I am not sure why, but lately, I have been wondering how Jesus would walk in our world today and how he would react to our culture. Of course, I mean physically walk the earth. I think one reason I wonder this is because in Sunday School we discuss the need to put things into perspective of the life and culture of biblical times when we read scripture....and I have to admit I have some trouble doing that. It is so far removed from our world today....in fact, our world is changing so rapidly, my childhood world feels so removed from the world as it is today.
So, I have been trying to imagine putting Christ and his disciples in this world today. How would he/they handle some of the things of this world?
I think they would avoid a lot of the things we spend a lot of time with...there are so many things sin has really tainted. Most entertainment we have available to us is full of ideas and images that are so dirty if you imagine it through the eyes of holiness. I have become so accustomed to our world, I do not react as Jesus would...and that bothers me.
When I worked with the youth, a visiting minister did a lesson with the kids one night that really stuck with me. It was during messy week, and this night was one of the events. He had all kinds of food available....ketchup, eggs, flour....lots of messy things. The idea was to have a food fight. At first we all sat there afraid to get dirty and avoided going near the food. Then slowly but surely we started to grab something...and eventually we could care less. All rules went out the window and we could care less how much or how messy we were. He ended the night by sharing a message.....this is how sin works in our life. We sat there covered from head to toe...and the message was so visible to us. At first it seemed so dirty and we try to remain clean. We might let one little thing in, then another, and then another...and eventually we are dripping in it, and we don't care.
I think that is what has happened and continues to happen in our world. We are just allowing little things to get by...one by one...and now we hardly react to the sin. It is so drenched into our daily lives....it just doesn't seem to be as nasty or as dirty to us. But when we imagine our holy and perfect Lord here, he would be disgusted...and so should we.
It is my prayer that the closer I walk with God, steady in prayer, and in the Word, the more I will be sensitive to the sin and turn away from it. I want to feel uncomfortable with sin. It is a reality of our culture and what we have allowed to happen. But it has also happened to me as an individual. I want to be more like Jesus, I do not want to conform to this world.
"Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world- the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does-comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever." 1 John 2:15-17
May you always find salt and light in my words!
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