The Power Of One

Have you considered how our lives influence and effect the lives of others? Not only our family, friends and the contemporary world around us, but should the Lord delay His coming, our offspring and their future world for generations to come. It can be easily calculated that if a set of parents and their descendents average four children, twenty-thousand descendents could easily exist within one hundred years of the death of the first parents.  

Numerous anthropological and sociological studies irrefutably confirm the Biblical principle that a single set of criminal parents often beget generations of criminals and a single set of Christian parents very often beget generations of decent and law-abiding citizens. Christian parents should be encouraged in their well doing by the evidence that the power of God in even one life can bring a good harvest in due season.  

Our living and dying is given added dimension and meaning by the power and influence our lives can have upon our present and future world. A poet once said, "No man is an island." But God really said it first when He had Paul to say, "For no man lives to himself, and no man dies to himself." (Ro. 14:7) He concludes our life either counts for or against God and His eternal purpose.  It is in this context that he indicates that the basic criteria for judging the Christian’s life at the Judgment Seat of Christ will be whether it has been positive and spiritually productive or negative and spiritually fruitless. If for no other reason, this fact should inspire one to keep on keeping and finish the Christian race well. Thus, I continue trying to share articles and messages that might be helpful to others. In our marvellous day of mass worldwide communication I can do no less!  

The prideful propensity for one man to strive to attain influence and power over others has its most cruel confirmation in the lives of such men as the Caesars, Khans, Alexanders, Napoleons, Hitlers, Stalins and Maos. Who can come close to estimating the destructive power the lives of these individuals, who were directly responsible for the murder and misery of many millions, have had upon the generations of mankind? 

To be honest, this is one of the factors involved in my efforts to warn against selecting a man as leader of the free world who openly and unashamedly displays the power hungry self-seeking characteristics of arrogance, narcissism and egotism But if we are seeking to identify the person whose lives have had the most powerful negative impact upon our world, we must look even further back. Paul’s simple statement, "Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned," (Ro. 5:120 leaves no doubt about the matter. This has to be the ultimate example of the decisive power of one solitary act in one solitary life bringing great harm to future generations.  But thanks be unto God that this is not the end of the story. The familiar poem, "One Solitary Life," tells of the powerful influence for eternal good of the simple life of One who Paul describes as the Second Adam. As the verses of this poem assert, His power and influence upon man and his history is unique and beyond quantifying.  But the power of this One finds its greatest and most gracious expression in the eternal salvation and justification of those who truly trust Him.

 It is truly as one theologian said, "Just as the race was condemned on the ground of the imputation of Adam’s one sin, even so the race of believers are justified upon the ground of the imputation of one man’s righteousness - Jesus Christ" .   What an impact! This the basis of such inspiring statements as: "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ." (Ro. 5:1) And again, "He has made Him to be sin for us, He Who knew no sin, that we might we might be made the righteousness of God in Him!" (II Cor. 5:21)

Oh, the power of One! - Pastor John White