-centered systems.

Of course, God's word gives us many great things such as the fruits of the spirit in Galatians 5 22-23 and some great things to focus on in Philippians 4:8. The Bible also tells us to look on the heart of a person, not the outward appearance, as 1 Samuel16:7 and Psalm 139 show; we are each fearfully and wonderfully made.

Those things - fruits like meekness(power under control), longsuffering(patience), temprance(self control), and so on aren't in abundance int he world's system, because people try to make all those things fit only their own desires instead of realizing that others matter. Those things of Philippians 4:8 - truth, loveliness, etc. - aren't even accepted at times, as some people scorn truth, virtue, purity, etc. - often so they can have their own selfish way. Yes, there are people that are like Pharisees and try too hard - but when you think of it, legalism is just another of the ways people try to control things with their own system instead of relying on God. After all, Jesus saved His toughest criticism for the Pharisees.

Why? because they didn't consider the individual the way God does. He understands what each person has gone through and wants to lovingly help them out of that pain, to heal them like the woman at the well in John 4 who tried to hide in physical relationships(she'd had 5 husbands and was with yet another man) till she found the unconditional love of Jesus that could heal whatever problem she'd had.

God considers each of us, though. he knows we each miss the mark of perfection. However, he provided a way for each of us to get to His perfect Heaven - where nobody has seen, heard, or even imagined the wonders He had prepared for us.(1 Cor. 2:9) He has a mansion for each of us(John 14:1), he has a perfect Heaven where there will be no suffering or pain or any bad stuff(Rev.21:3-4), and so on. We know all these things and yet it will be even more wonderful than anything we can imagine. Just the snippets are wonderful.

And, His system also provides for each of us a wonderful life here on Earth - He came that we might have life and life more abundantly.(John 10:10) He wants to heal each of us from the pain we've felt, the heartache we've been through, and use us on His team to help others sense His love and receive His forgiveness and salvation.