He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Father of Light

I was considering the future of my children this week I think we all consider what the future might look like for our children or for us when we get older.

I started thinking about my grandfather (Ol' Pappy) and the immense changes that have occurred on this earth during his lifetime. Ol' Pappy was born in 1920 when the average annual salary was approximately $1,200. Throughout the 20s Jazz was the music of the masses, dance marathons became hugely popular, a brand new shiny Ford cost $290, the 19th amendment passed securing the right to vote for women, and the stock market crashed throwing the country into the Great Depression.

Since his birth, Ol' Pappy has experienced so much change: the addition of sound and color to movies, technological advancements, and the introduction of the television, computers, the internet, and cell phones. He has lived through wars in Europe and Asia (World War II), Korea, Vietnam, and the Middle East.

Ol' Pappy has witnessed changes in our culture and how the culture views morality. We have moved from a society generally believing in absolute truth to a society of acceptance and tolerance that adheres to a belief of relative truth. Surprisingly, this shift includes many in the Christian Church, a group of people that should be dedicated to an unchanging God (Hebrews 13:8).

I am not building up my grandfather’s generation as perfect; they had moral lapses and spiritual problems of their own. The only morally flawless life was one lived out by a man named Jesus, who also happened to be God’s son.

The acceptance of immorality is a trap, it is a device used by Satan to slowly soften and undermine our belief in a morally absolute God, and to make us slaves to dangerous emotions, thoughts, and habits.

Bible teacher Kay Arthur has said, "Sin will take you father than you ever thought you would go; It will keep you longer than you ever thought you would stay; and will cost you more than you ever thought you would pay." There is right and there is wrong, God does not leave open the option for a moral grey area because He understands the damage that will do to us. The more we know God, the more we will grasp how much He loves us and how he longs to protect us.

Don't let anyone under pressure to give in to evil say, "God is trying to trip me up." God is impervious to evil, and puts evil in no one's way. The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust. Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer. So, my very dear friends, don't get thrown off course. Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle. (James 1:13-17, MSG)

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