When I'm in Charge

Sometimes when I am teaching one of my classes I make a little joke that starts out, "When I am finally in charge of the world, the first thing that I will do......" It is usually over something trivial, but that fits into a larger point.  So it may be "When I am finally in charge of the world, the first thing that I am going to do is change the name from Planet Earth to Planet Aqua."  (It makes sense if you think about it)

This usually gets one of a couple responses from the teenagers in class; either a question about how I will be in charge of the world (Answer - I have a plan but I don't like to talk about it)  or some question like, "Really?  THAT is your TOP priority?" but most of the time, all I get is eye rolls.  And that's ok, they get the point.

I wonder if You or I were actually put in charge of the world, what we would actually do with all of that power,  They say that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts, absolutely.  Or in the words of Spiderman, "With great power comes great responsibility." In the US our government has a system of checks and balances.  We have a general belief that any one person really can't handle it all themselves.  So they spend more time checking and balancing each other than governing, but maybe that is for the best.  They say that the American system of government is the worst system out there, except for all of the others.

So there is a scene that plays out in small town restaurants across the country.  A group of people sit around a table in the corner drinking coffee, having the occasional piece of pie and solving the problems.  It's all there; taxes, foreign policy, welfare reform, immigration, health care.... all of it.  And these guys have the solutions,  Maybe our problems could be solved if we created a new political party.  We can call it the "Old Guys Drinking Coffee Party" and we will put these guys in charge.

Of course at that point, there might be a different group sitting around complaining about them.

 

Of course there was a time when one person was given authority over all of the Earth.  When Jesus arose from the grave he proclaimed that all authority had been given to Him.  But he didn't use the authority to change the name or to fix the welfare system or to stop illegal immigrants from crossing borders.  He gave us two instructions: 1. Love God and 2. Love each other.  

Watch this video from Pastor Chris.

Jesus had been given all authority, he could have done anything with it, and he chose to command us to love.  God first, then each other.  I suppose that if we started there, most of the other problems would fall in line.  We can get around to renaming the planet later.