Saints Alive

Most vestiges of a Biblical worldview are long gone as a governing influence over our culture.

When I first arrived in this country in 1966, for good or ill, there was a general acceptance of at least a Biblical sense of morality. Today it doesn’t require much discernment to detect an outright hostility to any Biblical values in society.

No surprise there.

But what alarms me is a growing ambivalence towards Biblical values in God’s people.

The pulpit and Christian people in too many places in America today are much more inclined to be influenced in their beliefs by emotional or psychological arguments than by Scripture.

By Scripture, I’m not talking about proof-texting, where isolated verses are removed from their context to establish an argument.

I’m talking about truths consistently found throughout Scripture.

Let me give you just one example.

God is love!

It is an irrefutable attribute of His very nature, of which we are all beneficiaries. And I, for one, am profoundly grateful for this love.

It is the love of God that is used liberally today however to argue in defense of every imaginable lifestyle choice even in so-called Christians.

But love is not all God is.

He is also, and at the same time, a consuming fire, who dwells in unapproachable light.

All of God’s attributes are held in Him in perfect harmony and are all operative at the same time. He does not set aside love to be fire or vice versa.

So, we can’t have one without the other.

Because He is love, He tells the woman caught in adultery that He has not come to condemn her. She is welcome, forgiven and protected in His presence.

But because He is also a consuming fire He tells her to go and sin no more.

Moved with compassion He heals a man crippled with disease.

But He warns the man He just healed to sin no more lest something worse come upon him.

He said that because it would be better to enter eternal life crippled or maimed (physically or psychologically) than be thrown into hell (Mark 9:42-48).

Sin cannot be coddled or condoned. Sin is what separates us from God. Sin must be dealt with.

Thanks be to God… it is!!!!

It cost God the highest price!

Jesus came to earth that by His death and resurrection He would destroy sin’s bondage and control over us.

We can be made new. Old things passed away. No longer sinners, but saints by His indwelling love and power.

No more excuses or rationalizations.

That’s how I want to live!