Rights vs. Responsibilities

Studying The Success Journey by John C Maxwell inspired me to do some studying of what the Bible says about our rights and responsibilities.  I know my generation definitely felt inspired to fight for rights rather than responsibilities.  Now I’m seeing the next generation taking this even further by insisting the world is made right by allowing self satisfaction and getting everyone to agree we can live however we want.  I have never seen more confusion on how to live in my life.  I will admit I did not find this as an issue until later in my life because our culture inspires us to get our just rewards and that we have the right to these rewards.  Seeking fulfillment of our rights has become our goal.

We live in an imperfect world and know it.  Despite this, we always want to make things right.  Nothing entirely wrong with that, but we make ourselves miserable trying to think we can always get our rights or be rewarded justly.  Most times when fighting for our rights we wind up full of hate, anger and bitterness.  We get resentful of the system because it cannot supply our rights.  This makes us negative people and who really wants to hang out with negative people?  Most of us don’t even when we tend to be feeling negative ourselves.  I cannot stand myself when I’m in a negative funk.

To quote John Maxwell from his book, “When you focus on your rights, you’re often looking backward rather than forward.”  We cannot make any success in our lives unless we are moving forward.  We need to learn to forgive the wrongs done to us and move on.  We will not always get restitution for the wrongs in this imperfect world.

So if we are not fighting for rights, what do we fight for?  We should be fighting to fulfill our responsibilities.  We can control our responsibilities.  We can chose to do what we should or not to.  No one but ourselves can fulfill our own responsibilities.  When fighting for your rights you are usually neglecting your responsibilities because your energy is going to something you cannot control and leaving none for what you can.

I did mention I went looking through the Bible to see what it said about rights and responsibilities.  Now I’m of the impression what we should be fighting for is to be children of God the way God intended.  Galatians 4:4-5 NKJV says, “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.”  But wait, we do not have to fight for this.  It is not a right, it is a gift to us by God through his son Jesus.  It comes back to a choice we can make.  We are responsible to chose to be part of the family or not and once in the family we are responsible as one of its members.  So even this is really a free gift ,but being a true child of God and a part of His family is a responsibility we can and must claim.

When we go off fighting for rights, many times what we are really doing is judging the other person.  We are not supposed to do this.  James 4:11-12 NIV says, “Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it.  There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you — who are you to judge your neighbor?”  We are to walk in love and when we want to judge we are failing to do so.  We were not given the right to condemn others who may not be walking the way God intended us to.  Our responsibility as Christians is to love the world and help it learn about God by emulating the works of Jesus.  Sure we need our court systems and some list of rights in this imperfect world, but we should be walking in love first of all.  We should work to make things right with another person, not by fighting for our own rights, but in order to reconcile a difference or what we may have seen as an offense.  We are responsible for how we chose to treat our neighbor, that is, anyone we meet.  What if God never showed his love by sending Jesus to take our punishment on the cross and freeing us from the power of sin and Satan?  We would not have a true example of how to love through adversity and unfairness.

Galatians 6:4-5 NLT says, “Be sure to do what you should, for then you will enjoy the personal satisfaction of having done your work well, and you won't need to compare yourself to anyone else.  For we are each responsible for our own conduct.”  No matter what, we are responsible for what we say, do and think.  It is the attitude we chose to have in life that will make a difference, not getting someone to pay for what they did.  If we do what we know we should, we can be sure of ourselves and it will not matter what the other person is doing.  Sure bad things are going to happen, but God did not make them happen.  We have no control over the bad things that can happen to us, but we are responsible to know how to handle them when they do come.

To sum up, do you want to have a life that feels full and enjoyable?  Take responsibility for the things you can control in your life and start moving forward.  Stop fighting for rights that are making you bitter and angry.  Forgive and move on from those things you know you cannot reconcile.