Real Champions Needed

What the world needs now are everyday champions. It has proven to be powerless to rescue itself from ongoing wars, bloodshed, hatred, ignorance, intolerance, poverty, and all other destructive instruments which diminish peoples’ freedom, rights, and lives. Under the guise of the world’s new agenda of anything goes, even the ideologies that sanction intolerance, persecution, torture or terrorism are being established as legitimate. People who are oppressed by tyrannical regimes have watched their ambassadors become the lawmakers for the world and even become members of the Human Rights Commission in the United Nations. Dictatorship is now accepted as inevitable and dictators do not need to abandon their cruelty anymore since everything is accepted as “right” by the politically correct politicians and intellectuals in the Western world.

The promise of postmodernism to solve the world’s problem was nothing but a hallucination. Many who trusted the voice of postmodernism and paved the ground for its victory may have considered themselves champions of the world. Nonetheless, their championship didn’t create anything but relativism and political correctness which popularize ignorance and indifference, and further strip people of their responsibility in their relationship with each other. Now the power of political correctness (corruption) is dispersed everywhere like venom, leading mankind into segregation and making it unable to find sufficient means by which to take initiatives for unity.

Is there any hope?

The hope lies in people who yearn for unity, roll up their sleeves, and give themselves up to hard sacrificial work for the sake of all people everywhere. This can only be achieved by those who seek the heart of Christ and are steadfast despite all hardship. Without Christ our own interests become the center of our actions which can create negligence toward others or turn out to be extremely damaging. It was because of this self-centered approach that many leaders who called themselves public servants became dictators after seizing power.

But the attitude of Christ is different. He cared for others, friend or foe, beginning to the end, eventually giving up His life for all:  

For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him. (John 3:17)

Many of His contemporary Jewish scribes who had turned away from the heart of the Scriptures believed that their foes deserved to die, but Jesus corrected them by revealing the heart of God that they needed to love others as themselves (Matthew 22:39). He left the most inspirational standard of morality for humanity to change the world, including enemies:

Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who despitefully use you and persecute you. (Matthew 5:44)

In other words, regard your enemies with godly favor so that it may humble them and make them compassionate toward others. Prove to them that your heart is established on the absolute love of God and you cannot hate them. Bless them and help them to understand that a true follower of Christ may hate their attitudes but not their person because it carries the image of God who cares for the salvation of all, including His enemies. For God, it is wonderful when enemies leave their pride and hostility to love others as their own bodies.

It is far more amazing to look at the sacrificial Spirit of Christ socially and culturally which led Him to leave the door of salvation open even to a cruel person, so that s/he may not perish but rather become new in heart and mind in order to value others as God’s precious creatures and have peace with them. Because of His zeal for peace and reconciliation, God chose a fatherly approach to humanity through Jesus and left the door wide open to them for a supreme quality of social life that can extend into eternity as described in these words. For this reason, He is called The Father and gave a great price for the salvation of humanity:

For it pleased the Father that in Him [Jesus] all fullness should dwell. And through Him having made peace through the blood of His cross, it pleased the Father to reconcile all things to Himself through Him, whether the things on earth or the things in Heaven.  And you, who were once alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and without blemish, and without charge in His sight. (Colossians 1:19-22)

What the world needs now are everyday champions who follow the model of Christ in order to lead people--friends and foes--to reconciliation with God and with one another. True champions live in Christ and have given themselves--mind, body and soul--to Him who loved the world so much that He gave His life for it. Therefore, let us prove by our actions, time and resources that we are true champions and care for the salvation and unity of people.