Everyone Draws a Line! ~

Everyone draws a line!

We live in a world of increasing moral ambiguity. We want more and more to throw aside any kind of absolute that would keep us from doing whatever we want and whenever we want. This should not shock us if we see it outside the Church but it should horrify us when we see it inside the Church. It is impossible to remove lines of separation from the Christian life. It is impossible to remove the directives from scripture and retain any semblance of integrity. We are people of faith, therefore we are people of action because faith without works is dead. We must allow the Bible to reign as the authority and being the authority we admit that the scriptures have the right to command our obedience.   Allow me to wade in a bit deeper.

The directives of the Bible are cut and dry. They are universal truths that should be obeyed for the Glory of God and the benefit of society. There is little wiggle room in “thou shalt not commit adultery” and the New Testament tightens the belt even farther when Christ points out that if you lust you have crossed the line in your heart. This is clear and needs little personal application because it is universally applied in every culture, on every continent, in every time, in every context. Adultery is wrong no matter when or where you live. Now of course this is not the only clear directive of scripture but serves as an example.

Allow me to echo here the words of James 2:26 “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” We cannot sit back and claim to be right in our heart and continue to live wrong in our action. The Bible clearly condemns certain actions as sin. You cannot live a life of dishonesty and claim that honesty is a matter of the heart. Of course it is a matter of the heart and if you get the heart right you will get the action right. And conversely if the action is not becoming more like Christ then there is a problem in the heart. The Holy Spirit will never lead us to Un-Holy actions.

Now how do we follow the directives of scripture? As I have already mentioned we follow the directives of Scripture through the power of the Spirit. The scripture provides the directives and the Spirit is the dynamic of our Christian walk. This is the grace of God working inside the believer “Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; ” (Titus 2:12) Too often we get the cart before the horse. It has often been taught that we live holy to get the power of God and just the opposite is true. We access the power of God by faith in order that we might live holy. Without the power of the Spirit of God inside us we are powerless to live holy. All Bible directives should point me back to the dynamics of the Spirit filled life not the legalism of a trying harder. The spirit filled life is not a life that pushes me away from directives of the scripture, but the directives of the scripture become the nature of the Spirit filled child of God. When a Child of God is yielded to the Spirit they will not struggle to love but the love will grow naturally or shall I say super-naturally in their life. If you live with a condemnation and fear of breaking Gods laws you have missed the point of the yielded Christian life. We are secure in Christ and we have been accepted in the beloved. We have the Spirit of Christ in us and as we walk in His word and are filled with His Spirit we will be transformed to the image of Christ. It has never been about me finding acceptance or favor with God. Acceptance with God is only found in the person and work of Christ.  Christ is the only life that has fully pleased the Father and we will please the Father when he sees Christ in us.

Now all of the directives of Scripture have personal applications and though the command is no less emphatic the application may be different among many sincere believers. For example in Psalms 101:3 David writes “I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.”  This could affect any number of avenues in our life. Should a Christian watch certain shows on television? Should a Christian go to the beach? Should a Christian visit amusement parks? Should a Christian go through the checkout line at the grocery store? And some take it farther still. Should a Christian own a TV? Should a Christian have cable?  Should a Christian go to a movie?  And on and on this can go. Now let’s be certain that a proper exposition of scripture could clear up much of our confusion. We are not told to lock our doors and build a fence around out house in order to guard our eyes but we are told not to deliberately set things before us that are wicked. When the directive is clear the Spirit begins to work in the life of the believer. He, through the word of God, convicts and leads us to personal applications. Now these applications may differ by culture, generation, geography and personal predisposition but the truth is universal. I doubt the Apostle Paul ever had a problem with amusement parks, but I digress. When we encounter these issues let us remember a few things. 

First let’s affirm the directives of scripture without apology. If by chance you are taking this to mean that we can each interpret right and wrong for themselves that is not what was said or eluded to in the above text. The directives of scripture are the plumb-line and we cannot call good what God calls evil. 

Second let us draw the lines of application in our own lives with honesty. The most damaging lies we tell are the ones we tell our selves and only we can deal with the deception of our own heart.  

Finally let us exercise liberty for our brother who differs on the application. When we preach applications as biblical directives we undermine the scripture and bypass the work of the Spirit. Our personal applications of Biblical directives are not grounds to question the integrity of our Brother or Sister in Christ.