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Good and Evil by Keith Cook
"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" Isaiah 5:20
Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, "Today there are once more saints and villains. Instead of the uniform grayness of the rainy day, we have the black storm cloud and the brilliant lightning flash. Outlines stand out with exaggerated sharpness."
As we are right in the middle of a rather somber and reflective time in the United States, I am reminded that we as Christians are in a great position to reinforce our message of love and absolute values. We must take a clear message of Christ out into the marketplace and into the public arena.
On talk shows, newspapers, emails, comments to friends and co-workers we must remain level headed and not allow the enemy to blur the lines between good and evil. Most North Americans have an easy time reverting back to a neutral, let everyone just get along mentality. Recently, I was at lunch with some good friends who basically said that we as Christians have no right to actively participate in our cultural debates. They thought we should let majority rule and quietly go along with the status quo.
One evening I decided to turn on the Fox Network news channel, which I normally watch and like the fairness of the coverage. This one particular evening, I began to hear Mr. Orielly spout off how narrow minded and backward thinking Christians are to believe the Bible as it relates to history and morals in American culture. He actually said we should let our God directed mandates against sexual practices slide in favor of being fair to children who need a home and have no where to go except to be adopted by two homosexual men. He implied we were not Christian because we would rather have a child in foster care than in a gay home.
Wow, and woe! My wife recently shared with me that she read a report that most Christian teens, 91%, do not believe in moral absolutes. That is why a Christian young person can be in church on Sunday and then be at a party smoking pot or drinking to get drunk on Saturday. That is why a seminary student can attend church and minister on weekends and at the same time have sexual relations with someone in his or her congregation. That is why teens can read the Bible everyday and go see movies promoting anti-Christian agendas. That is why a teenage girl can sing in the choir on Wednesday night and have a tattoo with her boyfriend's name on it put on her hip on Friday night.
We must do better at standing for what is right and representing a true picture of what God requires from a true believer in Christ. God has allowed most of the pagan, lost world to see evil face to face and they did not like what they saw. While Osama Ben Laden is not all the evil in the world, he has been used by God to wake most of us up. God does not make people do evil. He did not desire that tragedy would strike all those innocent people who died on September 11, nor the thousands to lose their homes through the effects of Hurricane Katrina. Yet He did allow it. Why? He said in the Bible that there would always be evil in the world. He said there would always be the needy in the world. Why? Because there will always be sin in the world. There also will always be at least one true believer in the world who can correctly and properly demonstrate the love of God in any situation. Whether it be in a flood, famine, feast, or festival. We can be that one who can rise and rea!
lly speak for God.
We must be a reflection of the real Christ with answers to real problems.
Daily Prayer Focus: Pray for the wisdom you will need this week to represent Christ to all your friends and for open doors to minister.
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Copyright (c) 2002, 2009 Keith Cook - On The Go
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