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When Rodney King asked the question, “Can’t we all just get along?,” he was trying to calm the violence that erupted after a video captured police violently beating him. But that question keeps coming back. Why can’t people get along? Why are we so torn by ethnicity, gender, religion, class, and politics? Jesus said antisocial behavior comes from within. The passion for power, prestige, pleasure, and money drives people to hurt others. Jesus called it a heart problem. He said, “Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying and slander.” Jesus said these all come from the heart. So since this is a heart problem, only a changed heart can change our behavior. Christ died to give us new hearts, and when we totally submit to Him we gain the benefit of what He died to provide. Paul explains what a new community of God’s people ought to look like. He wrote in Galatians 3, “You are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.” But it is not those who merely profess Christ who drop their antisocial behavior; it is those who truly possess Him, and allow Him to transform and empower them internally.
