Why changing our intentions can change the world

“We were upside down hanging like bats.” This is how one passenger described what happened when a Delta flight made a hard landing Monday afternoon in Toronto, lost a wing, burst into flames, and flipped onto its roof. Delta said twenty-one injured people were taken to local hospitals; nineteen were released by the next morning. Three had critical but non-life-threatening injuries, one of whom was a child. However, there were no fatalities.

If you’re like me, the last sentence changes how you read the rest of the paragraph.

In other news, a supercomputer simulation has predicted when humanity will go extinct. It foresees a day when rising temperatures, volcanic chaos, and an unrecognizable climate will make most of our planet uninhabitable for mammals. However, this cataclysmic apocalypse will not occur for another two hundred and fifty million years.

Again, if you’re like me, the last sentence changes how you read the rest of the paragraph.

One more example: US shoppers are dumping favorite brands over their political stances. According to a new poll, four in ten Americans have shifted their spending in recent months to align with their moral views. Unsurprisingly, boycotts usually come from the consumer base whose party is not in power in Washington.

Customers are therefore evaluating products through the lens of personal ideology rather than the product itself. For example, the backlash against Bud Light when it partnered with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney cost the parent company $395 million but had nothing to do with the taste of its beer.

“This is the hope of our calling”

It is human nature to focus on those parts of nature that affect us as humans. Evolutionary psychology would explain this as a manifestation of our instinct for survival. Pragmatists would encourage our focus on the parts of the world that work for us personally. Postmodern existentialists would say that the only dimension of the universe we can experience is that which directly affects us, so we naturally experience it on a more visceral level.

However, I think there’s another way to see the way we organize and manage our engagement with the larger world.

Jesus told his disciples, “I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit” (John 15:16). God intends us to be “a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work” (2 Timothy 2:21, my emphasis).

We know that our salvation is by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8) and “not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (v. 9). However, the next verse states, “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (v. 10, my emphasis).

“For good works” could be translated as, “for the purpose of accomplishing the works for which we are intended.” One scholar comments, “God marks out for each in his purposes beforehand the particular good works and the time which he sees best. God both makes ready by his providence the opportunities for the works, and makes us ready for their performance.”

In addition, “that we should walk in them” could be rendered, “that we should continue to accomplish them until they are completely fulfilled.” John Chrysostom (died AD 407) noted:

We need a virtue which shall last throughout and be extended on to our dying day. If we had to travel a road leading to a royal city, and then when we had passed over the greater part of it, were to flag and sit down near the very close, it were of no use to us. This is the hope of our calling . . . Otherwise it would profit us nothing.

All actions derive from a prior intention

God created you and me for “good works” specific to our personal lives and our place and time in the world. It is therefore only logical that we would focus more specifically on those events and circumstances which not only affect us but which we can affect.

Jesus was always present in the moment, wherever he went. The One who came to save the world ministered to one broken body and sinful soul at a time.

Here’s the problem: You and I are inundated every day with news from literally around the world. And fear-based programming is proven to attract attention and generate profits, in large part because our “negativity bias” instinctually looks for risks so we can avoid them. All of this in a time when we see more news in a day than our ancestors confronted in a lifetime.

Here’s why this matters.

John Locke, the famed British philosopher, argued that all actions derive from a prior intention. Unless external obstacles prevent us, he observed, “What follows after that follows in a chain of circumstances, linked one to another, all depending on the last determination of the will” (his emphasis).

However, when our intention is to better the world, the actions that are required feel as overwhelming as the task itself.

If the devil can’t make you bad

This is one way Satan uses our faith-driven compassion for the world against us. As the saying goes, if the devil can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy. If he can use the cacophony of bad news that swirls around us to distract us from the “good works” our Lord intends for us today, he’ll keep us from impacting our culture for Christ.

And, over time, he may convince us to abandon the effort of cultural transformation altogether.

When the entire universe feels dark, your light may seem inconsequential. If you then “put it under a basket,” everyone in your “house” loses (Matthew 5:15). Including you.

So, to employ Locke’s assertion, let’s begin the day by reframing our “intention.” Leo Tolstoy observed:

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

If our intention is to be more like Jesus today, and if we then ask God’s Spirit to transform us into the character of his Son, we can never be the same. Over time, the actions that derive from our intentions will impact the people we influence. And they will touch the people we cannot until a movement of culture-changing Christians multiplies around the world.

If you’re thinking God could never use your life in such a transformative way, that you’re too busy and the world is too broken to make a difference that matters, guess where that thought is coming from.

Quote for the day:

“Preachers are not salesmen, for they have nothing to sell. They are bearers of Good News.” —Billy Graham

Our latest website articles:

• “A flying beer can and the Lombardi Trophy: Joining God in redeeming all we experience”
• “The surprising reason young adults are more pro-marriage: A St. Valentine’s Day meditation on truth and transformation”
• “The civil war in Congo could soon reach a tipping point: How one of the world’s longest-running conflicts has roots beyond its borders”
• “A long, joyful obedience”
• “A review of ‘Dominion’ by Tom Holland: A secular humanist’s guide to how morality comes from Christianity”

Denison Forum

The power of a worldview to shape the world

High-level delegations from the US and Russia have begun meeting in what the Wall Street Journal calls the “highest-profile Russia talks since [the] Ukraine invasion.” Today’s discussions in Saudi Arabia could lead to an eventual summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The State Department described the talks as an opportunity to explore Russia’s intentions on the Ukraine conflict and other central issues rather than the start of a detailed negotiation over Kyiv’s future.

According to international relations scholar Michael C. Horowitz, Mr. Putin’s “intentions” center in his belief that an independent, democratic Ukraine is a threat to him and to Russia. Three years ago, he began the largest land invasion in Europe since World War II in response.

Mr. Putin alleges that NATO and the West broke promises in 1990 not to expand eastward beyond Germany, a claim Western leaders dispute. The flatlands to Russia’s west have enabled several invasions from Europe over the last five centuries; Putin therefore views NATO’s “encroachment” into Ukraine as threatening his nation’s security.

Ukraine and the West vehemently disagree, seeing Putin’s immoral and illegal invasion as a part of his metanarrative to elevate “Mother Russia”—and himself—on the world stage.

“Whatever does not kill you makes you stronger”

In other news, Israel yesterday eliminated Muhammad Shaheen, the head of Hamas’s Operations Department in Lebanon. According to Israeli security forces, Shaheen was planning attacks not only against Israeli citizens but also against Jewish targets outside of Israel.

As with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, once again we see the power of a worldview to shape the world. Hamas is not only convinced that Israeli citizens are complicit in a perceived theft of their land from its “rightful” Palestinian owners; they also view Jews themselves as “apes” and “pigs” (Qur’an 5:60; 2:65; 7:166) and claim that they control the world media. They blame Jews for “most of the revolutions we heard and hear about” and allege that they were behind World War I and World War II.

In short, Hamas is convinced that Jews are hostis humani generis, the enemies of humankind itself. Killing Jews anywhere in the world therefore advances their ideological agenda.

As a third example of the power of worldview, my wife and I recently watched the Netflix excellent limited series, All the Light We Cannot See. Based on Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller, it is set in Nazi-occupied France.

At one point, a young man is being groomed for Hitler’s SS through physical abuse and mental torture, all under the guise of Friedrich Nietzsche’s dictum, “Whatever does not kill you makes you stronger.” The Germans are portrayed as fanatically committed to Nietzsche’s Übermensch doctrine, by which our highest aspiration should be to become an “overcomer” who rules the passive nihilists that make up most of humanity.

This doctrine, coupled with Hitler’s fervent belief that the Jews were responsible for Germany’s defeat in World War I, motivated the rise of Naziism and the murder of six million Jews.

“A watchword, magnificent and mighty”

According to Scottish biblical scholar James Stewart,

Every new idea that has ever burst upon the world has had a watchword. Always there has been some word or phrase in which the very genius of the thing has been concentrated and focused, some word or phrase to blazon on its banners when it went marching out into the world. Islam had a watchword: “God is God, and Mohammed is his prophet.” The French Revolution had a watchword: “Liberty, equality, fraternity.” The democratic idea had a watchword: “Government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

Then he added:

The greatest idea that has ever been born upon the earth is the Christian idea. And Christianity came with a watchword, magnificent and mighty and imperial; and the watchword was, “the Kingdom of God.”

Stewart was right:

• Jesus announced, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17).
• He taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10) and to “seek first the kingdom of God” (v. 33).
• The Lord said of himself, “I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” (Psalm 46:10).

The psalmist declared, “God reigns over the nations; God sits on his holy throne” (Psalm 47:8). Note the present tenses. No matter the circumstances or appearances, God is right now “the King of the ages, immortal, invisible” (1 Timothy 1:17).

What to do when we’re afraid

Jesus came to “preach the good news of the kingdom of God” (Luke 4:43). Why is this kingdom “good news”? It tells us:

1. We have a king. Despite the tragedies and challenges of this broken world, there is purpose and order to the cosmos (cf. Colossians 1:16–17).
2. Unlike the autocrats and terrorists who seek to rule by force, this king knows and loves us (Psalm 139:13–16; Romans 5:8).
3. We can have a personal relationship with him that will save and transform us (John 1:12; 2 Corinthians 5:17).
4. He will bring this fallen world to an end one day when Jesus returns as “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Revelation 19:16).

Accordingly, we can pray with David,

“When I am afraid, I put my trust in you” (Psalm 56:3).

Of what are you “afraid” today?

Quote for the day:

“Christ liveth in me. And how great the difference—instead of bondage, liberty; instead of failure, quiet victories within; instead of fear and weakness, a restful sense of sufficiency in Another.” —Hudson Taylor

Our latest website articles:

• “The surprising reason young adults are more pro-marriage: A St. Valentine’s Day meditation on truth and transformation”
• “The civil war in Congo could soon reach a tipping point: How one of the world’s longest-running conflicts has roots beyond its borders”
• “A long, joyful obedience”
• “A review of ‘Dominion’ by Tom Holland: A secular humanist’s guide to how morality comes from Christianity”
• “What does the Bible say about love?”

Denison Forum