A video banned from social media asks a simple question, “What is a woman?” and the answers so far, particularly from those who are doctors, psychiatrists, university professors and so on, are not answers. Most of them try to explain the current ideas about gender and sexuality but their worldview eliminates this definition because worldviews have radically changed, even since the devotional I am reading was published.
Worldviews affect how Christianity is defined. Currently, people are not using honorable deeds so they look like Christians or to earn their way to heaven. Good is relative and heaven does not exist. Reality is not defined objectively. If a person believes something, then that something is true for them, even if they think they are a turtle or a sheepdog.
My mother often said that nice people must be Christians. Her way of evaluation may have been based on Scripture like this:
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. (James 2:14–17)
That way of defining Christians needs to include more than being nice. Faith must be in the equation because without it, no one can please God (Hebrews 11:6). Faith is about trusting Him, not our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5ff) and biblical faith is the source of doing good. This means good works are not initiated by human effort but by the Lord through a changed life, a life that follows God’s leading and obeys Him.
Dead faith is contrary to that. No one can produce the work that God wants because godly goodness depends on Holy Spirit power. Dead faith is self-motivated and for personal gain. In contrast, Jesus said, “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).
The Christian way of thinking is limited in today’s world by current philosophies and definitions of reality. Many people think there is no God (atheism) or that God (if there is a God) is not involved in this world. The concern to please God is replaced by whatever pleases self, and faith is replaced by “truth is relative” which negates objectivity and renders the Bible obsolete and passages like this one:
He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. (Romans 2:6–8)
Christianity is thought to be repressive — and it is — because it considers sin as bondage, and relying on self and doing our own thing is sin. It tells us to put off that kind of life. From a Christian perspective, the current world view is no different than it was when Christ lived, died, and rose again, except for its extent and for the damage that is done by those who decide what is true for themselves. People no longer want to be rid of sin, but to have it declared okay, even good. This thinking was predicted by this warning: “Knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.” (2 Peter 3:3) It began with rules concerning marriage and food . . .
Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth . . . . (1 Timothy 4:1–5)
It continues by turning away from biblical teaching:
For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. (2 Timothy 4:3–4)
It comes down to what I’m hearing from the so-called wise of this world: “ . . . Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge,” for by professing it some have swerved from the faith.” (1 Timothy 6:20–21)
PRAY: Lord, only You can open blind eyes and change hearts. Only You can change those “insatiable for sin” into those who are hungry for truth and to know You. You say, “Do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart . . .” (1 Corinthians 4:5). In the meantime, people will “suffer wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing” and people will “count it pleasure to revel in the daytime” and continue to “devote themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons” — unless You speak to their hearts. My challenge is to manifest truth with faith that produced a goodness that can be explained by ‘only God.’ Enable me to be totally obedient to You.
PONDER: John 15:1–8. What is my need concerning this slide of many into unbelief? What can I do to make a difference?