Losers are deeply unpopular today. You only need to spend 15 minutes in the schoolyard to find out that kids hate being called losers. That is the power of the world and a compelling social psychology, which greatly affects each person.

No one likes to lose. Everyone wants to be successful, and while we are told that most successful people failed thousands of times, no one really wants to fail even once.

And if winning and losing are two polarizations of life,

also right and wrong.

Nobody wants to be wrong. Everybody pretends to be right. And everyone is trying to convince others that they themselves are right and the other person is wrong. It is a social chaos.

But the Kingdom of God operates differently.

Few people come close to this power

because they see power

Through the eyes of the world

The Kingdom of God operates

like a kingdom upside down.

The power of the Kingdom is wisdom;

a wisdom that is madness for the world.

The statements that follow decree that there is a power in the Kingdom that most Christians do not even understand, much less apply. Few practice them with rigorous consistency. Here is a list of personalized statements that describe the most mature believer of faith in Christ:

• I don’t have to have a reason to be free.
• I don’t need to have a reason to feel safe.
• I can feel safe and feel bad at the same time.
• I don’t have to convince you that I’m right.
• I don’t want you to think I’m unreasonable, but if you do, that’s fine.
• You are free to think of me what you want.
• I don’t have to like what I say or do.
• I will still believe that, in time, I will be able to befriend you, if I continue to treat you with grace.
• I’ll understand if you can’t see from my point of view. I hope you never feel like I’m manipulating you.
• Even when I think you are wrong, I want to treat you with the same respect as if you were right, even if I respectfully disagree with you. I will not fight you.
• I cannot be threatened and I do not threaten anyone.
• I will not fight with you and you cannot fight with me. Believe me, there is power in that.

All these statements speak of a humility sufficient to subdue the pride that would normally insist on feeling the injustice that leads us to criticize anyone who calls us bad.

With all the postulates around the churches on doctrine and hermeneutics and side to side, we quickly lose sight of the fact that most of this is unimportant. Christ called us to live a different life; a life of service to humanity for the glorification of God.

Once we reconcile the fact that glorifying God is really the sole purpose of our lives, we stop insisting on being right all the time and start loving people even when they are obnoxious.

When we see life this way

the transformation of our hearts

through the renewal of our minds

it goes without saying, without any added effort.

We don’t need to prosper in this world

know that we prosper in eternal life.

We don’t need to have a reason to feel justified. Knowing that God knows that our heart is correct is more than enough. It doesn’t really matter what other people think. We are free to simply love them.

Our hearts are right when we can accept being wrong.

In this is the essence of being taught.

What assurance we offer to people with this Kingdom perspective who does not seek any gain for us.

And of course we will be wrong sometimes, but not all the time.

This article could also have been called ‘the only true fruit of Christian maturity: losing to win’.