Originally posted 12-02-2009. Reposted 11-22-2010
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What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn’t treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand.
So God said, in effect, “If that’s what you want, that’s what you get.” It wasn’t long before they were living in a pigpen, smeared with filth, filthy inside and out. And all this because they traded the true God for a fake god, and worshiped the god they made instead of the God who made them— the God we bless, the God who blesses us. Oh, yes!
~Romans 1:21-25 (MSG)
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Nothing new is under the sun. This passage from Romans reminds me of our world today.
Our culture doesn’t buy up the little statues of greek gods that Paul was writing about. Instead we have traded in the true God for some watered down version that we can get from every self-help book and Oprah-like show on TV. Worst of all this is as much a part of our church culture as it is a part of the broader culture.
There is an epidemic in Christianity. The trend is to ignore the parts of the Bible we don’t understand or like. We readily absorb books from so-called-experts about how the Bible isn’t accurate and we take at face value the supposed “history” that is portrayed about Jesus and our faith on the History Channel. We applaud when the talk show host makes morally relativistic statements and then we nod our heads during Sunday’s sermon.
We must make a choice, Christians. Will be believe the culture or will we believe God’s Word? Consider this for a minute: If God’s Word is not the final authority on everything, then what is? When we pick and choose what we want to believe about God and the Bible then we have elevated ourselves to become the final authority. So how’s that working out?
Because we don’t have a solid Biblical foundation, I believe Christians today are among the most confused people in our culture. As Paul said above, we’ve trivialized ourselves into silliness and confusion so that there is neither sense nor direction left in our lives. But there is hope.
If we will be people of the Bible we will have greater direction, power, clarity, and impact. It only makes sense after all. If we believe that God could create Jupiter by saying, “Let there be a giant swirling ball of gas” then we can easily believe that He has the power to preserve His message to us. If God can make a human baby out of two tiny cells then He could certainly keep the Bible true and pure regardless of how many hands played a part in writing it and passing it on.
Why do we have such a hard time believing all of God’s Word? From my perspective, it’s one of the easiest things about our faith to accept. It’s harder for me to believe that God made cats than it is for me to believe that He directed the creation of and preservation of His Word.
Preach it brother! There are a GREAT many “Christians” who are deceived by removing the things that don’t fit into our world-view/culture of today. I’m not picking on just this one issue, but it is occurring within my own family of late which is why I am so frustrated- the issue of Homosexuality. I don’t know how people can say that its not sin. I don’t want to have to explain that they are loved to and they can be forgiven- because if you believe the Word we know that they can, but to just say that it isnt wrong when it is so clear in Gods Word- because it doesn’t fit into our current culture is truly false doctrine. I think you could continue with this, as we are living the fulfillment of it right now:
2 Tim 4: 2-4
Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
@JeremyWight
Wow Jeremy! I don’t need to preach it. I can just sit back and let you. 😉