Our Rights Are Killing Us

California become the first state in the United States to pass a right-to-die law. That means terminally ill patients can opt for physician-assisted suicide. Many other states have proposed similar laws. It's probably only a matter of time before the US Supreme Court declares it legal across the nation. Other nations in Europe are already there.

The Corinthians were as obsessed with their rights as we Americans and Europeans are. They had a saying, “Everything is permissible for me.” Their false logic was that, since Christ set us free from the Law on the cross, we're free to do whatever we want. They were even proud that of one their members was living in an incestuous relationship with his step-mother. They were proud that they'd gone beyond what even the pagans of their day would do – celebrating their freedom in Christ! (1 Corinthians 5)

As enlightened 21st century citizens of the first-world, we don't need the false logic around the cross of Christ. We've turned our rights into an idol so we can do anything we want. Really, we pretty much can. We can kill our children before they're born. We can have our perverse life-style sanctioned by the government as “marriage,” complete with medical benefits. Now, we can even opt to kill ourselves. It's not bad being god of your own life. Or is it?

Paul wrote to the Corinthians, trying to appeal to them using their own logic, “ 'Everything is permissible for me' but not everything is beneficial. 'Everything is permissible for me' but I will not be mastered by anything.” (1 Corinthians 6:12)

The Kingdom of God is very un-American. It's not about our rights. Gasp. It's about dying to our rights to further our relationship with Jesus and to serve others. And in that place God the Father will meet us with such pleasure we'll be wondering why we didn't abandon our stupid rights sooner.

Not that rights are bad. The rights America was founded on are awesome, and rightfully belong to everyone on the planet, although unfortunately most live under very oppressive regimes and are denied these basic human rights. But when we're falling on our sword over our right to sin, then it's become an idol and we need to repent and let it go, whether it's legal or not.

Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's ok. Being legal doesn't make it good. The greatest pleasure of our existence is found by loving Jesus with abandon, with all that we are, not in exercising our American or European right to practice our sin of choice.