Compromising values of the world into Christianity

[Daughter]

Hey everyone

I'm going to be just myself today as I'm ought to be.
There's a certain issue I'm thinking about and it's very confronting but I think it's very good to think about it because many of us have one or more of these issues in their lives and might not even think about it.
Today I want to go to the root of everything that we as Christians might accept in our lifestyle with the thought "What's wrong with that?" but there might be a lot wrong with it.
The problem is, the things that are the biggest problem might be the most subtle things that just invade our lives which we don't easily see as wrong and rather accept to be not too much different than the world.

I'm thinking of the music we listen, the clothes we wear, the language we use, the way we talk and live with each other and even the things we look at and let invade in our minds.

If we look at the roots of the things we accept in our lifestyle... can we confidently say that we're pleasing God with it or are we rather pleasing ourselves and others to be accepted by the world?

Let me give a biblical example...
The tower of babel was just a big tower but the intention behind it was being equal or even bigger than God.
Actually it was as good as rebelling against God. But the people worked together, everyone must have had peace with each other and they litterally and probably even figuratively understoof eachother. There was just one thing that was wrong and it was their desire to be bigger than God.

If we look at our music for example... What is the intention of what we listen to? What is the root of it?
Is it meant to honour God rather than ourselves, or is it meant for our pleasures and as an alternative for the Holy Spirit?
Is the love that is sung about, the love as it is written in God's word, or is it the love as the world has manipulated it which is just feeling-based and sentimental?

Personally, I never thought that I had to rediscover God's word through God's eyes and not through just humanistic eyes because now I see who's really in charge and who has the right to say what is right or wrong.

In some cases we might have the power, but we don't always have the right to do something...
I can honestly say that I have even done things that were beyond my rights and I repented from it.
The conclusion I can make is that we truly can be thankful that God has been merciful and has shown us grace... We should grab this with both our hands instead of spitting on it as if it has never been worth anything...

Well the question I might ask in here to discuss about and to discern with each other.
By the way, a little note about discernment... Not so long ago, I thought discernment was keeping an eye on the evil and even gossiping about it. For years I lived in fear for evil and thought I was doing something good. I even paniced because of the things I saw happening and the times we live in.
I found myself not ready at all for Jesus second comming and by panicing and gossiping about the evils that happened in this world I didn't find myself more ready than before because I knew more evil than I knew God...
I learned that discernment is embracing the good and avoiding evil and not being focussed on evil and forgetting about God's greatness...
I even had to rediscover the gospel in this case...

So this thread is not about gossiping about evil but about discernment and sharing in love for our brothers and sisters.

Feel free to comment...

Sarah

 

[AgeofKnowledge]

You really have to ask God to envelope you with his holiness and sanctify you from the inside out and then purge your life of everything that is bad for you and that which doesn't honor God while rejecting the devil's filth from getting into your life. It is a true statement that you need God to help you to be the person He wants you to be. You were never intended to try to do it solely in your own power or alone. Thank God we don't have to.

Recovery - Christians Helping Our World

 

[VW]

There is a way that seems right to us, but the end of this way is death. And then there are religious ways of living, which seem to be endorsed by God, and the end of these ways are uncertain. Why? Because the way that God has set before us is the way that Jesus walked with Him. Jesus was very blunt about His walk in and with God, and it usually upset those He explained it to, and was always misunderstood, even by His disciples. Jesus walked with His eye and His heart and His mind on one thing, and only one thing. His Father. Nothing else. Every situation and every word and every act and every thought was from seeing His Father by the Holy Spirit. He said that if they had seen Him, then they had seen the Father. This because He did always those things which were pleasing in His Father's sight. Always. He said of His words that He only spoke what He heard His Father saying. He said of His actions that He only did what He saw His Father doing.

Jesus, the One through whom the entire creation exists, became flesh and blood, just like us in form, and walked among us, yet in a way that had never been seen before. He walked in the anointing of the Holy Spirit, completely and perfectly, from the moment He was baptized until His death on the cross. No one had ever walked in this way before. He was in constant communication with the Father, (which is grace,) at all times. He did not need to decide whether this or that was wrong, or whether He should do this or that. He just was, in the Father. He just followed, no matter where the Spirit lead Him, there He went. We have His example, and He has sent the Holy Spirit to us, to be the very same thing to us in our walk in this world, as the children of God. In scripture it is written that all who are being lead by the Spirit of God are the children of God.

But how do we follow Him who we have not believed in? Have we surrendered our lives to Jesus? If so, then why are we not following the leading of the Holy Spirit? And we say, "Oh, but we are following Him." If we were following Him, would there be divisions, and strife, and jealously, and envy? Or would the body of Christ not look entirely different? Notice in the beginning, when the Holy Spirit was first given to the church, how the people acted towards one another. They sold everything that they had and gave to the apostles, that all would be provided for. And conflict arose because some were being overlooked in the serving of meals. Already, the devil had tried to place a measure of descension among the brethren, by convincing Ananias and Sapphira to lie to the apostles out of greed. Notice that they died because of lying, not because of holding back. In other words, it is not in having things that we sin, but in desiring to keep them to ourselves while appearing to be full of charity. Deception is the sin here, and it starts in the heart.

Jesus gave us a new commandment, much harder than the old commandment. The old commandment could be fulfilled by loving your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus showed that even this was not according to God's view of righteousness, because we should also love our enemies. But even this is not His new commandment. His new commandment is as much higher above these as the heavens are above the earth. He commands that we love one another even as He has loved us. And He loved us so much that He died for us, willingly gave us His life, laid it down for us, and took it up again, so that we might have life in Him. And how do we use this life?

To fulfill His new commandment is possible in only one way. That is to be filled with and to walk in and by and for, following exactly and completely, the Holy Spirit, just as Jesus did. To do what we see Him doing, to say what we hear Him saying, to go where we see Him going, to be what He is in us. The one who finds this walk in Him finds true freedom, and true love, from God, for God, and for each other.

 

[loveschild]

I know of churches who condemned others for the clothes they wore. Still condemn people of the clothes they wear. Actually I'm very tired of it.

They try and tell you what music you can and can not listen to.

I know very well some music is just evil. I know we don't cuss. But a brand new person to Christ doesn't know all about that yet.

Where do we draw the line on the rules. Do we make up 613 fake rules like the Jews to make the Christians think they will never ever be good enough for God?

We have to be very careful we don't cause people to run away from God because we are laying so many rules on new comers. We can make them feel so quilty that they are doing everything so wrong they will think they can't ever make it to being close to God.

I think its best to show them love and to love and don't start pumping all the your shirt isn't good enough for me to see and God doesn't want to see you in that shirt down their throats.

God knows how to talk. Its in the book. If he wants to tell them something about their shirt he can tell them.

Where does the judging and critizing others come into play?

Sarah this reply isn't to you. Its for what I have seen others in my life do to people. Evil people in sheeps clothes looking for the next person to devour.

 

[Redeemed79]

Agreed Loveschild! I have seen and heard it and am grateful that I found a relationship with God through an awesome bunch of people that taught me that I had to get into the Word and God would correct me and if I had an open heart when reading and talking and walikng with God He would convict me!! I was also taught that he can use His people to correct or rebuke you BUT when it is done properly ( listening to the Holy Spirit and being directed only by the Spirit and not self motivated) it is awesome, Like God telling You and it is calming and exhorting at the same time, God will never tear down without building back up. Sadly this is not always the way it is done.

 

[Redeemed79]

Daughter.....I am really happy for you that you are thinking this way for yourself.....So my intention in my post to Loveschild wasnt to nullify what you are saying.....God will use your revelation to share with others as you are doing to bring correction into others lives, You posted correctly and kept the focus of the revelation on you whilst sharing it for others to think on it in their own lives. God will bless this. xox

 

[Red33]

To love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves is a single commandment of supreme value and to love our enemies comes out of that supreme value. To love one another as Christ has loved us is a supreme value that takes us into all the world to preach the gospel. Greater love has no man than this, that he lay his life down for his friends (Jn 15:13). Greater love includes loving God, loving yourself, loving your neighbor, loving your enemy and loving one another and it is a single undivided love. This is what it means. The same love I have for God is the same love I have for myself, my neighbor, my enemy and those of the body of Christ that we are members one of another (Eph 4:25). The Holy Spirit sheds a singular love in my heart that is the same love in all these areas. If it is not the same love then it is a divided love. We are to have the same love one for another or we would be a respecter of persons and a judge of evil thoughts (Jm 2:1-4). It is not a love that only loves those that loves them but a perfect love that comes from a perfect Father (Mt 5:46,48) that has the supreme value and power to cast out fear (1Jn 4:18). There is no fear in this single love that comes from the Father. This love does not protect itself from what others might do to it. It does not concern itself with what others think of it. This love thinks no evil and never fails. It never blames others for any wrongs against it.

Loving yourself means this. To give yourself grace when you fail and not condemn yourself (Rom 14:22, Rom 8:1). It means to keep yourself in the love God (Jude 21) and build yourself up in the most holy faith (Jude 20). It means to fear no man because that is a snare (Prov 29:25). It means to put yourself under a pastor/teacher that will teach you doctrine and preach Christ and him crucified so that you will be able to grow in grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ (2Pt 3:18). To love yourself is not a self conscious love but a reciprocated love that comes from God (1Jn 4:19). You love people without being self conscious of that love. Loving yourself means that you realize that you have been placed in Christ by grace and everything that God has provided to you is according to his mercy and his great love for you (Eph 2:4). The more we come to understand this great love that God has for us through grace and knowledge, the more we will love God, love ourselves, love our neighbor, love our enemy and one another. The supreme love of God is loving not in word only but in deed and in truth (1Jn 3:18, Eph 4:29) and the work of that love will make us steadfast and immovable and always abounding in the work of the Lord (1Cor 15:58, 1Thes 1:3, Heb 6:10). To keep us from compromising values of the world into our relationship and walk with God, we must esteem the Word, his great mercy that took away what we deserved, his greater grace that gives us what we don't deserve and his great love wherein he loved us.

 

[kujo313]

The Bible tells us to do a self-check on ourselves to see if we're in the faith.
I've seen people come into the faith and leave their "old man" behind. I know of several people, including myself, who threw away all music that wasn't Christian or Gospel music. (I just CAN'T get enough of Praise and Worship music!) Personally, when Jesus said to love God with our "all", I try to apply that in every way of my life. Afterall, if God lives within each of us, then we take God with us. We personally take God into our lives; in what we say, do, see and hear.
There are those people who claim that they can "handle it". They listen to other music. One friend of mine is a deacon in his congregation. Yet, he'll listen other music than Christian and Gospel. The music ranges from mellow love songs to the most filthiest stuff I've ever heard.
THAT is compromising WITH the world.

I don't tell people what to listen to. I just can't get enough Praise and Worship music that I'll listen to it everywhere, even at work. People either hear it or hear about it. Believers catch on. The "unchurched" get curious.
Time to get serious about winning some over.

As far as clothes:
A friend of my daughter stayed Saturday night with us. On Sunday morning, she was about to wear something really revealing to church. She didn't have anything else to wear so my wife gave her one of her shirts.
You really don't want to be a distraction in the assembly. Not everybody there is a "saint".

So, ladies, cover yourself up. Guys, pull your pants up... at least in the assembly. (The temple, itself, is private property. The senior pastor has rules as agreed to by the congregation and the rules are passed down to the ushers. So if you're told something about the way you dress, there's some kind of dress code there.
I know that where I go on Sunday morning, no hats on gentlemen are allowed in the temple.)
Other than that, I can see allowing some form of "inappropriate-ness" (sp?) in on Sunday morning. Catch the "fish". Let God clean them up.

 

[loveschild]

I remember the story of the man who was sitting outside the church very sad. This man walked up to him and asked him what was wrong.

He said they wouldn't let me in the church because they said I wasn't dressed right. He said I live on the streets and these are the only clothes I have. I just wanted to be in the house of the Lord to feel closer to him.

The man said don't worry son. The Lord knows your heart. They wouldn't let me into the church either. I'm happy to meet you and I love you! My name is Jesus.