I interact a lot with those who are either going through a divorce or who are thinking about one. On a daily basis I witness the worst in people. I listen to their excuses, their selfishness, their lies. Which make the conversation I recently had with a woman no different then the one I have had a hundred times over. She was thinking of divorcing her husband , and in the depth of the conversation she revealed that she was having an affair with another woman’s husband. Which if you do not know, is a sin, which I in a direct manner pointed out to her. Needless to say she wasn't very happy with me for saying that, so I asked her if she thought she was a Christian.
"Of course I do," she said.
To which I responded "do you believe the Bible is true?"
Imagine my surprise when she said, "Absolutely."
So then I quoted verse after verse that identified what she was doing as a sin. She told me, "That is your opinion. That's your interpretation. You just don't understand and besides you are not suppose to judge and God forgives everything." Like I haven’t heard that before. Interesting how people always tell you that you are not suppose to judge, when they are committing the evilest of sins.
In the end I simply told her the truth, “You will do what is right or you will do what you want. However, they are not the same and whichever course you choose you will reap what you have sowed.”
Which brings me to this point: Do what your heart tells you is a creed believed by millions today. It is one of the great cultural myths of the Western world, a gospel proclaimed in movies, songs, television programs and stories. Heck I have even heard pastors say it. But the truth is, if you want to stamp your ticket to hell, then just follow your heart. However, don’t be surprised at your final destination.
The Bible is very clear on the matter, "The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?" (Jeremiah 17:9).
Adultery, Divorce, Fornication, Gay marriage, the list goes on and on; as long as it doesn’t intrude on me, live and let live… you just don’t understand. To which I reply “No, you do not understand. Your opinion, your desires, do not alter God’s laws, they have been, are and always will be the same.” If you need proof that you will reap what you sow, just look around, look at the decline of America.
We need a higher standard of authority than our heart, a higher standard of authority than mere opinion, and that is the Word of God.
The problem we have today is a watered-down gospel and because of that, many have a watered-down Christian life. We have Christians who have become so much like the world that the world doesn't want to become like them. What is considered normal Christian living in the first century would be considered radical by today's standards. But that is what we need: radical Christianity. To put it another way, we need biblical Christianity.
Instead of trying to accommodate the Word of God to our changing culture, we need to accommodate our culture to the unchanging Word of God.
No comments:
Post a Comment