EARTH IS A BATTLEFIELD with Scott Christiansen
SCOTT CHRISTIANSEN Author, Planet In Distress
I have here, a handful of dirt--
a handful of soil actually. It's alive, it smells alive.
I've taken it from this park-- hopefully I'm not going to get in trouble for doing so--
and the thing is, there's a lot going on in this handful of soil,
including pitched war.
That's right. War.
There's a battle going on in here.
There's hundreds of millions, maybe billions, of micro-organisms.
There's predator and prey. Some of them, amazingly, are forming teams,
and they're engaging in chemical and biological warfare,
one type of organism against another.
Or they're engaging in fierce one-on-one battles, where the winner eats the loser.
In these fights, you can see specialized and sophisticated weapons.
You can see defenses, measures, counter-measures, tactics, responses.
What's going on in this handful of dirt, frankly, is a hellish nightmare
of conflict, struggle, and death.
But the thing is, what goes on in this handful of soil is no different, really,
than what goes on throughout all of the natural world.
This is representative of the relationships of the creatures of the earth,
from the smallest right on up to the largest.
All the earth, in fact, is a battleground.
Everywhere, we're seeing predator and prey,
we see conflict and fear, we see disease and parasites, we see suffering and death,
and for Christians, that's a problem.
In fact, it's a profound problem.
You see, the Bible tells us in Genesis chapter one
how God created the earth.
It also tells us in Job 38:7, that when He created it, the angels sang.
And from this, we conclude that it was so beautiful, so special,
that it dazzled the angels. It was so good in fact,
that God called it "very good" at the conclusion of His creation work.
Now, the Bible tells us that God is love.
In other words, the essence of His character is love.
He is also generous, He is supportive, He is nurturing, He is protective of us,
but more than anything else, He is the very definition of love.
In fact, in John 3:16, the most memorized verse in the Bible,
the Bible says that God profoundly loves the world,
which includes humans, and everything else He created--
we're talking the world that He loved, not just mankind.
So taking all this into account,
let's ask a critical and fundamental question:
What kind of world would God create?
If God's character is the definition of love,
then really, He could create nothing but a loving, harmonious, elegant,
supportive, nurturing, amazing world, right?
A character of perfect love cannot create something
that is contrary to its character.
So what God created would necessarily reflect His character, right?
Further, we can understand that love,
or more broadly, let's call it "loving-kindness",
would be God's organizing principle for the operation of His earth.
In other words, love, or loving-kindness,
would define how the world fundamentally operates.
It would define the relationships between creatures,
and even define the operation of the natural systems
that support life on earth,
such as our atmosphere, our hydrosphere, our oceanic systems, our climate systems.
If God created a world that operated on a system that's contrary to love,
then logically, God would not be who the Bible says He is.
And if God created something that was contrary to His character,
then the angels would not be dazzled by it nor would they respond by singing.
They would in fact, respond in shock and confusion instead.
But the world doesn't operate on a system of loving-kindness,
we know that just by looking all around us.
Because when we look around us, we see struggle, we see fear, we see fighting,
we see disease,
we see parasites and death.
The world calls this system, "the survival of the fittest".
But when I look at everything going on, I see more than just individual struggle.
The system that I see is, in fact, an intentional system.
And if we examine it carefully,
we see that the ultimate organizing principle of this system,
is selfishness.
Which is the exact opposite of what the Bible says God's character is.
So, here's our dilemma:
If God created the world as we observe it,
then the Bible is false,
and God is a monster who is unworthy of our worship.
Full-stop.
It's either that, or He is who He says He is,
and the Bible is true,
but something happened to change the organizing principle of the earth
from loving-kindness, to selfishness.
If this second choice is true,
then it raises a whole slew of questions--
important questions.
Including, "Why would an all powerful God, allow His earth to be twisted
and perverted like that?
And how is that consistent with a God that the Bible says has a character of love?"
Well, these are really, truly important questions,
and we'll begin to take them up, in this series.
In the course of doing so,
we'll eventually come back to this handful of soil.
Because there's more that it can teach us about the character of God,
and the organizing principle of the earth.
It can in fact, teach us something about ourselves.
SCOTT CHRISTIANSEN Author, Planet In Distress
Here I am in Fort Knox, off of Bucksport, Maine.
This is not the Fort Knox with all the gold in it.
What this fort has a lot of is big, huge granite blocks. It's a civil war era fort.
It's got gun-ports all around it, and the walls are so thick
that if I reach through those gun-ports,
I can't possibly touch the outside of the wall.
It's massive.
Well, this fort is a fitting place to take up our discussion, in this video series,
because one of the central points in this series is that Earth is a battlefield.
In fact, all the life forms on Earth-- from the micro-organisms in our soil,
all the way up to the massive blue whale--
function within a framework, a paradigm if you will,
of predator and prey, struggle and fear,
while also dealing with disease, and parasites,
and the constant threat of death.
There is a pitched war going on, and what we're asking is,
"Where is God in all of this?"
Well, let's go back to what I said a minute ago--
the earth is a battle field; a battlefield between opposing forces.
And on this battlefield is playing out a war that we can barely see,
a war between God and Satan.
To understand the earth, to understand God, to understand our lives,
we first have to understand this war, and our role in it,
because everything, everything, everything, that happens on Earth
happens in the context of this great war.
This war, oddly enough, started in heaven,
where Satan was an angel, the highest ranking angel actually,
and he was then named Lucifer.
We find that he had everything, and functioned in a perfect universe.
We also find that he wasn't satisfied.
He wanted more.
The Bible tells us that Lucifer was perfect in all his ways.
This means his thoughts, his feelings, his behavior.
So perfect in all his ways was he, that right up until iniquity was found in him,
was he perfect.
When iniquity was found in him, he began to be called Satan,
which means "adversary."
What iniquity was found in Satan?
Selfishness.
Lucifer decided he wanted to be like God; he wanted to be "like the Most High"
is the way it's phrased in Isaiah 14:14.
We can understand that Lucifer went to work undermining God's character,
making accusations that God was not what He said He was.
By denying the essential goodness of God's character,
Satan attempted to erode trust toward God,
and incite rebellion against Him.
How else do you rise above God, but to bring Him down?
Satan's undermining was successful. We understand from Revelation 12:4,
that a third of the angels were deceived by this cunning plot.
Well, here's a thing which fixates me a bit:
logically, Satan could not have recruited angels to his side
simply by making a charge against God.
He couldn't just say, "God is bad", and have angels follow him.
So logically, Satan had to also offer a better way (his words)
of organizing the universe than what God had put in place.
So what was this competing system?
We can find out by following what Satan did.
What Satan did was press his attacks, and as we're told in Revelation 12:7,
war broke out in heaven.
Ty Gibson has an excellent study on this subject, and he points out in this text,
that the word translated as "war", is "polemos" in Greek,
which is related to the words like "polemic" and "politics".
And so the conflict wasn't primarily a war of physical engagement or force of arms,
it was mostly a political war, a propaganda campaign,
a character assassination scheme.
Satan waged his war by telling lies about the fundamental character of God,
and by offering a different way.
Looking at Satan's rebellion, in Ezekiel 28:16,
we find that Lucifer was cast out of heaven because he sinned.
In 1 John 3:4, we find that John defines sin as "lawlessness."
In other words, Satan rebelled against God's law.
In Romans 13:10, Paul defines God's law as love.
So Satan made war on God's character.
But my studies have lead me to understand that this war was not only on God,
he also made war on God's paradigm, His organizing principle for the universe--
His organizing principle of love, or more broadly, loving-kindness.
In a way, Satan had to do this because God's character of love
was reflected in everything He did in creation.
We're told in Revelation 12:9, that Satan and his angels,
when they lost the war in heaven, were cast to the earth.
Here, Satan deceived man into sinning.
When Satan overcame man, he took our dominion of the earth,
and according to Corinthians 4:4, he's now the "god" of this world,
that's god with a lowercase 'g'.
As god of this world, and as the former highest angel,
Satan had sufficient power, and sufficient freedom,
to twist creation, and put into place his own operating system,
his operating paradigm.
In other words, Satan had a chance to pit his claimed system, his paradigm,
against God's paradigm.
And how do we know what Satan's paradigm is?
Well, we only need to look at what Satan did to the earth.
Looking around us, we see fierce competition, we see struggle,
we see fighting, we see predator, we see prey,
we see disease, and suffering and death.
The world calls it survival of the fittest but it is more than that.
I conclude that it is an intentionally designed system,
whose organizing principle is selfishness.
What we see all around us then,
is the continuation on Earth of the rebellion
that Satan started in heaven.
On the one side, we have God and His system of love--
the loving-kindness paradigm.
On the other side is Satan, and his system based on selfishness--
the selfishness paradigm.
What are the implications of a world run on the selfishness paradigm?
Well, that's what we'll take up in the next video in this series,
when we'll look at just how big a deal Satan's paradigm is.
How it pervades everything, everything, here on Earth,
and what that means for you and me, at this point in prophetic history.
SCOTT CHRISTIANSEN Author, Planet In Distress
Here we are, in the Washington, New Hampshire church,
which is this charming old church with its beautiful acoustics.
This is a church where Sabbath-keeping Adventists first met
and eventually it became the first Seventh-day Adventist Church,
a very historic church.
This church hasn't changed in many, many years.
It still doesn't have electricity.
It hasn't changed.
But we can't say the same thing for creation.
You see, when God created the world, it was a really, really different place
than the one we live in now.
For one thing, it didn't rain.
It's hard for us to imagine a world like that.
But we're told in Genesis 2:5 and 6
that a mist of sorts would rise up from the ground,
and it sounds similar to hydroponic systems
which is pretty much the most ideal way of growing plants
that's currently known to man.
But that wasn't the only difference. Animals were created as vegetarians.
Think about that for a moment; they only ate plants. All of them.
It says so in Genesis 1:29 and 30, so yeah, according to Genesis 1,
the earth was a really, really different place.
These texts though, are really a challenge to some people.
Scientists for instance, or those with a scientific bent of mind.
Most scientist who read these texts will respond by saying
that we just don't observe in the world what the Bible describes.
Well, okay, fair enough.
There's herbivores like sheep, horses and elephants,
okay, but dogs, birds, fish...
people will be quick to point out that most of these animals
were designed to eat other animals.
End of discussion.
So, because there is a disparity between what we see,
and what the Bible says,
scientists are quick, and many people are quick, to dismiss the Bible.
Far too quick actually,
because there's a very good explanation for this.
The Bible goes on to recount how sin entered the world,
and how that changed the world, literally.
Because the consequence of sin is disease, it's suffering, it's conflict,
ultimately it's death.
So, let's take this and think this through a little, on our own,
and the place to start thinking, this disparity,
the place to start thinking, is with the character of God.
And we know that the character of God is complex. After all, He is God.
But we also know it's ultimately simple, because God is love.
So, let's take a look at what we know of God,
and apply it to the operation of His world.
Doing that, we can say that in God's world there's absolutely no fear,
no domination, no predation, no suffering, no disease, no parasites.
That would mean that animals eat plants and seeds,
as the Bible says was originally the case.
It would also mean that some plants, and maybe even some animals,
would produce specialized food for other animals.
In other words, they would produce a blessing.
Filter feeders comes to mind:
animals producing food for filter feeders.
But so far, we have only defined God's world by what is absent--
fear and predation and such, and not by what is present.
So let's add to our model,
and to do that, we need to again turn to the character of God.
Based on what we know of God, we can say that His world would involve generosity,
and mutual care.
Sharing, if you will.
Each life form would provide a blessing to other life forms.
Essentially, to get to God's world you have to reverse
part of the world as we know it; a substantial part of the world.
In our world, which is fundamentally based on selfishness,
most everything takes, takes--
but in a world without sin, in a world based on the character of God,
everything would give.
Now taking what we know of the character of Satan,
we can see that the current earth functions more or less as a pyramid,
with the bottom of the pyramid giving the most,
and the benefits flowing to the top of the pyramid.
The powerful take and the powerless give.
We see this model throughout the natural world, we see the food chain,
but we also see it throughout human society, human economy,
where every level of the pyramid takes from the levels below it.
By applying what we know of God,
we can see that we take this model, and we invert it,
where the pyramid is upside down.
Where everything blesses and gives to everything else,
and where goodness flows from the stronger to the weaker,
which is to say God gives more than anything or anyone else.
This model, this upside down pyramid, these blessings flowing,
is consistent with what we know of the character of God.
For a world like this to work,
all life forms on it would have to have to be returned from their current
twisted and perverted states, back to their original created states.
At the same time, plants would have to be returned to their original state.
In fact, everything would have to be returned to its original state,
and that is exactly what God says He'll do in Revelation 21:1,
when the earth is created new without any trace or stain of sin.
What we'll see, is a complete elimination of the selfishness paradigm.
There won't be one thing that just takes.
And what we will is a pure expression of the loving-kindness paradigm.
The result of that is given in Isaiah 11:9, where it says, referring to the new Earth,
"They will not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain."
An Earth that isn't a battlefield?
You know, to me that just sounds really, really good. I mean really good.
Next, we'll look at the selfishness paradigm
as reflected in our lives, our work, our play, our money, our egos--
we're going to look at all of that.
And we'll briefly explore some of the truly critical questions
about how Christians relate to a world that operates on the selfishness paradigm,
including this question: "How can Christians live out the character of God,
and constantly give, in a world that only wants to take?"
SCOTT CHRISTIANSEN Author, Planet In Distress
As we look at the world, and its selfishness-based systems of operation,
there's one thing that we need to keep in mind,
and that's this:
Selfishness is the ultimate expression of unsustainability.
This is because, by its very nature, selfishness collapses in on itself.
So the things that the world relentlessly pursues: wealth, power, status,
fame, domination-- those will all come to nothing in the end,
precisely because they are the very definition of selfishness.
Now, selfishness is self-defeating.
This probably puts the plainest face on the folly of man's rebellion though sin.
This world will end,
and judging by the fulfillment of prophecy that we see all around us,
it's going to end soon.
So, what you see behind me, this town, the things around me, the trees,
all around us, that's going to end.
And judging by the fulfillment of prophecy that we see all around us,
it's going to end soon.
Now, about a hundred and fifty years ago,
there were Seventh-day Adventists that were meeting.
The "Adventist" part comes from people who believed
that Jesus was returning very soon, and the Seventh-day part
comes from people who believe in the fourth commandment:
worshiping God on the seventh day, the Sabbath, as He commands.
So that was about a hundred and fifty years ago,
and they understood that there was work that urgently needed to be done,
at that time.
They understood that we are all warriors for one side or another,
and that we're also the stakes in this battle.
The battle they saw building, is now nearing its culmination.
That being the case,
we live in a time when there are things that urgently need to be done,
and we live in a time when we need to see things clearly.
So let's dig a little deeper.
Let's look at the systems of the world today, through the clarifying lens
of the selfishness paradigm.
And we're going to start with an easy one.
Capitalism.
Now, capitalism is the financial organizing system
almost universally employed throughout the world.
And, quite interestingly, it actually requires selfishness to work.
The system requires that everyone act in their own self-interest,
and that the actions and reactions be predictable, and based on this expectation.
Capitalism rewards those who try hardest to grasp and hold resources.
Now, capitalism itself isn't really good or bad,
but if we're going to put things in either a loving-kindness paradigm,
or a selfishness paradigm (in other words, how the earth operates) then clearly,
capitalism belongs in the selfishness paradigm.
Now let's try another one: our political system.
Now, particularly as practiced here in America, it's been said that politics
is the process that we use to decide who gets what.
Perhaps you'll agree that the system as it currently exists
is less about competent administration of our civil institutions,
and more about a fierce competition for power and resources.
It's hard to see any loving- kindness in this system, so clearly,
we can put this in the selfishness paradigm category.
Ultimately, all of society's systems can be evaluated
in comparison to the selfishness paradigm.
But interestingly, so can also most of our individual actions.
How we drive, to pick something at random.
Are we selfish in our driving, or do we express loving-kindness?
How about our conversations?
Do we engage others in order to be able talk about ourselves,
or are we actually interested in the other person, and ask after them?
How about parenting?
If a parent-- an overworked parent, a tired parent--
but if a parent treats a child dismissively,
in order to avoid longer interactions, and tries dominating them
instead of taking time and energy to engage with them,
what paradigm does that belong in?
What about relationship dynamics between married people?
It seems every action, every thought, whether large or small,
can fit into one or the other of these two systems.
The question then, is whether we are intentional, steadily intentional,
about recognizing this divide, and increasingly living our lives
in the loving-kindness paradigm.
If we do that, we'll be trying to be givers of blessings in a world that only takes.
No one can do that, at least not for very long.
So how can it be done?
Well, by fixing our eyes on Christ.
By making our relationship with Him our most important goal,
and our most valuable possession.
Ultimately, we must be so close to Christ, that He gives blessings through us.
That is how we can give and give in a world that only wants to take,
because it is Christ working with us and through us, who does the giving.
That's who He is, that's what He does.
How different from the rest of the world are we going to be,
if we're truly trying to live within the loving-kindness paradigm?
We're going to be really, really different, that's the answer.
We'll truly be a peculiar people in comparison to the majority of the world.
But then how else can we be an example?
If we are not different as a result of what we believe,
then what's the use of believing?
After all, Christianity is not some mere sprinkling of pixie dust
on top of what the world does and calling it God's way.
Ultimately, we are or will be, of one paradigm or another.
We're going to be either sheep, or we're going to be goats.
In the end, we either have Christ's loving- kindness, or we have Satan's selfishness.
At the conclusion, there's no middle path, there's no lukewarm response.
In this light, the implications of a hard look at our lives,
through the selfishness paradigm, are truly significant, maybe revolutionary.
The message is aimed at us from all sides that we should be chasing
what the world is chasing.
Some even say that the pursuit of wealth is a Christian right and duty,
and success is proof of God's blessing.
But no.
Christ was emphatic that His kingdom was not of this world,
and in fact, that is what we're going to be looking at
next in this series:
the contest between Christ's paradigm and Satan's paradigm in the Bible.
How we see both of those at work in the world today,
and the challenge of being in the world, but not of the world.
SCOTT CHRISTIANSEN Author, Planet In Distress
I'm sitting beside the Sabbath Trail, which is this really cool trail,
that starts and ends at the Washington Seventh-day Adventist Church,
in Washington, New Hampshire,
which is the first Seventh-day Adventist church,
the oldest Seventh-day Adventist church.
And this is a trail that winds through the woods
for about a mile, it's got twenty-two separate stops on it,
each of which has a part
in tracing the Sabbath through the Bible, through the ages.
If you ever get a chance to visit, I highly recommend it.
For our purposes, this trail is an ideal spot to continue
our look at the selfishness paradigm.
We have to wait to see a pure expression of the loving-kindness paradigm,
God's paradigm-- we won't see that until heaven.
But today, even though Satan has twisted things around severely,
God, as master designer of the earth, can still be seen.
The author Ellen White, in the book Desire of Ages
talks about how there's both good and evil in the world,
and we can see God in nature still.
Where the only thing that is, or can completely be evil,
is the hearts of those humans who decide to be wholly evil.
And here is what she says on page twenty of her book:
she says, "Now sin has marred God's perfect work,
yet that handwriting remains.
Even now, all created things declare the glory of His excellence.
There is nothing, save the selfish heart of man, that lives unto itself.
No bird that cleaves the air, nor animal that moves upon the ground,
but ministers to some other life.
There is no leaf of the forest, or lowly blade of grass but has its ministry.
Every tree and shrub and leaf pours forth that element of life
without which neither man nor animal could live.
And man and animal, in turn, minister to the life of the tree and shrub and leaf.
The flowers breathe fragrance and unfold their beauty in blessing to the world,
the sun sheds its light to gladden a thousand worlds.
The ocean, itself the source of all of our springs and fountains,
receives the streams from every land, but takes to give.
The mists ascending from its bosom fall in showers to water the earth,
that it may bring forth and bud."
So, we can even still see God in His earth.
And we can see Him, even in the soil, if you'll remember video number one.
The soil is full of micro-organisms, there are probably literally billions of them
in a handful.
And while there is war going on in our soil,
and war going on at every level all around us,
so also is there a little cooperation,
a little sharing, a little passing of blessings.
We see a little bit of that paradigm-- God's paradigm.
We can see bacteria capturing nitrogen from the air to make it available to plants
who then provide the bacteria with nutrients, and fungus in the soil,
the filaments of fungus cycle nutrients and enhance plant life.
Plants provide food to the fungus; symbiotic relationships.
So even though the tapestry of creation is tattered and faded,
we can still catch a glimpse of God's paradigm in it.
And in catching this glimpse, we can better understand
that He wants us to return to a much, much better world
than the one that we now live in.
But, for now we're here, in the midst of this war between Christ and Satan,
this pitched battle, which started in heaven and will soon end, praise the Lord,
here on Earth.
And this war has been raging without pause.
And we're going to look at a couple of the skirmishes
between these paradigms we've been talking about, as recorded in the Bible.
We'll start with the temptation of Adam and Eve, in the garden of Eden,
in Genesis 3:3 and 4.
Satan cleverly offered to Adam and Eve an alternate paradigm,
disguised though it was.
To this first couple, who had everything, he offered more.
He told them that God was a liar.
And he told them that by disobeying Him, they would receive the amazing thing
He was keeping from them, and that they would become like gods,
knowing good and evil.
Well, they fell for it.
And they were ashamed, they were appalled,
and they were incredibly sorrowful as a result.
God then pronounced a broad-ranging curse in Genesis 3:14 through 19.
But within that curse is something very, very interesting.
He put enmity between us and Satan.
I read this to say, in part, that God gave us the ability to resist Satan,
who had just conquered us.
Our friend in Maine, Arnet Mathers, who has studied this deeply,
and he concludes that Satan didn't see that coming.
That our ability to resist him after he conquered us, was a surprise to him.
That perspective gives us a sense of just how dynamic this war was,
and is.
Next, going to the book of Job, we see Satan claiming that Job serves God
only through selfishness, and asserting that Job follows God
only because God has blessed him, and protected him.
Note that Satan is accusing God
of employing the selfishness paradigm to get followers.
Wow!
God responds by saying that He will remove His protection from Job.
And eventually, Satan takes everything from Job except his life.
But even though Job regrets his being born, he does not curse God.
Satan and his paradigm were defeated, soundly,
and God restored to Job what he had lost.
But the Bible's ultimate hand to hand combat between Christ and Satan,
the ultimate clash of paradigms?
That's what we're going to look at next in this series.
It's fascinating.
Join me.
SCOTT CHRISTIANSEN Author, Planet In Distress
Here I am, sitting in front of the graveyard
of the Washington, New Hampshire Seventh-day Adventist church.
Now, a graveyard is a burial ground that's next to a church, attached to a church.
A cemetery is a burial ground that is not attached to a church.
So I'm definitely sitting in front of a graveyard here.
And what a place this will be, what a tumultuous place this will be,
at the resurrection, where people come out
absolutely joyous when Christ comes.
And for that reason, this is a good place for us to conclude our discussion.
And I want to talk about the limits of life, actually.
Emergency room physicians have a saying to remember the limits of human endurance,
and it goes something like this, "Three minutes without oxygen,
three days without water, thirty days without food."
It's a memorable saying, but it's not quite accurate.
The absolute limit of human endurance without food is right about forty days.
And if we look at Matthew 4:1 through 11,
we're told that Christ was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,
where He fasted for forty days.
So we know He was at the absolute, outer edge of life, he was profoundly weakened.
But at the same time, we also know that He was closer than ever to His Father,
through prayer.
And it is in this state of weakness and strength, that Satan joins battle with Him.
At stake is the universe. Literally.
Satan pushes his paradigm:
get or take what we want or need, pursuing our desires
at the expense of those who are weaker-- that's his model.
Satan came at Christ three times in the desert, when He was so weak.
First, he tempted with food.
And it was an overwhelming temptation since Christ's body was at the very edge
of the eat or die stage.
But it didn't work.
Christ responded with a quote from Scripture, so Satan tempted Him
with something far more insidious.
He cast doubt on whether God really loved, and would care for Christ.
He implied the necessity of selfishness, and in watching out for ourselves.
This temptation, too, Christ met by quoting Scripture.
Then came the third and the final temptation.
The fiercest clash of these two paradigms.
Satan showed Christ the results of his earthly paradigms:
the mighty kingdoms, the striving people, the struggling that had built great societies,
and accumulated great wealth.
He said Christ could have it all if only He would worship Satan.
In other words, if only He would acknowledge
that Satan's paradigm was superior, and worth having;
if only He would acknowledge that Satan's way was better.
Well, praise God.
Christ did not succumb.
And Satan and his paradigm did not prevail.
The war rages on now in its final battle, with you and I as the warriors,
on one side or the other, and with us also as the prize in the war.
The Bible's very clear in regard to what places us on one side or another,
but I want to add one more indication.
And that is whether or not
we fundamentally want to operate under a loving-kindness paradigm,
or a selfishness paradigm.
Whether or not our hearts pull us to give, and love, or to take, and control.
This war started out as a charge against the character of God,
and an assertion that there was a better way.
It remains a war, over just those things.
And so here's the question for you:
Does your heart naturally pull you toward a loving-kindness paradigm,
where you give, where you bless,
where you nourish, and where Christ gives through you?
Or does your heart naturally pull you toward a selfishness paradigm,
where you take, where you accumulate, where you control?
Or are you still conflicted-- some mixture of the two, somewhere in the middle?
In the end, we will all be one or the other,
and if you are fighting the pull of the world, the good news is
you don't have to fight alone.
In fact the battle, and the war, have already been won for you.
Jesus was God made into human flesh, to overcome the principle of selfishness
in real life experiences.
While on earth, He battled every temptation we battle,
and He remained sinless.
Then on the cross, He became sin for us to put to death in our hearts
the root of all sin-- the self.
And through His victory on the cross, the war with Satan was won.
Even if the final battle of the war is not yet concluded, the war is won.
I'm Scott Christiansen, and I hope you have enjoyed this video series.
I hope it gives you something to think about.