My Truth for Today

"For many people in today's church, the term worldliness has a quaint, old-fashioned ring to it. They associate it with prohibitions against things like dancing, going to the movies, or playing cards. Today's user-friendly, seeker-oriented, market-driven church does not preach much against worldliness. To do so might make unbelievers (not to mention believers) uncomfortable, and is therefore avoided as poor marketing strategy. But unlike much of the contemporary church, the Bible does not hesitate to condemn worldliness for the serious sin that it is. Worldliness is any preoccupation with or interest in the temporal system of life that places anything perishable before that which is eternal." - John MacArthur, Revelation: The Christian's Ultimate Victory [Biblical viewpoint]

"Intolerance...is not simply the lack of a sense of solidarity with other people; it is the rejection of others for what they are, for what they do, for what they think and, eventually, simply because they exist." - Edgard Pisani, French politician [secular viewpoint]

"Our idea is that to be a virtuous citizen is to be one who tolerates everything except intolerance." - Leslie Armour, philosophy professor, University of Ottawa [secular viewpoint]

"It is only natural, once a person replaces God's revelation of right and wrong with a custom-made, personalized right and wrong, to put that principle into practice. 'I will be my own god. I will determine what is right and wrong, what is true and false, what is good or evil.' The truth claims and commands of the Bible are considered too narrow by today's definition of tolerance. Christians' belief in a 'God of truth' (Isaiah 65:16) and in 'the Book of Truth' (Daniel 10:21) is intolerable to the proponents of the new tolerance, who consider a belief in absolute truth to be evil and offensive." - Josh McDowell, The New Tolerance: How a Cultural Movement Threatens to Destroy You, Your Faith and Your Children [Biblical viewpoint]

JODY'S VIEWPOINT
It has become too easy for me to dismiss wrong things as something that is "okay for them but not for me." In saying that, I've become tolerant of sin. Jesus commands me to hate what is evil and that includes the sin in my Christian brother or sister's life. Culture has created this premise that equates "who a person is" with "what a person does." This premise goes against everything in the Bible. This premise is what the Pharisees believed and Jesus condemned them for that. If I cannot separate the person from their actions, then I am no better than the Pharisees.

In the growth of my love relationship with Father, I am learning how to do just that. Each day as I ask Father to send someone across my path, those "someones" are people I'm meeting at the local store or gas station... "someones" I might not have had time to notice before but now receive a smile filled with Father's love. Those "someones" are people I might have prejudged previously because of their lifestyle... they do this, therefore they are bad. Psychology calls it "black and white thinking." I am learning how often I fall into this way of thinking. Imagine if Father had used "black and white thinking" on me! I would NOT have been redeemed. Yet, THANKFULLY, He was able to separate "who I am" from "what I've done" and His love and mercy and grace redeemed me through His love journey to the Cross.

As a Christian, I have several paths I could take towards combating this way of thinking, this way of tolerance or intolerance... I can accept both the person and the sin; I can fight against both the person and the sin. In these two ways, I only see a lose-lose situation. In the first, I lose because I am accepting sin; in the second, the person loses because I am against them as a person.

What I am choosing is "a more excellent way" (I Corinthians 12:31, NASB) "And I show you a still more excellent way."

But what follows? What is Paul saying is the "more excellent way" of eliminating black and white thinking, of fighting against tolerating the sin or becoming intolerant of the person? Here is an unfortunate break in Scripture... Paul moves immediately into I Corinthians 13 - "The Excellence of Love" right after he is speaking to the church in Corinth about how some of them have gifts of healing, some are teachers, some work miracles, etc... He says these are all great spiritual gifts but the reality is that we all ought to DESIRE THE GREATER GIFTS! THE MORE EXCELLENT WAY.

LOVE trumps all! Following is my life version of First Corinthians 13.

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy, but don’t have Father’s love filling me to the brim, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all His mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I am not saturated in my Abba Father’s love, I am nothing.
If I give everything I own to the poor ad even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I have not shown the evidences of God’s love to others, I’ve gotten nowhere.
So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt if I don’t understand Father’s love for me and accept it for what it is.
His love has never given up on me, and my evidence of His love to others is to never give up on them.
His love cares more for me than for Himself, evidenced by His Son’s sacrifice on the cross; so I should be self-sacrificial as I’m overflowing with His love.
His love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have – except me: in this case, He is jealous for me. Because I have His love, I can learn to be content in all things.
His love doesn’t strut and doesn’t have a swelled head; it doesn’t force itself on others, and isn’t always “me first.” Rather, it is quiet, gentle and waiting. Because I’m saturated in His love, I should only speak when led by Him and boast only in what Father has done in me. By resting gently in His guidance, I will not have to be forceful when I share His love. Others will seek me out on their own, because they see something different in me. As I let Father build a relationship with me, I will naturally put others first in my life. His love through me does not brag and is not arrogant.
His love doesn’t fly off the handle, and it doesn’t keep score of the sins of others. Because Father loves me so much He gave His Son as a sacrifice, and He fills me with that immense love, I am able to stop and think before I open my mouth. I am able to look at people through His eyes, and not react in an unholy way. Instead, His love that seeps through my pores and dictates my every word and action offers grace and forgiveness.
His love doesn’t revel when others grovel, and it takes pleasure in the flowering of truth. I, as a daughter of the King bearing His love and showing it to others, do not rejoice in unrighteousness, but I rejoice in the truth. This means that I do not sit by quietly when the conversation moves away from what the Lord would be pleased with, but I get up and remove myself from that situation. I do not, as the world encourages, “tolerate” sin but rather label it for what it is. And I rejoice in the Truth, God’s Word. It becomes a delight to me, day and night. Father becomes my alarm clock, waking me up to spend time with Him.
The strength of my Abba Father’s love allows me to put up with anything, TRUST God’s plan for me always, looking for the best, and never looking back to my old life or my old hurts. I trust that His plan for me is good, because He is shaping my life along the same lines as the life of His Son (Romans 8).
His love will NEVER fail me! Sometimes talk, understanding and even prayer will be beyond my reach, but His love will NEVER leave me.
For when I was a child in my Christian walk, only obeying out of duty and obligation, I acted like a child. But now that His love is being perfected in me, the partial disobedience is done away with. When I became an adult in my Christian walk, obeying Father because of my love relationship with Him, He gave me the ability to do away with disobedience.
Before, when I looked in a mirror, I had no idea the extent of His love for me! Now, when I look in my mirror, I see a bit of His holiness shining through me. When I became a Christian, part of this truth was revealed to me. And when I experienced the beginning of His love relationship with me (holiness), more truth was revealed. But when I see Him face to face, and experience His perfect love in person, His truth will be completed in me.
But for today, while I wait for heaven, my love relationship causes me to grow in these areas: trusting steadily in Father, hoping for the day of the Lord to come soon, and loving extravagantly. But the greatest of these is God’s perfect love filling me up and flowing into others.