Some more thoughts based off of the Facebook buzz these days:
The world acting like the world is not an excuse to accept it as okay for us. I often hear the phrase "all sin is equal," or a similar phrasing. While I think you could argue from Scripture that that is not accurate, even if it is, this phrase always seems to be used to 1) excuse sexual sin, or 2) point out the hypocrisy of making a bigger deal out of a behavior than an attitude.
But if we are going to argue that all sin is equal, then that should encourage us to become even more sensitive to the evil of sin, and to increase our fear of the Lord. It should not make us timid to take a personal stand against sin in fear that we are casting the first stone and ignoring the plank in our own eye. Our beliefs and convictions are not based on our perfection but God's holiness. It should make us more diligent to personally repent and recalibrate our lives as we see the contrast between God's holiness and our rebellion.
It's as if because we accept that the world is acting like the world, and that our pride is on par to other sins, that we then lay down our battle standards and accept sin as normal. Not just normal to the world. Just normal. Normal to us.
He had to DIE--God in the flesh--and yet we'll let sin entertain us? I bring up entertainment because that's what the conversation is about these days. I'm not talking about making every movie a Christian-themed movie or one where no character acts fallen. I'm talking about when the sin is part of the entertainment. When it becomes part of the turning off our minds and being fed as acceptable what Jesus had to die to deliver us from. When we become okay with that. Living in the world but not of it . . . except when we willingly breathe in the world's values from the comfort of our Christian homes as part of the pleasure of our souls.
I'm not even thinking about dictating to the world what movies should or should not be made, though as consumers we should let our voice be heard. And I'm not talking about "judging the world." I'm referring to when we as confessing believers are tempted to mindlessly submit to, and defend (!!), the world's standard. We do not need to be slaves to what passes as today's entertainment. We serve God Almighty before Whom His created beings cover their faces or fall on their faces crying, "Holy, holy, holy!" That is our standard. We compare what is acceptable to that, not to what is accepted by "good people," or mainstream Christianity, today. God help me.
I write because I am so easily influenced. I so easily take on the flavors and scents of whatever I am around, the opinions of Facebook, of spoken words swirling around me mixed with the culture of the age. I must recalibrate myself to the truth sometimes, drawing the line in the sand even as I struggle to get on the right side of that line.
If sin is sin, then let's treat it as such and not accept it as the world has.
"People are requesting prayer regarding their besetting sins and character weaknesses instead of coming in honesty and humility to God and saying, 'I am constantly tempted to commit this sin because I love this sin. I do not hate it. I need the fear of God. O God, give me a hatred for what I now love. I receive it by faith in Jesus' name.'" --Joy Dawson, Intimate Friendship with God
"knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin" --Romans 6:6
P.S. This is not my opinion on Beauty and the Beast. This is my reminder to not let my standards fall in general.
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