Why aren't Christians sometimes not Nicer than Non-Christians?

Why aren’t Christians sometimes not Nicer than Non-Christians?

 

Jesus said that if you put yourself in His hands, if you believe in Him as Savior and Lord, that He will change you and make you perfect, as He is perfect.  (Matthew 5:48) Jesus promises to cleanse us and makes us fit for heaven. Of course, that will take time. The change will not be completed in this lifetime. Death is an important part of the treatment.

 

But after death we will be perfect!  We will be changed!  We won’t be just nice people, but we will be new people! Scripture says that “We will be like Him (Jesus) for we shall see Him as He is” (1 John 3:2) We will be like Jesus!  Can that be?  Can we even imagine what all this means?

 

We will be in heaven in God’s presence.  And no sin can exist in God’s presence. (Habakkuk 1:13) Not only will all sin be banished from heaven, but everything bad that happens now because of sin’s grip on this world will finally be gone forever.   

 

Since Jesus is working on us Christians now toward the goal of making us perfect, why then aren’t we Christians often not nicer than non-Christians?  Even if we are not perfect yet, shouldn’t Christ shine through our lives for others to see? We can see Christ shining through the lives of many Christians, but why not all? 

 

 When we Christians behave badly, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world.  The non-Christian is right to judge Christianity by its results.  Jesus told us to judge by results.  He told us that a tree is known by its fruit. (Luke 6:44, Matthew 12:33)

 

But we are also commanded not to judge one another.  That job belongs to God. Only God can see the true picture.  We see through a glass darkly. (1 Corinthians 13:12) What can we know of other people’s souls – their temptations and struggles and their personal demons?  Miss Smith who is a Christian may have an unkinder tongue than Bill Jones, who claims to be an atheist.  Why isn’t Miss Smith, the Christian, nicer than Bill Jones, the non-Christian?    

 

Bill Jones’ was born with his placid temper and friendly disposition.  He inherited these healthy traits and he was raised in a loving functional family.  So much of his niceness is God’s gift to him. Bill Jones is quite satisfied with his bank account and his sound nerves.  And he’s proud of his intelligence, health, popularity and good upbringing.  Why drag God into his life when he feels he has it all?  He feels that his niceness is all his own doing!  He doesn’t recognize his need for Christ.  Scripture says that it is hard for those who are ‘rich’ in this sense to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  (Matthew 19:23-24)

 

It’s a very different story for the nasty people – the little, low, warped, timid, thin-blooded, neurotic people.  Or the sensual, unbalanced, mentally ill people - if they make any attempt at living a good life, they quickly learn that they need help.  It is Christ or nothing for them.    

 

They are the lost sheep that Jesus especially came to find, I believe. The ordinary peasants, without education, the poor, the unwashed – they were mainly the ones who were attracted to Jesus when He walked the hills of Galilee. The ones He blessed and healed when He lived on earth as a man.  The Pharisees criticized Jesus for hanging out with the ‘awful set’ and of course modern Pharisees still judge Him because of that.  ‘If there were anything in Christianity those ‘awful’ people would not be Christians.’   

 

Our Miss Smith is one of those ‘awful’ people.  Heredity and natural causes working in a world spoiled by centuries of sin have produced in Miss Smith the narrow mind and jangled nerves which account for most of her nastiness.  Also, Miss Smith’s father was never there for her when she was a child, and her mother was addicted to drugs and neglected and abused her.  Miss Smith endured a sad and dysfunctional upbringing.  

 

But God intends, in His own good time, to set that part of Miss Smith right.  Someday Christ will change us and clothe us in His righteousness.  Scripture promises that Miss Smith and all believers will be victorious through Christ on the other side of this life!  (Revelations 20 and 21)

 

Scripture says: “Behold, I show you a mystery.  We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.  In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.  For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible.  And we shall be changed.  For this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality.  Death is swallowed up in victory.  Oh death, where is your sting?  Oh grave, where is your victory?  Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  (1 Corinthians 15:51-55; 57)  It doesn’t get any better than that!

Most of the ideas here were taken from C.S. Lewis’s book, “Mere Christianity”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Wisdom is Calling

Wisdom is Calling

 

 

In the Scriptures Wisdom is personified as a woman inviting all to come and listen to Her!   Proverbs 1:20-33

“Wisdom is standing on the top of the heights and beside the way, where our paths meet.  Also, she stands at the gates of the entrance to the town, and beside the doors of our homes.  She waits and cries out to us. 

 Wisdom is calling loudly in the streets and raising her voice in the public squares: At the head of the noisy streets she begs us to listen, and In the gateways of the cities she stands and makes her speech. 

 

But how long will you simple ones love your simple ways?  How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge?  If you would respond to My rebuke, I would pour out My heart to you.  And make My thoughts known to you.

But you reject Me when I call, and no one gives heed when I stretch out My hand,

 

In turn I will laugh at your disaster:  I will mock when calamity overtakes you.  When calamity overtakes you like a storm and when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelms you.   

Since they will not accept My advice, and spurn My rebuke, they will eat the fruit of their own ways. And be filled with the fruit of their own schemes.

For the waywardness of the simple will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them.  But whoever listens to Me will live in safety.  And be at ease, without fear of harm.”

 

In our Scripture reading today we see Wisdom calling out to everyone, but many are refusing to listen to her.  Refusing to take the gift of life that Wisdom will give. They want to do it their own way.  I see here in Proverbs the idea of Wisdom standing at every crossroad and every place of decision in our lives, calling out to us, “Follow Me.”  But are we listening?   

 

All through Scripture we find that God is behind the scenes waiting and calling His children to listen for His Voice.  To allow Him to direct them.  To allow the still small Voice of the Holy Spirit to lead them.  God is there and He is not silent.  But are we listening?

 

 

 

 

 

Let's Pretend

Let’s Pretend

 

We are presently going through C.S. Lewis’s famous book, “Mere Christianity” and touching on some of the highlights.  This book is all about describing Christian beliefs.  And today we will touch on the Christian belief of what happens to us when we accept Christ as Savior.

 

Scripture tells us that when we believe in Christ as our Savior, that we are “righteous”. (2 Corinthians 5:21, Romans 4:5 and 13, Romans 9:30, Romans 3:22, and Romans 1:17) Christ’s righteousness has been wrapped around us!

 

But even though the Bible says believers are “righteous”, doesn’t it mean we “will become righteous” in heaven?  No Scripture says we “are” righteous right now when we know we are still sinning! When we say we are “righteous” aren’t we just pretending?  We still have ungodly thoughts and we still get angry when we shouldn’t!  What goes here? 

 

C.S. Lewis suggests that when you are not feeling particularly friendly but know you ought to be, the best thing you can do is to put on a friendly manner and behave (or pretend) as if you are a nicer person than you actually are.  And guess what?  In a few minutes, you really will be  feeling friendlier than you were.  Very often the only way to feel friendly or loving is to start acting friendlier and more loving.  Behaving as if you already felt friendlier and more loving.  And soon pretending becomes reality!  Christ Himself, the Son of God, is actually at your side and is already at that moment turning your pretending into reality!

 

If you ae seriously trying to be like Christ, there are lots of things that your conscience may not call wrong, but you feel that you cannot go on doing.  You are no longer thinking as much about right and wrong as about doing what pleases God.  The real Son of God is at your side, and He is beginning to turn you into being more like Himself.  He is speaking His kind of life and thought into you. 

 

You may be thinking that you have never had the sense of being helped by an invisible Christ.  We see the person who helped us without seeing Christ behind him or her.  But if there were no help from Christ there would be no help from other human beings.  Christ works on us in all sorts of ways. He works through His Spirit speaking to our spirit.  He works through nature and through others.  Through books and our own experiences.  And ways that only He knows.  We must go on to recognize the real Giver behind every good gift we receive. (James 1:17)

 

The Scripture speaks of “being born again” and about “putting on Christ” and “Christ being formed in us”.  This isn’t just a fancy way of saying that Christians are to read what Christ said and try to carry it out.  It means so much more. 

 

The Bible means that a real Person, Christ, here and now, in the room where you are saying your prayers, is doing things to you.  It is not a question of a good person who died two thousand years ago.  Christ, the Son of God is the Alpha (beginning) and the Omega (ending) of time. (Revelations 22:13)   He is alive today and is coming and interfering with you.  Killing the old natural self in you and replacing it with the kind of self He has.  If all goes well, He will turn you permanently into a new little Christ, an eternal being, something we can only imagine!

 

We cannot by direct moral effort, give ourselves new motives.  After the first few steps in the Christian life we realize that everything which really needs to be done in our souls can only be done by God.  We think we are doing everything to change ourselves, but of course it is God who does everything in us.  But we at most allow it to be done to us.  Jesus became a man for no other purpose but to draw people to Himself.  The whole universe was made for Christ and everything is to be gathered together in Him. 

You might say that it is God who also does the pretending.  God sees before Him a self-centered, greedy, grumbling, rebellious human being.  But He says, ‘Because of her faith in Me I am her Father’.  She is My child- My righteous child!

 

  God looks at you as if you were righteous.  And Christ stands beside you making you righteous, His righteousness covering you.  Scripture says that we will never sin again after we die and go to heaven. Christ will have finished the job on us by then. God who see the beginning from the end can see us now as we will be in all eternity – a righteous saint.

 

  The idea of divine make-believe sounds rather strange.  But is it so strange really?  A mother teaches her baby to talk by talking to it as if it understood long before it really does.  And we treat our dogs as if they were ‘almost human’ and that is why they really become ‘almost human’ in the end. 

The ideas in this blog were taken from C.S. Lewis’s book, “Mere Christianity”.

 

 

Hope and Faith

Hope and Faith

 

We are presently going through C.S. Lewis’s famous book, “Mere Christianity” and touching on some of the highlights.  This book is all about describing Christian beliefs.  And today we will touch on the Christian beliefs concerning hope and faith.

 

Today the definition of “hope” means “wishing or wanting something to happen”.  One might say that he or she hopes their football team wins.  This is not what the word “hope” means in Scripture.   For Christians, hope is one of the Theological virtues.  The word “hope” in the Bible means “a continual looking forward to the eternal world”. 

 

Scripture says: “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known.  But we know that when He (Jesus) shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.  Everyone who has this hope in him, purifies himself, just as he is pure.”  (1 John 3:2-3) These verses seem to imply that when we look forward to or when we “hope” for our eternal home, that our hope has a purifying effect on our souls!  Our hope in God changes us?  

 

In the Old Testament, hope is expressed by words meaning “safety”, “security”, “trust”, and “refuge” and “waited for”.  Scripture says that the coming of the Lord is called “the blessed hope”, that is, the act of expecting our future victory in Christ in heaven gives joy to the Christian.  (Titus 2:13) 

Most of us find it difficult to want ‘Heaven” because we have not been trained – our whole education tends to fix our minds on this world and not the next.  Heaven is present in us, but we often do not recognize it.  If most people would look into their hearts, they might find out that they do want something more that cannot be found in this world! 

 

Perhaps there is something we humans grasp at when we are young and idealistic that later never turns out quite as good as we had dreamed!  Never becomes as fulfilling as we had hoped!  Some put the blame on the thing itself.  If he had only married another woman, or gone on a more expensive trip, or made more money – then he would have caught that mysterious something we all seem to want.  Some spend their lives running from woman to woman (or man to man) or from job to job, always hoping that the latest is the “real thing”. And always becoming disappointed.  And others solve the problem of their disillusionment with life by telling themselves not to expect too much.  That some things are too good to be true.  

 

But what if it’s true and there is perfect love and joy and goodness in heaven?  And just suppose infinite happiness really is there for us? The Bible teaches, and Christians believe that we will live forever!  Forever in glory and our future in Christ will be more glorious and victorious than we can ever imagine. (1 Corinthians 2:9, Isaiah 64:4)   That hope is surely enough to make our earthly life joyful.

 

If we find ourselves desiring something which no experience in this world can satisfy, could it be that we were made for another world?  We must keep alive in ourselves the desire for our true country, which we shall not find until after our death.  And we must help others do the same.

 

We now turn to the subject of faith.  Faith simply means belief – accepting or regarding as true the doctrines of Christianity. Scripture tells us that Jesus is the author and the finisher of our faith.  (Hebrews 12:2)   And Scripture also tells us that if we believe in Christ as Savior we will be saved. (Acts 16:31, John 3:16)   And without faith it is impossible to please God.  (Hebrews 11:6)

 

Because our faith in Christ is so precious and so important – (without it we would not have salvation) we need to take care of it.  Nourish and feed it by prayer and praise, following Christ, Bible reading, helping others, giving to the needy and fellowshipping with other believers. If you look at people who say they have lost their faith in Christianity, it seems that some of them didn’t hold on to their precious faith tightly enough and when troubles came along their faith simply drifted away.

 

 Faith is the art of holding on!  Holding on in spite of your changing moods.  And holding on when there is bad news, or when you are very sick.  Or when false teachers or heresies try to tempt you away from Christ as Lord and Savior.  Holding on when your church throws you out or fellow Christians turn against you. And holding on when you are living among a lot of people who do not believe.  Holding on when all at once your emotions rise up and carry out a sort of blitz on your beliefs.  And holding on when you want to sin and find it would be more convenient sinning if Christianity wasn’t true.  Yes, the troubles and temptations will come, and the storms of life will blow on your little house of faith.  But faith is the art of holding on.  “He who endures to the end will be saved.”  (Matthew 24:13)

 

 

 

Forgiveness and Love

Forgiveness and Love

 

We are presently going through C.S. Lewis’s famous book, “Mere Christianity” and touching on some of the high-lights.  This book is all about describing Christian beliefs.  Today we will touch on the Christian beliefs concerning forgiveness and love.

 

C.S. Lewis insists that he didn’t invent Christianity when he discusses the fact that Christians are commanded to forgive.  Right there in the middle of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus says: “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”  (Matthew 6:12) Jesus made it perfectly clear here, and also in other portions of Scripture, that if we do not forgive we shall not be forgiven.  There are no two ways about it.  But sometimes forgiving another person is very difficult.  Impossible in our own strength!  So, what are we to do?

 

God wouldn’t ask us to do anything that would be impossible for us to do.  But sometimes forgiving a really bad enemy would be impossible for us to do - in our own strength.  But then that’s where God comes in.  God promises to be there with us and help us with the impossible things in our lives.  And that means He will give us the strength and power to forgive our really bad enemies - if we ask Him to.  (Philippians 4:13; Isaiah 41:10; Matthew 7;7-8, Luke 11:9) Help is there for us if we want it.  We just need to ask and then stand on God’s promises!    

 

Lewis insists that the Christian teaching of forgiveness does not call us to reduce the hatred we feel for cruelty or treachery or for any other sin or crime.  Forgiving doesn’t mean saying that the sin isn’t so bad!  We ought to hate sin.  And forgiving a person who has sinned does not mean that that person is not to be punished by the law if a crime has been committed.

 

We are to hate the sin but love the sinner!  When you are trying to obey God’s command to forgive, try picturing the person you are forgiving the way God created him or her to be. God created all persons to be good. Pray that the one you are forgiving, the one who sinned, will become the good person he or she was meant to be.  Give this person to God and pray that he or she will be changed. 

 

Sometimes we can feel resentment towards this bad person or group we are trying to forgive.  We would like to hurt their reputation or their feelings or put them down.  Each time these feelings pop up in our minds we must put them down. God is not only calling us to “do” the right thing, but also to “think” the right thing!  Thought patrol?!  That’s what the Good Book says!  We are instructed in Scripture to “take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5)  

 

Instead of hating the bad person or group, we are commanded to bless our enemies and pray for them.  (Luke 6:28, Matthew 5:44) It is hard work, but not impossible. God can love them through us. God has commanded us to forgive and forgiveness is hard work.  

 

We are to give this person we are trying to forgive over to God and let Him deal with the sin that they committed. We should not try to get revenge ourselves. Scripture says that God will take care of the person who hurt us or who stole from us.  Vengeance belongs to God and to Him alone.  Paying the sinner back for his sin is God’s job, not ours.   (Romans 12:19), Deuteronomy 32:35)

 

We move on to the topic of Christian love.  We Christians are commanded to love God with all our hearts, minds and soul and to love our neighbors as ourselves.  (Matthew 22:37: Deuteronomy 6:5) C.S. Lewis suggests that we not waste time worrying whether we ‘love’ our neighbor.  He advises that we act as if we love our neighbor that soon we will find one of the great secrets in life.  That secret is that when we behave as if we love someone, we will presently come to love him or her. 

 

When we obey God’s command to forgive and love, we become more loving with each decision we make to obey and love.  We learn to love a little more each time we choose to love and soon loving ways become a habit.  And good habits become our good character.  That is why little decisions we make every day have such infinite importance.  Good choices or evil choices can increase at compound interest in our lives.

 

Christian love, either towards God or towards other people is an affair of the will.  Though our loving feelings may come and go, God’s love for us does not. He always loves us.  God’s love is not wearied by our sins, or our indifferences.  And His love is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of all our sins, at whatever cost to us, and at whatever cost to Him. 

 

Many of the teachings in this blog were taken from C.S. Lewis’s book, “Mere Christianity.”

 

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Thoughts Concerning Christian Marriage

Thoughts Concerning Christian Marriage

 

We are presently going through C.S. Lewis’s famous book, “Mere Christianity” and touching on some of the high-lights. This book is all about describing Christian beliefs.  Today we will touch on some of the Christian beliefs concerning sex and marriage.

 

The Christian idea of marriage is based on Christ’s words that a married couple is to be considered as a single organism – or “one flesh”.  (Mark 10:8) And one of the Ten Commandments in the Bible commands God’s people against sex outside of marriage.  It says: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” (Exodus 20:14) God has given us this wonderful gift of marriage, but with His gift He has also given us some rules and instructions.  

 

Most likely God commanded His people to be faithful in their marriages because sex outside of marriage isolates one kind of union (the sexual) from all the other kinds of unions which were intended to go along with it and make up the total union called marriage.  Sex without love or commitment is really fake.  And God wants the real thing for us – and we should want that too. 

 

 Also, sex outside of marriage is called “fornication” and is called a “sin” in Scripture. This sin is sometimes made to look like “fun” in the media, but it can bring on so much sorrow and grief.  Unborn babies produced by couples who have sex and are not committed to each other are the cause of millions of abortions.   And parents who are not responsible or faithful to one another can be the cause of why little children are abandoned or are raised by one struggling parent.

 

There are people who want to keep free sex alive in order to make money out of us.  Today porn is everywhere, and sex is cheapened and considered a recreation. Surrendering to all our desires can lead to impotence, disease, jealousies, lies, concealment and abortions.

 

Sadly, babies and children are the ones who suffer most!  These little ones are sacrificed on the altar to the goddess of sex. How many more will have to die?  They pay the bloody price so that we can have free sex. God wants our best and our children’s best.  For any happiness in this world, quite a lot of restraint is going to be necessary. 

 

God loves and cares about the un-born and the abandoned babies and the children who are left behind like garbage after a feast.  Scripture says: “If anyone does not provide for his family, he has denied the Christian faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” (1 Timothy 5:8) God calls Christians to be responsible in their sex lives and to “flee – or run away from - fornication”.  To be committed to the one we have a sexual relation with and to be responsible for the children that our sexual relationship brings.  God loves us too much to have it any other way. 

   

Thousands of years ago, men – usually men with enough money – sometimes married more than one wife, if he could pay for her upkeep and also the children they had together. God called on them to take care of their families. Both Moses and Jacob, who were great men of God, were married to more than one wife, as was the custom in the patriarchal societies of antiquity. Today most modern women believe in equality in marriage and would not agree to share their every-day lives and their money as well as their husbands with others. 

 

Almost everyone who has been married in a church has made a public, solemn promise before God to stick to his or her partner in sickness and in health, whether for richer or poorer until death.  Marriage for a Christian is considered sacred – with God’s blessings on it.  But of course, we all know that some marriages don’t last until death like we promise in our marriage vows. And Scripture allows divorce in certain cases. Here are two of the several reasons. (Matthew 19:9, 1 Corinthians 7:15, Matthew 5:32) But still, the Biblical Christian beliefs concerning marriage and divorce are much stricter than our modern society would prefer. 

 

So how do we reconcile the reality of the high divorce rate among Christians with the high Christian standards of love and faithfulness?  It seems that many Christians have adopted the secular standards for marriage and given up our Christian standards. The modern secular standard for marriage does not always call the couple to stick together till death!  In fact, it seems that often secular advice goes like this – that one should stay in a marriage as long as the marriage is in their best interests.  And when two people “outgrow” one another or have different needs then they should split.  As you can see, there is a difference between the Christian definition of marriage and the secular one. 

 

 I would think that a Christian, trying to obey God, should take their marriage vows seriously and do their best to stay in a difficult marriage.  Go through counseling and pray for God’s help.  Scripture allows divorce in cases of adultery or abandonment.  And I believe that God doesn’t want us to stay in an abusive marriage when the abuser refuses to change.

 

 If one of the partners refuses to stay in the marriage, often leaving for another person, there is little the other partner can do but to go along with the divorce. But God forgives the sin of divorce just as He forgives all other sins. So, if you are the one who left your marriage and caused the divorce, you can be forgiven if you are sorry and repentant.  Christianity is all about repentance and second chances. 

 

God commands marriage partners to love one another.  And He commands husbands to “Love your wives as Christ loves the Church.”  (Ephesians 5:25) C.S. Lewis points out that those who are in love have a natural inclination to bind themselves by promises.  Romantic love songs all over the world are full of vows of eternal constancy.  But is this modern generation giving up on romance and true love?  Where are any romantic love songs today? 

 

Love is the great conqueror of lust.  And true love moves married partners to keep their promise of fidelity through thick and thin.  It is on this God given love that the engine of marriage is run. I believe a great marriage is there for us if we ask God for it.  And if we are willing to be unselfish and responsible. God promises to be with us in our marriages and to help us love one another – if we are willing.

 

Being married and in love is a glorious state!  It helps to make us romantic, unselfish, generous and courageous.  It opens our eyes not only to the beauty of the beloved, but to all beauty. We give up so much if we pass married love by for some cheap sexual thrills. Yes, true married love is a many splendored thing!

 

Many of these ideas were taken from C.S. Lewis’s book, “Mere Christianity”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Should a Christian Behave

How Should a Christian Behave?

 

Writers down through the ages have spoken about the “Cardinal Virtues”.  By ‘cardinal virtues’ we mean ‘basic good behaviors.  Good behaviors that all civilized people recognize and expect from one another.  Good societies cannot function well without good people.  And by calling a society “good” that doesn’t mean it has to be wealthy or advanced technologically.  But it needs to have cardinal virtues!

 

The four “virtues” or “basic good behaviors” are (1) Prudence, (2) Temperance, (3) Justice and (4) Fortitude.     Prudence means “practical common sense”.  Or taking the trouble to think out what you are doing and what is likely to come of it.  Scripture tells us to be “as wise as serpents but as harmless as doves.”  (Matthew 10:16) Much is said in the Bible about the ‘fool’ or the person who lacks ‘prudence’ or common sense.  God promises to give us wisdom and common sense if we ask Him for it.  (James 1:5) And being a Christian is an education in itself.

 

(2) Temperance, our second virtue, doesn’t only refer to over indulging in drinking or drugging.  But we are to be “temperate” in all things.  In other words, we are to go the right length and no further.  Moderation is the key. God wants first place in our lives.  And everything else will be given to you. (Matthew 6:33) (Exodus 20:3) (3) Justice, our third virtue, means fairness – honesty, give and take, truthfulness, keeping promises, doing what is right and good.  

 

And (4) Fortitude, our fourth virtue, means ‘guts’ or courage.  It means the kind of courage that faces danger and the kind of courage that sticks with it through trouble and pain.  You cannot practice any of the other virtues very long without having courage or guts.  A person who keeps trying to do just actions in the end gets a certain quality of character.  There is a right and a wrong in this earth and the Christian is called to try to follow the right.

 

Christianity does not profess to have a detailed political program.  That is not how Christianity works.  The Christian faith is meant for all people at all times and under various political systems.  And Christianity was never meant to supersede ordinary human politics or arts and sciences, but it is rather a director which will set them all to the right jobs and will give them all new life. 

 

The New Testament does give us a pretty clear idea of what a Christian society should be like.  Scripture tells us what is right and wrong, and how we are to behave ourselves.  And it promises us help from God in doing the right thing.

 

In Scripture the “Christian” society is a place where everyone who is able does work so that he or she can produce something good for others in the society.  If a person refuses to work, then he is not to be given a free ride.  Also. the Christian society is a cheerful society, full of singing and rejoicing and praising God because we are invited to walk by faith in God who will be with us and guide our steps and answer our prayers and eventually in Christ give us the victory!   

 

Courtesy is important in a Christian society and being a ‘busybody’ is a sin. Also, a Christian is to treat others as he or she would like to be treated.  And to love and have respect for one another.  Forgive one another always. All we Christians have departed from that total plan in different ways. But Christ, the good Shepherd, searches for us and brings us back to the fold.

 

Charity – giving to the poor – is an essential part of Christian morality.  One of the reasons the New Testament gives as a reason we should work is that the worker may have something to give to those in need. (Ephesians 4:28) Christ will one day separate the sheep from the goats.  And the sheep who go to heaven are those who gave to the needy and the goats are the ones who didn’t help the needy and they go down below!  (Matthew 25:35-45) Yes, charity – giving to the needy – is a big part of Christian morality indeed! 

 

A Christian is commanded in Scripture not to judge others. We humans don’t see the whole picture. We only see the results of a person’s choices – the outward appearances. But God, sees the whole picture.  He sees our talents and strengths, our social capital – our genes or what we inherited from our family and how we were nurtured and our happy or neurotic personality.  

 

And also, He sees the challenges we must overcome. And our troubles, our traumas and any mental illnesses, fears, health issues and phobias, our brokenness. He sees each person’s heart.  Let’s take two people who are guilty of the same crime and get a imperfect and vague idea of how God is able to know and see and judge the interior motives and struggles of these two people.  And how He can understand the whole picture and can judge with true mercy and justice.     

 

Our first person – a young woman - has committed a crime.  This young woman was raised and surrounded by a loving God-fearing family who consistently taught her to do good.  She always had enough to eat and a warm home and secure family.  She graduated from a good college and was engaged to marry the pastor of her church.  She was healthy and had good genes.  And she inherited her parent’s good dispositions and mild manners.

 

 Our second person – a young man -who is guilty of the same crime as the young woman.  But this young man was abandoned by his drug addicted mother at birth and for the first few years of his early childhood he was raised by angry foster parents who lived in poverty.  He was sexually molested by his foster father and he never finished sixth grade. By the time he was twelve years old he ran away and roamed the streets, alone and scared.  As a young teen the gangs became this boy’s family where he learned how to rob others and became addicted to drugs.  He was becoming a violent and dangerous person.  

 

Our two people both committed the same crime.  But the courts, only observing the outward appearances, will probably be more lenient with the young woman than they will with the young man. We do not know how our loving and merciful God would judge these two, but I think that God would judge the young man differently, and maybe with more leniency than the young woman!  God knows that the young man never had the chances that the young woman did.  God sees the young man’s brokenness and knows his poverty of spirit. 

 

Scripture tells us that we are not to judge.  Only God has the power and ability to do this job of judging people.  He created people and only He can see what made up the person life and the challenges and traumas that he or she had to face. Only God can be fair and loving, merciful and forgiving, just and pure. Judging is His job and His alone. (1 Timothy 4:1) Let’s remember that next time we start to judge someone. 

 

Most of the ideas in this blog were taken from C.S. Lewis’s book, “Mere Christianity”.