For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
(John 3:17-18 KJV)
Today, my Facebook page has been invaded. I am being bombarded. My feed is awash with thousands (I'm exaggerating) of articles proclaiming why Fifty Shades of Gray is SO SO Wrong.
Wrong. Abortion is wrong. This is wrong. That is wrong. So and so people are evil and perverted.
It would seem that condemnation pours continually from Christians, at least those who haven't compromised on the Bible.
It's not that I condone such things, but I fail to see the point in heaping condemnation for something that is by nature already condemned. Of course, we must be the voices of morality and truth. Of course someone needs to speak up to give people an alternative to what they are hearing, but...
What do we really want to accomplish by telling society that everything it does is wrong? We pose problems, but are we emphasizing enough on the solutions and answers to those problems?
The problem is human answers will never suffice. If we want to promote the Bible's morality we must promote the Bible's solution, a spiritual solution and not a human answer.
We Christians have a lot to say on social morality. Many oppose abortion, but many also oppose contraception. If we really want people to stop aborting babies, maybe we should be stopping conceptions in the first place, right? Safe sex and all that... No, no, no. We don't want people to be promiscuous either; we want to enforce our traditional model of marriage, a model that also can be perverted in the form of all kinds of wrong things, like domestic abuse, child neglect, etc. etc. Families fall apart. People get divorced. People experience hardship. Even if you follow the Biblical pattern 100%, regardless of whether you are a Christian or not, things can go wrong for you.
We have such a narrow vision of what is right, and we want to fight against everything that goes against it. But can we really control people? Can we stop people from engaging in things that we don't agree with? Do we really to keep telling what we do is wrong? Can we control society and force everybody to follow the rule of law of the Puritans?
I think we should take a moment to realize that EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD IS WRONG AND HAS ALWAYS BEEN SINCE ADAM'S FALL. This world is f*cked up, to put it crudely in modern terms.
Everything, even good things can be abused. Everything that happens, harms people. Even the very best things like our Christian religion and our moral convictions.
Either we're telling the world that it is wrong to justify and elevate ourselves, OR we are living as lights in the darkness, quietly and meekly walking in God's ways without blowing our trumpets. We make choices that glorify God and avoid things that don't edify other people.
People have consciences, and deep in our hearts God has put a moral compass in us that is very difficult to ignore. We don't always have bombard people with 10 or 20 reasons why whatever it is they practice or enjoy is wrong - if they feel the emptiness and the guilt and the pain, then they will seek the healing and cleansing Jesus can give.
What we can do is stop preaching "This is Wrong" or "That is Wrong" as our main message, because pointing out these things doesn't automatically give people the answer. If abortion is wrong, then shouldn't we encourage safe sex? If promiscuity is wrong, then what in the world do we expect hormone-ravaged teenagers to do? Do we really expect everyone to be abstinent until marriage? What do you expect people to do who struggle with same-sex attractions? What do we expect people to do who feel alienated from their bodies and who are driven to depression and self-harm? Can we make them conform to our standards? No. We can't provide people with solutions, we can only point them to the one who can change them. It's not wrong deeds that needs to be purged, but the states of our hearts.
We need to start pointing people to Jesus. If they say, "I'm born like this, I can't help it." but they are looking for a solution, we can't possibly find a human way to deal with that. All our best efforts will backfire.
There is only one person who can really help them, and that's Jesus.
Jesus is alive. Jesus is living.
He can speak to people.
He won't turn people away because of who they are and what they've done.
He will accept everyone as sinners.
And then He will be able to give them the power no one else can give, the healing no one else can offer.
Jesus can change lives.
Jesus can tell people, "Go and sin no more."
Jesus can convict people and change their hearts without a single word (like the woman who wept at his feet).
If a people who identifies as such-and-such comes to Jesus, Jesus can do what we can't do for them despite our best efforts. And He will do it.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is transformative. We aren't meant to change society, we're meant to bring people to Jesus to have their lives changed.
The thing is, Jesus doesn't force Himself on people. But those who seek Him (and, mercifully, even those who don't) will find and encounter Him.
A untransformed society cannot be expected to conform to Biblical morality. The world will always be sinful and full of sin until Jesus returns. We will always be the minority in this world. We will always be going against the grain. We will always be the ones left out, misunderstood, marginalized, even persecuted for our faith in Jesus and the way we live. That shouldn't affect us in the slightest or detract us from our ultimate goal of proclaiming Jesus as ultimate answer.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment