Our Highest Potential

The Highest Potential is almost immeasurable. Not even the cold vastness of space has and will stop us. Of course we’ve had help in certain areas; whether they are divine and/or celestial. We have created a way to destroy our own planet. Should we ever master interplanetary space travel, we have the opportunity to destroy other planets also. A little closer to home, we have found ways to halt, cure, or even reverse almost every disease known to human kind. We have means – although very little interest – to explore the deepest depths of our oceans, and the highest peaks of our mountains. We have means to travel the expanse of our planet, through flight, in almost one whole day. We have created the internet; a way to communicate with anybody on this planet in seconds! Perhaps that is even our reverse Babel. That would mean the reversal of one of God’s most significant curses (seriously I don’t think that is the case, but it makes for a good argument).
But are any of these potential greatest achievements our highest potential? We also have the extremely efficient ability to kill. Regardless of serial killers, there is the military. Israel has the highest technical military in the world. China or perhaps North Korea has the largest Army in the world. And we as a country have the highest fire power of any army in the world. Killing has become an art form for us. Watching the History Channel is enough to convince anybody of these things. As a race, we have a long history of killing each other.
We have other means of killing each other besides war. We have poverty and disease. Many times these two elements are hand in hand; but not always. Common diseases like polio, hepatitis, small pox, and malaria have vaccines, but because of poverty, people die from them everyday. Poverty, and lack of education, and a lack of moral based highly financed institutions create environments where sexually transmitted diseases are rampant. More children in Africa are now dieing of HIV/AIDS than starvation. The main reason that is, is because they are being born with it. I heard on TV one time that 14 Children, on the continent of Africa are dieing every second. That is intense. Over a thousand children have died since I started righting this article ten minutes ago. Poverty, the abundance of HIV/AIDS, and untreated diseases such as polio and hepatitis could all be ended in around twenty years (according to Bono on the Oprah show). That is an intense thought. Not only in Africa could this happen, but world wide. Instead of using our armies to fight for democracy, or the spread of religion, we should be fighting regimes that halt and interfere with the end of poverty. I do have to admit, that war might be the solution, but it is not one that I advocate. Taking lives to save lives is hardly an answer, unless it is a permanent solution, I suppose.
I have had my thoughts of pacifistic-ness versus a biblical out look on war challenged. My thinking is how can you love an enemy by killing, interrogating, or imprisoning them? If you are supposed (biblically speaking) treat an enemy the way you would want yourself treated, then I suppose also that it would be gentle and righteously. However, in reading C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity, I have been highly influenced to think otherwise. His argument stands at this (I find it a little complicated): To love your enemy, you must love them as you would love yourself. If you love yourself as a Christian, then in respect to God, say, if you murdered someone, then you would want yourself judged guilty and take the biblical responsibility and have yourself punished to death (I am terribly sorry for the offensive run-on sentence). He says, “It is therefore, in my opinion, perfectly right for a Christian judge to sentence a man to death or a Christian soldier to kill an enemy…It is no good quoting ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ There are two Greek words: the Ordinary word to kill and the word to murder.” He goes on to say that Christ used the word murder in the three gospels that he talks about it. Lewis says that he has been told that there is the same distinction in Hebrew. He furthers his argument by saying that not all sexual intercourse is adultery, and that Jesus, when talking to soldiers, never once condemned them for being a soldier. Then Lewis says, “War is a dreadful thing, and I can respect an honest pacifist, thought I think he is entirely mistaken.” He furthers his argument, and it is a little back and forth, but I have such high respect for C.S. Lewis that I have to seriously consider his argument. He mentions that we should wish our enemy well, yet when in war, we should kill him.
Now that I write all this out, I see that his thinking is somewhat flawed. How can we love somebody, like we love ourselves, while killing them, if they are our enemy at war, and wish them well? How can we serve them while killing them? The only way we could kill, in consideration of Lewis’ argument, would have to be by considering our enemy evil. If he is evil, then he would deserve death. Granted, the bible does mention that we are by nature evil, and all deserving the wrath of God, sans Christ; but, that would be an extremely self-righteous thing. I suppose that if I am a “Christian” soldier, and they are not, then they are still in their unrighteousness, and at that point killing them would be the work of God.?! I really am still just as confused. Obviously I need to pray on this and continue to study the scripture.
Regardless, I think that our highest potential is that of the final Act of Christ as a man, and that is to take on the punishment of the sins of mankind, even though we don’t deserve it. Jesus was murdered for the sake of our essential need for the forgiveness of mankind, by God. We, by nature deserve what Jesus got, and even more so, the destruction of our souls. He did this for people who will not even in there lifetime ever react to what he did. This IS our highest potential; to die for the well being of people who hate us. This is to me, one of the dark secrets of Christianity that nobody wants to talk about. It doesn’t make rational sense if that is true, but yet, that is what Jesus did.
The bible mentions that this concept won’t make sense to the non-convert. It says that the person who doesn’t understand what Jesus really did will not understand what we should do for others. I believe that this is true. In fact, I don’t expect my own family to understand this concept, being that I am the only bible bases Christian in my immediate family (not my wife and child, but my brothers and parents).
To give ones life for someone is difficult. One time, I mentioned to my ultimately best friend, that I was being challenged by loving one of the Christian leaders in my life. In what I can see, his hypocrisy is rampant. However, I still feel that if the opportunity came that he could only live by my dieing, I would take that opportunity. I would die for the salvation of his soul. The challenge by my BFF was “If you can die for him, then you should be able to live for him.” That is where the ultimate challenge comes in. It is far easier to say that you’d take a bullet for someone, then to say that you will be devoted to them and their well being – much harder. When he said this, I felt challenged beyond what I have ever felt before. In fact, to confess, I still work hard and not judging this brother (in the Lord!).
So, what are we to do with this Highest Potential? First, we must work hard at fully understand the secret of the Cross of Christ. Then, we must examine our own lives’ and make the changes of heart that we must make; of course this can only be done through the study of scripture, prayer, and a willingness to please God. I think that unless we are never exposed to Christ, and I would say even then, we all are able to fulfill our Greatest Potential: the giving of our life for another.