“Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.” I John 2:6
“Imagine that your feet are straddling a crack that is increasing at the rate of an eighth of an inch a month. By month six, it’s still only a small gap, less than an inch. But after sixteen years, you’re looking at two feet, and after forty years, the gap will have widened to five feet. It won’t be long before you’ll either fall into the gap or be forced to decide which side to stand on. To make things even more perilous, the gap is increasing at such a small annual rate, you hardly notice it.” (Praying the Attributes of God by Ann Spangler)
Jesus saved me on November 6, 1976. I accepted God’s grace and immediately went to work to be good. I poured two bottles of Vodka down the drain, threw away all of the records I was used to listening to, and started wearing only “women’s” clothes. I will be forever grateful for the church visitation program that showed me the way to God. I am even grateful that it was a strict, fundamental religion that got me started with memorizing Scripture and, even though biased to their religion, showed me how to live as a Christian.
What I didn’t realize was that I still had to live in the world and I had to make choices on how much of the world I was going to allow into my daily living. Now, I have been able to hold to the conviction over alcohol, cursing, the way I dress and many other what some would call “obvious” sins. Where I feel that I have been “straddling the crack” in my Christian walk is in what I allow to come into my home through the television.
I have always enjoyed watching shows that make me think; like guessing the who-did-it in a detective show or anticipating the story line in a drama. I also enjoy laughing at sitcom silliness. What I don’t enjoy is the gap in morality and Christian standards that I see growing ever wider with each episode of today’s shows. I hesitate to say that if Andy Griffith was a sitcom today we would no longer see Barney with red lip prints on his cheek and an embarrassed look on his face after an unexpected kiss from his girlfriend. When Big Bang Theory first started I thought it was hilarious; OK, it’s because I can relate to Sheldon, just ask my hubby. But over the years, I have become uncomfortable with the content. No, it was not perfect from the beginning, there were always little sexual innuendos thrown in for “entertainment” that I ignored. But then the gaps grew a little when one started sleeping with another, then there were the homosexual insinuations and disrespect for parents and the way they were raised.
And the drama shows are no different. Last week I watched a show that I have been recording faithfully each week since it began, about a fire house that struggles with the politics of the city, inner turmoil of being a full-time fire-fighter and all of the situations that could happen. The show was real and it brought out pride in the profession and I really enjoyed watching it. And then last week, I quite recording it because the last episode I watched showed one couple making love (?) in the fire house shower, another in the captain’s office, and finally, the lesbian stating that she wanted a Lesbian night at the bar some of the firefighters owned as her input to building the clientele. I felt like the gap had grown and I had to make a decision whether to fall in and accept the garbage going into my head, or make a stand and turn it off.
Christian friends, television isn’t the only way we are allowing Satan to deceive us into thinking that wrong is right. We use personal rights and religion as a measure when we should be using Jesus.
Until we get God’s Word out and read it daily for ourselves, asking the Holy Spirit to guide our every interpretation of it, we are going to continue to see the gap between right and wrong grow until it gets so big that we either fall in and accept sin as the norm in our lives or we take a stand on the side of God and say enough is enough. I couldn’t even watch the Grammy’s the other night; I honestly felt physically ill at what they were pushing down our throats.
God has a call out to everyone of us to follow Him and He provides the strength, wisdom and ability to overcome for us to do that. But we have to make the choice. Is there a sin that you don’t recognize? Believe me, I know that feeling when I start to pray, God reveal all sin that is hidden from me and I wake up and say, “Oh, my God, forgive me!” The Bible says that backsliding starts with one small sin (I Kings 11: 9-10) and that continuous sin makes us insensitive to wrong (2 Samuel 11:25). And in that same verse we are also told that covering up sin leads to more sin. Where does it stop? It stops with living as Christ. It stops as knowing God’s Word. It stops with forgetting our own selfish desires so that the desires of God can control us.
Think about what is sin to God. Lust defines most of what sin is, because it puts your wants over God’s wants for you and lust can manifest itself in many different ways: adultery, promiscuity, stealing, homosexuality, murder can all be attributed to lusting for self-satisfaction.
Get in the Word, but not to find verses that alone can uphold your fall into the chasm of sin. Get into the Word for a true Christlike way of living so that you will choose God’s side.
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Heart Notes of Life 