Loaded Inheritance: Resistance

You don’t get to choose your situation of birth. You just arrive on the scene and have to make the best of it. It’s part of your inheritance. You don’t set the stage, but you do have to deal with it. You can exploit it to your own advantage, cooperate with it to your own comfort, or you can resist it to help your heirs.

Everybody’s inheritance is loaded. With it you can blow things up and cause damage, or can use it to fuel positive change.

Some have had the courage to see the problems with the status quo and worked to make things better. These people made a difference and left the world a better place. And they all paid a great price. Resisting the status quo is dangerous business.

• Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat for a white person. She resisted.

• Nelson Mandela went to prison for standing against the apartheid system of South Africa. He resisted.

• Mahatma Gandhi led a movement of freedom for the nation of India as they struggled under British colonialism. He resisted.

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer recognized the murderous religious oppression of Nazi Germany. He resisted.

• William Wilberforce worked to change the laws of England to abolish the profitable slave trade. He resisted.

• Abraham Lincoln recognized the moral bankruptcy of American slavery. He resisted.

These people saw the problems of the society they inherited. And they took a stand. They made a difference. The world is better for their work.

Think of your own inheritance. Where are the problems? How can it be better? Effective resistance requires a strong moral foundation, a clear sense of right and wrong. Commitment to truth puts people on the “right side of history.” A true moral compass can show us what is wrong with the world. And with the foundation of truth one can stand against injustice, oppression, and evil.

Jesus is the Truth. He is the Moral Compass. He resisted. Then he died. Then he arose. He conquered death for us, so there is nothing more to fear.

Will you see the problems in the systems of this world? Will you take a stand? Will you resist? If so, be prepared to pay a price.