I went to a company yesterday where the staff were so polite I
almost thought I was in another part of the world. They looked and acted like
believers would and when I heard one of them humming a gospel song, that was it
for me – they were definitely believers and that explained their behavior but maybe
not. Soon after I left the place, I spoke to a believer on the phone and was
reminded that we have mostly lost those values that marked us and made me think
those people must be believers. In contemporary times, we are mostly unrestrained
and without any form of discipline (so we more often than not come off as
people who are not cultured), and as a result, we no longer exude the confidence
and joy believers exuded, at least in my environment, but not so much now. We
have followed after the values of the world leaving behind the values taught by
scriptures. We are now excellent students of the world carefully studying and mentored
by the ideals and ideas of the world and forgetting the scriptures. Today’s
church is in trouble, at least where I live. Words like discipline, self -
control and several other words that speak of any sort of restraint are almost
non-existent to us. We do anything we feel like when we feel like it despite
God’s opinion and our argument is often “he knows me just as I am and will use
me just as I am” forgetting that if He thought of us as useable the way we were,
then we won’t need to be saved and transformed. I dare to suggest that we are dissatisfied
with the life Christ offers and desire a blend of both – the funk and fun of
the world and the assurance of life in heaven hereafter, but we cannot serve
two masters at the same time.
Mathew 6: 24 “No one
can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be
devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
The other day I heard about a young man in church watching a
porn movie whilst the sermon was preached. I guess that is how he felt at the
time but I wonder - can it ever be right to attend an event and watch a movie
while some one is on their feet speaking or isn’t there anything like etiquette
and/or decorum anymore? Even worse is the fact that this young man was watching
this porn movie in church as the word of God was preached. Really? How right
can that really be? If this young man elected to be in a service then he ought
to have acted appropriately. I know that a lot of people believe the house of
God is that place where they can “be themselves” which usually means “misbehave”
but the bible does talk about conduct which is acceptable in the house of God suggesting
that there is some code of conduct in the house of God. There is definitely a
way to carry oneself in God’s house. We very often blame all the decadence in
the church on the higher church echelon but on that day when we meet with our
maker we shall all give individual accounts of our stewardship and the issues
with our leaders will not be good enough excuse to escape hell. The bible is
available to all of us so that we all can read it and God reveals Himself to as
many as desire Him whether church leaders or congregation. I am not exonerating
the church leadership but my point is this - at the end of the day, you owe it
to yourself to live right. God demands that we have character which speaks of
discipline and self- restraint and the bible teaches, very simply, acceptable
conduct.
Judges 21: 25 “In those
days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in our eyes.”
1 Timothy 3: 14 – 15 “I
am writing these things to you now, even though I hope to be with you soon, so
that if I am delayed, you will know how people must conduct themselves in the household
of God.”
It would appear like we are, today, exploiting what we
consider the wrongs of our leaders for what we think is “our good.” At the end
of the day, we will all have to take responsibility for our actions. The
excuses we have will not impact on the consequences of these things we do. We
cannot erase lines nor can we pretend like they are so blurred we don’t see
them; the flesh and the Spirit are very different and the differences are clear.
We must bear in mind that God sees our hearts so that our thoughts are open to
Him; please do not be deceived, God is not mocked. We deceive ourselves if we
think we are acceptable to Him conducting ourselves in the way we want. It is
not enough to accept the existence of Christ, satan does; we have to not only
invite Him into our lives to be Lord and Saviour, His presence in our life must
be evidenced by the changes that will be manifest in our lives as a result of
our yielding to His word. We lose the right to just “act it because we feel it”
when we become believers. We need to ask ourselves if ‘it is acceptable to God.”
Indeed “What would Jesus do?” It may appear like we do not have a King because we
don’t see Him but we do and He is The Only Living God.
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