Have you ever wondered how Hitler could do what he did? Or perhaps Osama, Saddam, Attila, or the
leader of the Kama Rouge in Cambodia – how did these simple human men, with
similar societal constructs as the rest of us, similar genetic dispositions as
the rest of us, become the monsters they became? Could it be that one of us is capable of
becoming one of them? Funny thing, the
answer is a bit disturbing.
You see each of the men names above did not exit their
mother’s womb with extreme intentions to kill and take human life. They grew into those decisions. It was not an all-at-once phenomenon that
over took them. It was a steady bit by
bit, decision after decision process that led them to what they became. They traveled a road that was a pursuit of
serving their own self interests, and it led them to the actions they
took. I’m sure with all of them, that at
an early childhood age the concept of killing another person would have been
FAR more objectionable than by the time they entered their 40’s. The road took its toll on each of them. Until the decision to kill was as easy as
breathing.
Child molesters are a similar story. The perversions they develop do not happen
all at once, they happen over time. The
need for ever increasingly weird sexual stimuli continues to consume them,
until what is unthinkable to a normal person, becomes just another alternate
lifestyle of alternate sexual expression to them. They do not even see the “harm” in their
actions, as they see sexual expression of any kind as simply natural. Curing this sickness is still one of the
greatest challenges facing psychologists today.
Once degraded this far, it is nearly impossible to break the patterns
and return to normalcy.
The same is true of the current master of all evil. Satan did not originate life in the condition
he finds himself in today. He has fallen
so far from the perfection that was once what he was. The road of serving self takes it’s toll on
even more advanced life forms than ourselves.
And where does it eventually lead?
To the death of the creator God.
Satan’s first thoughts towards pleasing himself rather than serving
others had nothing to do with killing Christ.
But the road leads to the cross of Calvary none the less. In order for evil to survive, it must conquer
good, or else it will perish. And
ultimately, as unthinkable as it may seem, a road that serves yourself ends
with you personally killing the creator of all life, all love, and all good
things. Satan has walked down this road,
and fulfilled its destiny.
When the remainder of intelligent life in the universe who
had not fallen into evil, saw the end results of the journey to please oneself,
they shuddered at the depths evil was capable of sinking to. It forever took the influence of Satan’s puny
arguments away that God was the dictator, and he was the liberator of free
will. No in fact, the cross proved the
opposite was true. And the universe made
its decision once and for all time. Now
it comes back to man.
The road of evil ends at the killing of the Creator. But the road of good, merely begins
there. To save us from the bondage of
sin, Christ came, took on human form, lived a perfect life, and sacrificed
himself to take on our punishment. The
cross was the worst way the Romans could think of to kill someone. It was slow, painful, and certain. No quick painless death for captives of the
state – they must be made to suffer.
They must be a symbol for others to take note of. Disobey and wind up here. The message was clear, and relatively
convincing.
But it is too easy to blame the established church of the
time (Jews), or the established government of the day (Romans) for what
happened to Christ. While Satan was the
instigator of all of this, he was careful to insure that we his willing tools
would be the actual instruments of our Savior’s death. It is too easy to pass blame to others for
the death of our God, but in truth, it is me who is responsible. I am to blame. Look in the mirror, the guilty party is
staring back at you. The evil in our
lives had to be punished, it had to end in death, it was either us, or in this
case, the Lamb of God who would take our punishment. But He has no sins, no evil, and did not
deserve what we have steadfastly clung to in our lives. He bore the punishment of our evil, so that
we could inherit the reward He deserves.
This was the magnitude of the gift of God to us. Calvary is where our road begins.
But Christ did not die for us to remain stagnate in the
slavery to pain we find ourselves in. He
did not die in order that we might cling to our addictions to evil and
pain. We are not supposed to accept His
truth and then go back to misery we were bound by. He died to liberate us. He died to free us from the pains we inflict
on ourselves and on those who love us.
He died to free us from the slavery and addictions, and predispositions,
and genetic weaknesses we inherit from our human parents. He died to recreate US. He died to make us whole.
The road to the pursuit of good begins with the knowledge
that the victories will all be the Lords.
That perfection is not our job, but our reward from our surrender to His
will. That reconciliation with God is a
personal matter for each one of us. Sin
is no longer to be cherished but to be abhorred. Our vision is changing. Our hearts are melting. We learn to love. We learn not to judge, ridicule, or condemn
others – but we learn to love, accept, and embrace others. We become like our role model by focusing on
him.
The road to the pursuit of good starts with death. The death of Christ to redeem us, and the
death of our carnal selves. What is natural
to us must die. What we want must
die. All of who we were is to be put
upon the altar of God’s grace. And as we
rise up out of the waters of death, and awaken from our spiritual coma, we
begin to see the real life altering changes that make the Christian life worth
living in the here and now. Death marks
the beginning of our journey, but is no longer on the maps as we move
forward. We are made free to live. Free to live without pain. Free to love without reservation, fear, or
apprehension. Free from worry. For what in space and time could be as great,
as powerful, or as intimately concerned with our individual lives, as the
Creator God we serve.
Our road is an infinite pursuit of selfless service to
others. And alone in this do we find pure
fulfillment. This is the road that led
the most perfect of all beings in the universe to think nothing of His own
life, and lay it down to redeem those who still hated His very sacrifice at the
time. To say that love conquers all, is
to understate the magnitude of what can be overcome with it. To say that God is love, is to have said more
than a human mind may ever be able to truly comprehend.
The Gospel, the Bible, nature itself, and of course our God
are the embodiment of what love means, what love is, and how to reflect it to
others. The original ten commandments
were summed up by Christ into 2 commandments to love God first, and love others
second. In His final parting words to
His followers, Christ told them simply to love each other. In this the world would know we belonged to
Him. This is the essence of what
existence is all about, it is about love.
Love created us. Love redeemed
us. Love saved us from ourselves. And Love is coming back to bring us home and
reunite us. At the end of the road we
travel is … love.
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