Take A Culture.

Pastor Cole, in this past Sunday’s sermon, spoke of the importance of progression in the Christian life. We are ever growing and developing in our relationship with the Lord. It is a maturation process that calls for spiritual discipline and the will to live a life of holiness in contrast to the life of compromise offered by the world.

The life of holiness is indeed countercultural. The world promotes the concept of humanity as a melting pot. However, as Pastor Cole shared so eloquently (and I paraphrase here), we Nazarenes don’t melt. We cannot compromise in matters pertaining to the word of God. We are called to model the lives and passionate hearts of the early Christians, who chose to die rather than to renounce Christ.

And that is the core of the struggle for Christians who are not completely sold out to Jesus. The carnal Christian tries to placate the demands of a world that has no love or regard for the rule of Christ. The Christian who is not completely sold out to Jesus will seek to straddle the fence.

But guess what? We can’t straddle this thing.

Paul wrote very plainly about believers who walked away from complete devotion to Jesus. “Demas deserted me, having loved the present age.” (Second Timothy 4:10) John echoed the theme: “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us, because if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. But they went out from us to demonstrate that all of them do not belong to us.” (First John 2:19)

So, it is one or the other. Either we renounce the ways of the world, or we renounce the way of Christ. In modern culture we have seen many a leader, some after decades of ministry, announce that they are not fully on board with the counsel of Christ. Some of these leaders have walked away from their ministry call. Others have lobbyied for substantial changes in their denominational bylaws so that their compromised life could be sanctioned by vote. (As if God’s law can be changed by human consensus.)

What about us? Are we immersed in the culture of the world? Or are we completely sold out to Jesus? Or are we trying in vain to live a double life?

Take the world but give me Jesus; in His cross my trust shall be
’til with clearer, brighter vision, face to face my Lord I see.
(Fanny Crosby/ Frances van Alstyne)