The Fruit the World Cannot Manufacture

Imagine a classroom where every student lives with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

The teacher's job becomes easier.

Imagine every teacher possessing these qualities.

The principal no longer has to spend time putting out fires.

Imagine every principal leading with these qualities.

Schools begin to produce not just graduates, but people of character.

Imagine every parent living these qualities.

Children learn that character is not taught by lectures, but by example.

Imagine every business leader living them.

Profit would no longer come at the expense of integrity.

Imagine every judge, police officer, doctor, journalist, scientist, entrepreneur, politician, and public servant living them.

Laws would still exist—but fewer people would need them.

Now imagine every citizen choosing these qualities.

Would we still need to divide ourselves by religion, caste, language, race, wealth, political party, social status, or educational background to determine someone's worth?

The greatest divide in humanity has never been between rich and poor, educated and uneducated, powerful and powerless, or one religion and another.

It has always been between a heart that is transformed and a heart that is not.

The world spends billions trying to fix society from the outside—with new policies, new technologies, new systems, and new ideologies.

Yet every society is built one person at a time.

When the heart changes, the home changes.

When the home changes, the school changes.

When the school changes, the community changes.

When communities change, nations change.

Perhaps the future of humanity will not be decided by the intelligence we create, the wealth we accumulate, or the power we possess.

Perhaps it will be decided by the character we cultivate.

So before asking,

"How do we change the world?"

Perhaps we should first ask the question that Jesus so often led people to discover for themselves:

If every person in the world became more like me today, would tomorrow's world become a better place?