Tuesday, 21 January 2014

THE LINE BETWEEN RIGHT AND WRONG AND DEALING WITH ISSUES OF MORALITY

Decision making is tough. Differentiating between right and wrong can sometimes be tough. Making a decision based on what is right and what is wrong is very tough. It all depends on the decision to be made and the situation at hand. Who determines what is right and what is wrong? Religion? The president? The UN? The people? In my mind it is extremely dangerous to leave matters of morality up to human beings, mainly for the reason that as human beings we are flawed. By nature we are selfish, judgemental and indecisive. Our ideas of right and wrong change on a regular basis as new laws are passed and new religions are established, with a small committee of human beings deciding what is best for the other few billion human beings that exist. This is why I choose to base my ideas of morality on what God defines as being right and wrong. To make myself clear, this does not mean that I am bound by religious laws and rules, but rather that because God is the creator of the universe, he is all powerful and all knowing, he created me in his own image and died on the cross so that I may live, he therefore knows what is best for me and I think it only logical that I follow his guidelines on how to live my life. I am a Christian in the truest sense of the word. In the sense that I believe that Jesus died to atone for my sins and thus I live accordingly. But even with God's guidelines (in the form of the Bible) things can be misinterpreted and some may not clearly understand what is written. I therefore find it necessary to share how I deal with tough situations and moral decisions.
From this point onwards I am going to speak from the the perspective of a follower of Jesus and predominantly to, but not restricted to, other followers of Jesus. The main question that I would like to pose, and then answer is this:

How can you tell if something is right or wrong and when presented with a choice how do you make the right decision?

So you've been put in a position where you have to make a choice. Do you take the drink do you decline? Do you punch the guy back or resolve the issue? Do you cheat in the test or not? Now, for someone who doesn't have a biblical moral compass they are kind of making the rules as they go so it's not such a tough decision, but as a Christian, how do you handle the situation? I would propose a number of steps:

1) Your conscience:
God has been so kind as to bless us with something called a conscience. That little alarm that goes off in your head when you know you are about to do something wrong. The problem is that some people have made a habit of ignoring their conscience. This is a huge issue because if you're not a Christian then step one is as far as you go. Your flawed self is determining what is right and what is wrong and even for Christians it is easy to ignore your conscience and give in to temptation. It's not always a good idea to trust your own conscience. As we grow up we are exposed to so much wrong and evil that often our own ideas of morality become distorted and the line between right and wrong becomes blurred. So if you can't trust your own conscience then where do you turn? This brings me to step number 2.

2) Fellowship, discipleship and accountability:
A big part of being a Christian involves fellowship, discipleship and accountability. Living in fellowship means to be surrounding yourself with like minded people who you can trust and in this case who are also living for Jesus. Discipleship means opening yourself up to be teachable and positioning yourself to teach others as well as having people in your life who you are accountable to. It is important to have people in your life who you can trust more than your own conscience so that when you are presented with a difficult decision or a situation and your conscience fails you, you have somewhere to turn to. Often it is good to seek guidance from older, wiser and more mature folk that have perhaps had to deal with similar issues or had to make similar choices.

3) The Bible:
The Bible is the word of God. I believe that it is clear on all issues and situations. It is not ALL knowledge but rather SUFFICIENT knowledge for us as human beings. It's on a need-to-know basis. God is so precise and intentional that at the time he sent Jesus human civilisation was at a point in its development where languages were well established and the struggles that we have to deal with on a daily basis were not going to change much over the next few thousand years. Jesus could teach the people of the time and his words would still apply to us now. Issues such as drunkenness, lust, anger. Things that human beings succumb to and tools that Satan uses against us. If you are in a position where you can't trust your own conscience or somebody else's, the Bible is a good place to turn to to find answers. If you look hard enough and properly you will find what you are looking for.
(Also, to add onto this step, the better you know your Bible and the teachings of Jesus and later of Paul, the apostle, and the closer your relationship with God, the more your heart and God's heart will align and the more you will be able to trust your conscience, which in effect will become the voice of the Holy Spirit. But we will get to that later.)

4) WWJD
What Would Jesus Do. Yes I know. Typical right? But how often, in reality, is this notion actually put into practice? When one looks past the cheap bracelets and the recurring hypocritical statements there is an echo of truth and profoundness to this idea. As Christians we claim to be "Christ-like." His followers who strive towards his example of righteousness, compassion, kindness and love. His example of living. It is therefore only fitting to ask the question "what would Jesus do?" Perhaps, in the instance that the above concept has in some views been overly and hypocritically used and thus lost its sentimentality, I should put forward another notion. If Jesus was standing next to you, simply observing, what would you do then? What decision would you make and how would you deal with the situation that you find yourself in?

The last thing I want to mention, which does not necessarily count as a step, is personal conviction. This is when you feel convicted over something specific in your life. When the Holy Spirit brings a sin into the light. Perhaps something that you have been doing all along, thinking that there's no issue and then all of a sudden God shows you that maybe there is an issue. I've found that conviction comes at times where I have been going deeper with God and he then brings to the surface issues in my life and strongholds that are keeping me from embracing him more and engaging in the fullness of his love. Convictions are personal and need to be felt that way to be real. For this reason it is virtually impossible to get somebody else to submit to your convictions. It can be frustrating mentoring or observing a young Christian and seeing their shortcomings when they don't necessarily see them as shortcomings, but until a person fully submits to God and allows HIM to change them, they will not change, or even see why they should change. You can tell somebody of your conviction and as a result they might also feel convicted but you cannot force a conviction upon somebody.
As an example, I used to watch a lot of pirated movies and television programmes and I have a friend who refuses to watch pirated material because it is technically theft and is illegal and she felt a personal conviction over the issue whereas I wasn't bothered about it. Until the day that I realised and understood for myself that, wait a second, this is actually illegal. Just like murder is illegal. But until I felt that conviction for myself it didn't affect me.

A lot of issues are situational. They are unique and lie within a certain context. A big issue that a lot of Christians are facing is drinking (alcohol). How much can I drink? Is it OK to drink at all? Jesus drank wine didn't he? But the issue of drinking goes beyond these questions as it is a situational issue. There are background questions to be asked before the simple ones can be answered. Where are you drinking? Who are you drinking with? Why are you drinking? How will your drinking affect those around you? The Bible doesn't say that you can't drink but it does say that you shouldn't get drunk. It also says that you shouldn't cause a fellow brother or sister in Christ to stumble. If you are with a person who used to be an alcoholic then maybe it would be wise to not submit them to temptation and it would be right to not have a drink. If you are with a young believer or an unbeliever you need to think about what message you are sending by having a few drinks. There are many factors that need to be taken into consideration when faced with difficult situations or decisions. There's not always a straight out right and wrong. It's not always clean cut.

Narrow is the path to heaven and few walk it, but none can walk it without Jesus to guide them. So lean on him. Lean on him for guidance and directionality. Lean on him in prayer and he will gladly and lovingly and gracefully show you the way. Look to him for he is the definition of righteousness and through his grace you can become righteous. If you choose Jesus you no longer have to struggle with right and wrong and issues of morality. Right will come naturally and wrong with fall away.

This is what I know to be true.
These are just my thoughts. 

Sunday, 5 January 2014

FOR THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH

Romans 6v23 (NIV):
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This verse just came to me this morning while I was in the shower and got me thinking, specifically about first part - "for the wages of sin is death". And that's the whole thing about Christianity right? In fact, the above verse does a good job of summing up what I believe as a Christian. Allow me to explain...

Ever since the beginning of time sin has equalled death.
In the Old Testament of the Bible the Israelites (Jews), God's chosen people, made a lawful covenant with God. An agreement. Basically God gave them a bunch of commandments in order to give them an idea of the definition of sin. So, for example, God says "thou shall not murder" and by that commandment they knew that to murder was a sin against God. Now this is where the "wages of sin is death" thing comes in. If an old testament Israelite were to commit a sin he would have to make amends to God by offering a sacrifice. It had to be on an alter, had to be a pure animal (often a lamb), blood had to be shed etc. But in essence if you committed a sin the result would be death. The wager of your sin was death in the form of a sacrifice (that part is important to remember). Then God was like "well these people, as well as the rest of the people in the world, are so full of sin that they will never be able to make amends for themselves." So God took it upon himself to make up for our sin. He became a human being, lived a sinless, blameless, pure life, and was slaughtered on a big cross-shaped alter. His body was broken and his blood was shed as the ultimate sacrifice to make amends for the sin of the world. In essence, the world committed sin and the result was the death of Jesus. The wager of our sins is death in the form of a sacrifice. And God's gift to us is eternal life through the death of Jesus.

So those are the two main applications, in my knowledge, of the verse in topic.
But I started thinking about how "the wages of sin is death" applies today, aside from the fact that the death of Jesus continues to cover our sins daily by the grace of God, and I came across an interesting irony. I thought about the definition of sin and the definition of death. The sin definition is easy. In the simplest description, anything that displeases God can be said to be sin. God tells us all over the new testament what sin is. In all Paul's letters in the New Testament he warns churches as to the things they should stay away from and calls them out on things they are doing that don't please God. Things such as sexual immorality, idolatry, homosexuality, thievery, greed, drunkenness, slander are all mentioned in 1 Corinthians 6 as Paul refers to things that, as Christians we have been called away from and washed clean of. Then in Romans 6, just prior to the verse in topic, Paul says
"When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!"
It is fair to assume that the things Paul speaks of in Romans 6 that are shameful and result in death are the things he names in 1 Corinthians 6 (to name a few). We can make this assumption, which is actually more of an observation, because after reading both passages we can make a link from "things we are ashamed of" to the things named in Corinthians (sexual immorality, drunkenness, greed, etc.) as things that we used to live in when we were slaves to sin rather than slaves to righteousness. So the sin part is pretty clear.
The death part is the more unclear bit. The bit that has, in my opinion, a few applications or meanings (not in an ambiguous or contradictory way). What I mean is that there are different meanings to the word "death", even without getting to the original Hebrew interpretation or the derivations of the word. The way the word "death" is used by Paul in Romans 6v23 is put up against eternal life, as if they are opposites:
"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life..."
How about saying that the wages of sin is eternal death. Or to be more accurate, the wages of a life lived in unrepented sin is an eternity of death. That's probably the most obvious way to interpret what Paul is saying, mostly because of the big "but" that follows. That's also the spiritual way to look at it, which reinforces the statement that it's the most obvious because the Bible is a spiritual book.

So I've been through how the wages of sin was death with regard to the old testament Israelites, with regard to Jesus and with regard to a life lived in sin. But these are all examples that might only apply to you if you are a believing Christian. If you're not a Christian then the sacrifices of the Israelites means nothing to you, Jesus' death means nothing to you and the Christian ideas of eternal life and heaven and hell are all bogus. You might not even believe that sin is a thing. But this is where the irony comes in - in my last example of "the wages of sin is death." An example that is clear for all the world to see. 
Consider the ideas of sin that were mentioned above and in Corinthians. Things like sexual immorality (premarital sex), homosexuality and adultery. Then consider how many babies are killed each year through abortions or even by being left in trash cans to die because their unmarried mother can't afford to keep the baby or simply doesn't want to. Consider how many people die from HIV and AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Things like dilatory. Consider how many people are killed by terrorist bombings and suicide bombings because of the idols they worship. Things like thievery. Consider how many people are killed during muggings, break-ins and armed robberies. Things like greed. Consider how many people are killed over blood diamonds, gold, money, land and material possessions. Things like drunkenness. Consider how many lives could have been spared if the driver was sober. Things like pride. Consider how many people die because countries won't back down. And that's the irony. The whole world can see the that the wages of sin is death, death and more death but they refuse to acknowledge that sin is a thing and that there is a God who can save us from it. Who already has saved us from it if we will just accept Him. As human beings we are natural born sinners. It's in our blood and has been since Adam ate the apple. We are living dead sinful lives without God. But with Him we can enter into fullness and abundance of life and we can inherit the ultimate gift - eternal life through Jesus Christ!!!

I don't believe in coincidence
These are just my thoughts