It is the mood of our times to aspire to be world changers. We are supposed to irrevocably change things for the better. Even in the church.
Each generation of the modern era has been filled with dreams of utopia: we can fix this once and for all.
In 1938, Neville Chamberlain led the UK to make a disastrous treaty with Hitler’s Nazi Germany.
His description lives on as a farcical response to a disastrous compromise: “Peace in our time.”
But as the whole world now knows, peace does not come through compromise with evil. Neither does it come through our inner ability to change the world.
If we are to change this world, we must begin by uprooting evil in the field that we know.
Jesus said it this way: “If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off” (Matt. 5:29–30).
It is true that God has and does often raise up heroes who introduce monumental change in our world. There is a place for that.
Nonetheless, it seems to me that true change often comes when believers commit themselves to uprooting sin in their own lives, bringing light in their own community and fighting sin where they see it.
We cannot control the weather for tomorrow. We do not know what challenges will come in days ahead.
But we can see the weeds in our garden, and we can root them out by the Spirit.
Only then can we have peace in our time.
By Pastor Griffin Gulledge
FBC Madison, Georgia
EDITOR’S NOTE — Excerpt from the blog post “Uprooting Evil in the Fields We Know” at griffingulledge.com.
