Moral Absolutes

"There are few moral absolutes: what is right and wrong usually varies from situation to situation" - Gallup Pole

What is our reaction to this statement? According to the pole 69 percent of people polled believe this statement. It is hard to disagree with the statement at first glance. However, when you start to think about it, this statement clearly goes against the Bible.

God tells us what is right and wrong. "If the authority of the law rests on the whimsy of humans instead of a higher or natural law, it puts us all in the very tenuous position of being at the mercy of whatever the presiding judge feels." Charles Colson, Justice that Restores, p 25.

These thoughts stem from my Intro to Criminal Justice class that I am taking. We don't tend to think about the law until we come face to face with it. But where did the law come from, who influenced it?

Another question I would like to pose is this "Why do some crimes make us angry and others don't?"

What crimes really make people angry? Murder, rape, abuse, and crimes such as these usually come to mind. In class we talked about how these cause us anger because there is a relationship of trust that is usually broken in all of these crimes. Betrayal of trust is usually at the center of these crimes.

Matthew 22: 35-40 says this:

35 One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”

37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

Does our law we have today revolve around this verse? Yes, crimes are those against a fellow being, our neighbor, we are to love them as we love ourselves. Our Declaration of Independence states "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights."

Our world today is coming up with excuses why our moral behavior is okay. We are now seeing things in public that would never have been tolerated before. We are become people with little or no morals. And as Christians we are either falling into this moral decay, or letting it happen. Are we showing love to our neighbors when we say nothing about their actions?

We do not need to judge our neighbors, but to share with them the Truth, Jesus Christ. As Christians we have become too tolerant. "Getting drunk isn't for me, but you go ahead and do it." "Homosexuality is wrong in my opinion, but you can go ahead and do it." What Christ asks us to do is show love, not judgment to our neighbors.

This brings up the line "love the person, hate the sin." If you truly love the person you have to do more than hate the sin. You have to despise, loath, the sin. This also brings up another quote from Colson's book Justice That Restores, "Many people who would not deny the existence of God if asked directly about God, nonetheless live their lives as if God does not exist."

How can you believe in something, yet live as it does not exist? We are in tough times, the world's morals are decaying, famine, war, drought, earthquakes, and much more are consuming our lives. How long are we going to sit and watch in silence.

I have a fear that we as Christians are going to let the world decay to a point of no return. When we finally make our stand, no one will want to hear it, we will be persecuted for our stance of change. If we do not act now it is my belief that we will lose any hope of changing the world for Christ.

We take for granted how good we have it here in America, the land of the free. Christians around the world have been persecuted for their faith, for the love that they share. Yet, here in America, our churches are dying, our youth are faced with massive moral decisions. I don't think we really know what persecution is, and we might find out.

What the church might need to experience a revival that incorporates all of us as a family, not a denomination, but as a family of God, is some persecution. I think we have become so comfortable that we coast through life. We meet the minimal requirements, heaven is our personal goal. This isn't a bad goal, but why not make our goal be to bring heaven to earth for those who might otherwise never have experienced it.

Why can't we make it our goal to share Jesus with word, actions, and our daily lives, instead of just making it to heaven? Truly take God at His word and love Him with all that we are, and love our neighbors more than ourselves. There are absolute truths in this world and we need to recognize them and follow them.

"The weakening of religious bonds has unleashed a degree of chaos we find insupportable, and yet the enlightenment on which we preen ourselves prevents us from embracing the only possible remedy"- Colson.

God Centered World

What would our world look like if it was God centered? Would there still be crime, death, struggles? Is is a possibility to have a God centered world? I think it is a wish that may never come true. At least not in the near future. And why is that, is it because a lack of faith? On the contrary, it may be due to resistance because of what Christians stand for.

People say I'm for God but against Christians. Why is this, why are we the detriment to the advancement of the kingdom? Why are we who have been commissioned to reap the harvest destroying the crops?

I think a lot of it has to do with Christians not being focused on who we represent. We represent Jesus Christ, who died for all of our sins. Who rose on the 3rd day and offers us an eternal life with Him. We forget that people watch us, strive to learn from us. We also fail to depend on God everyday, in every situation. We go to battle alone and leave our armor, our weapons, our commander behind at camp. We repeatedly leave critical pieces of the armor of God by our bedside.

Ephesians 6:10-18 states:
10Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.



This verse starts out saying that we are in battle but not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and authorities of this dark world and the Devil. We are engaged in battle and need to be prepared and suited up. If we suited ourselves up for battle everyday we would be surrounded by Christ and His Spirit. But I think often we rush to greet the foe in our pajamas.

Our generation faces the distractions of media, personal achievement, success, putting on a face, living up to worldly standards. How often are we as students sidetracked from our homework because of Facebook or something else on the internet? How often do we forget about God because we are trying to achieve something for ourselves?

We are also expected to be happy, learning, excited, students, daughters, sons, husbands, wives and much more. Sometimes we are down, struggling but are expected to put on a face. I think it's time that we become honest with each other and really dig deep into our emotions.

I think as Christians, we have done a good job at being surface people. Overall I think we aren't really concerned with how people are really doing. We may ask how are you? And show some concern, but overall on a day to day basis we become dormant and focused on ourselves.

This may also be because of our society. With the introduction of garage door openers, movies, delivered to your house, pizza delivery, lawn companies, recordable t.v. shows, the internet, all of these things reduce our interaction with each other.

In our neighborhood there is a couple from Romania and in talking with Silvia (mom), she explained it was strange how neighbors kept to themselves. She said in Romania the kids would be everywhere and people would be outside and socializing a lot more. Our quest for technological advances has made us into a society of hermits.

If we can turn around this trend of introvertness and create communities of interaction and personal relationships we can start to achieve what Christ commanded of us in Matthew. Go out and make disciples, start personal relationships with others. Share your experiences, learn together, make a difference together.

A challenge for you and me is to put down the cell phones, get off the computer and go into our communities and really interact with people. Be genuine, be the example Christ left for us.

Greater Things

Chris Tomlin's song titled "God Of This City", makes me realize that there is so much more to be achieved. There are greater things to come and greater things to be done, in each of our cities. All of these things start with us, they can't be done without us. God calls us to be His instruments, there is never a time when He says He doesn't need us.

I think we are in times of comfortableness, relaxation, and contentment. We as Christians have lost our drive, our sense of achieving more. I also think that we fail at being human. So here we are Christian failures that don't want anything better, anything else. We are perfectly fine arguing with other Christians how church should be done, how we should worship, what we should support.

We have forgotten that our mission is to serve God, not ourselves. Yet our lives are so focused on ourselves. We make Christ fit into our plan for our lives instead of letting Christ fit us into His life. Imagine just one church sold out for God. That church would touch their city, that city would then touch its surrounding cities, then the state, then the surrounding states.

We are in times that are trying, tough financial times, families struggling. But we can't lose hope, we can't give up. To be honest, I have. I feel that I have been fighting against God, trying to live life on my own. I have my own struggles, struggles that God wouldn't know about.

Though this isn't true, I fear this is how I have been living my life. Trying to fend for myself in the heart of the city. People watching me, watching my every move, waiting to get me when I'm down. People looking to me for help when I can't help myself. I don't cry out to God, I don't ask Him for strength. I turn to myself for comfort and strength.

Why? Have I lost hope in the One who can save me? Do I fear His retribution against my actions? I have forgotten about grace, the grace that He offers me. Why must my struggle belong to anyone else? Why do others offer help? God, where has my life gone?

My joy has escaped my grasp, it has disappeared in the night. I have woken up to a life that is lacking joy, a life that seems bland. I often wonder why do I feel so dim? I know the answers but don't want to face them, I push them back into the corners. God you try to open the door, I add a lock to the cement door.

I love you God, yet fail to serve You, to remotely represent You. I have slowly burned out like a wick suffocated by wax. My light has been snuffed out. I know I need you to clean me up and strike the match to start me burning. Help me work on this God, Allow me to open myself to you and to learn.

I think that our generation has a chance to show Christ to a nation that is lost, or to keep silent and fall victim to Satan's nation. We all talk about living out and being a witness, but we are hindered by fear.

Fear of rejection, fear of judgment, fear of disapproval. What about the positive side, what about the good that could come of it? We could reduce the amount of people dying from homelessness, from drugs, from bad relationships. We are called to go out into the community and show God's love.

That is something I want to be a part of, it'll take time but I know we need to change. Our churches will soon become dormant, a thing of the past. History will write about our failure, our defeat. We need to reunite our churches and start being the change that our cities need.