Have you ever wondered why today’s Christians are so different from the believers of a single generation ago? I have and have given the matter considerable attention and prayer. On the surface, things appear just fine; all over people are fighting to have the Ten Commandments exhibited in government buildings, and a big majority of Americans claim to believe that Jesus Christ is indeed the savior of mankind. However, if all of this is true, why is our country so much more morally corrupt than we were a few short years ago?
It is undeniable that we have lost a tremendous amount of moral ground. Crimes that might have once been considered unimaginable are now in the news seemingly everyday. Young people experiment with drugs at increasingly earlier ages, and the rate of illegitimacy in today’s youth is staggering. Somewhere, somehow, we have started on a downward spiral that seems almost impossible to pull out of. In fact, we have reached a point of crisis.
I do not believe however, that our current moral decay is the result of one individual factor. This situation did not arise simply because we did not to write Congress to declare our views on a new bill, or because we lost a highly publicized court case. No, our current crisis stems from the millions of times a day that we Christians, wether in a group or as individuals, relax our beliefs. It has never been easy to stand for what you believe in, and as our generation becomes more and more slack in their determination to hold a standard, our moral ground is slipping.
We attempt to conveniently separate our walk with Christ from our day to day life. It embarrasses us to tell someone that we don’t listen to a certain type of music, or that we won’t wear certain types of clothes. Then, because our lack of a true standard leaves us feeling guilty, we try to justify our worldly actions by convincing ourselves that the flesh can never come to perfection. We reason that God takes little interest in those things that we do in the flesh. Surely, God would not have us to sacrifice those thing that we enjoy. The hard truth of the matter is, that we are losing our walk with Christ because we would rather enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season than to partake in the sufferings of Christ. (Heb. 11:25,26)
To partake in the sufferings of Christ does not mean to nail your hand to a homemade cross, it means to lay down those things that the flesh would desire. If need be, to suffer loss and humiliation for the cause of Christ.
There are countless stories in the Bible that help to illustrate to what lengths we must be willing to go to preform the will of God. Ezekiel, the great prophet, once laid on his side, in the middle of the street, for 430 days because the voice of God had told him to. (Eze. 4:4-6) How ridiculous he must have appeared! Noah began construction on a massive ship one hundred years before the first rain ever fell on the planet. (Gen. 6:14) To those around him, the idea of a flood must have been unfathomable. No doubt, he was considered the village idiot!
When we read these stories in the scripture, it is so easy to lose sight of the fact that these were real events. These people actually had to live the stories that today give us encouragement. Paul had to stand before his peers (and former co-workers) and proclaim the message of a resurrected savior. (Acts 17:1-3) Could we face this type of peer pressure and come forth “as pure gold” like Paul did?
The truth of the matter is, that we do face these battles on a daily basis. There are things that, as Christians, we simply will not do. This will be offensive to many. At work; at play; even in church our very belief structure is challenged on a regular basis. There are people, some in our church community, that will try to convince us that we are trying to seek perfection through the deeds of the flesh. This is not the case. We are trying to pursue the mark of the high calling in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:14)
Next time we are faced with temptation, or perhaps told that serving God with our flesh is unnecessary, let us remember this verse: “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the BODY, ye shall live.” Romans 8 |
