Have you noticed lately that the world isn’t perfect? Just watch the daily news sometime, its not a hard thing to be convinced of. In fact, there seems to be a whole mess of issues we are not remotely close to fixing. Think about it, disease, war, world huger, the list goes on and on. And the issues have been there for centuries, if not longer.

Isn’t it strange that the best human being who ever lived didn’t really solve that many problems? Even more than the best human being really, if we’re talking about Jesus, the God Man, the one who was and is and always has been. I don’t think it was because he didn’t care about all the problems of the world. I’m certain that he did care as a matter of fact. So why didn’t he fix all these global issues then right? I think it has something to do with his primary mission and focus for his time on earth. You see despite how important those things may seem, he spent his whole life for one goal, one that he would even die for.

There is something about Jesus that resonates with all of us, his compassion, his love, his peace or joy, something that every human being who has ever lived can identify with and long for. Yet few of us really seem to live life at the capacity he did. How is it that one man could have such impact and seemingly change so little in the world? Or maybe he did. Maybe his mission had more impact on the world than any other mission of mankind. After all, he is THE most sought after life of all time right? I mean, Gandhi and Buddha and every political and religious leader who ever lived had impact, but none like him. So is the world that much better off, is it that much different? I think it is. The unique thing about Jesus is that he didn’t come to fix all the worlds problems, he came to fix the primary problem and hope that we could take on the issues ourselves. It makes me think of that old saying, “give a man a fish, feed him for a day…teach a man to fish, and feed him for a lifetime.”

The way I see it is that Jesus could have radically ended world poverty and war and so many other issues as mankind knew it. But wouldn’t we would fall into the same sort of issues the moment he took off? Because there is something in us that is somehow broken. Something in the innate nature of mankind that needs some type of renovation. It is a heart and soul change that we require, and it is something that we cannot fix on our own. We have tried.

So maybe Jesus was not the Bono or Martin Luther King Jr. of the day, the social or cultural activist. Or maybe he was and we just didn’t recognize it by his language and his focus. Because he didn’t spend most of his time talking about mankind’s issues. Only one issue really, and only one solution. And somehow it is this paradoxical existence he talks about in this like now of the Kingdom of God that we can begin to live the lives we are intended to. That we can be the individuals, the families, the cities, and the countries that God had originally intended for us to be. And only through one thing, allowing Christ to inhabit our innermost being.

If Jesus is the greatest person who ever lived, then each person has the ability to tap into that very same life potential when Jesus Christ lives within them. The question is, do you have Jesus living in you? And if so, what is the trajectory of your life and what is the mission God has commissioned you to be so intently focused on?… Let me end with a quote from a man who’s heart and soul has been changed by Jesus,

“God did not solve ALL human problems, he solved the human problem. Jesus knew that if he could change us, he could change the world. If you could change us, it would end human suffering, and violence, and hunger, and poverty, disease. If you could just change us, it would change everything. So Jesus, thank you for doing the one thing only you could do. To come among us, to live a sinless and beautiful life. To allow yourself to be brutalized, beaten, tortured, mocked, crucified, to die on our behalf and then on the third day to be raised from the dead. So that through you, we might live, and live fully… May our lives fulfill our great destiny. That the world may never be the same again. Amen.” - Erwin McManus