“That at that time ye were without Christ … having no hope, and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12)
The god of this world (aka Satan) is all about empowering people to be whoever they want to be. The one true God is all about empowering people to be all He wants them to be. And He wants them to be like His only begotten Son, who didn’t live to please Himself, but always did those things which pleased His Father. The world wants man to believe in himself. God wants man to believe upon Christ for a radical change in the depth of His being. Christ comes into our life to change who we are.
With man at the helm this world will never get better. Man, in and of himself, will never steer this world into some kind of utopian paradise where there is no more greed, hatred, and violence. The only hope for the world is the one that God has given us. Jesus is mankind’s hope. Those who receive Jesus are empowered to become like Jesus, and when the whole world is filled only with people like Jesus we will have heaven on earth. No one will live in fear of what another will do to them. All will love each other because, like Jesus, they love God.
Those who are of the world are presently in the grip of great deception. They believe there is hope for them to do and be something great and good. But at their core they will continue to be self-serving individuals until Christ has dethroned them as ruler of their own life. He alone is our hope of becoming good and great. Except He is in us and we are in Him we have no potential to please God. When Jesus enters, the center of our world shifts – we no longer live to please ourselves, we live to please our Creator. We are now citizens of the kingdom of God, ready to live for eternity on a new earth wherein there will only be righteousness. We will not clamor about our rights, we will honor God’s right to rule His world, His way.