redefining Christianity

The last 2½ months have been interesting in different ways.  I have been instructed to wash my hands in the last couple of months more than my mother told me to wash my hands in my entire childhood.  I have gained insight int the fact that a pandemic is not named so because it is worldwide, but rather because it drives panic, and do people panic!  Most significantly, I have determined that in our culture, there are a lot of things that are essential to culture and Christianity doesn’t make the list.  Hopefully, for genuine believers in Jesus this does not hold true in any form or fashion.  Yet I am concerned that many people including many who profess to be Christians are allowing the culture to subtly redefine Christianity.  Social media has redefined “community” over the last decade and so it has been easy to slide Christianity into the same ideology through the pandemic with “together apart.”  It is not that social distancing is an evil amidst the outbreak, but it makes it very easy to accept and approve a new manner of relationships.  It may become much more pragmatic and simpler to have a dysfunctional Christianity that is convenient, than a functional Christianity that calls for sacrifice and intentionality in following Jesus.  The problem is culture becomes the guide for following Jesus rather than God’s Word.  Even as our nation does its best to resume a life of normalcy, we hear the admonitions that things will return to a “new” normal.  My resolve is that whatever that new normal may be, that my commitment to serving Jesus will remain, and the need for practicing Biblical Christianity is a must, even if it stands more notably different from the culture.  So, we are in a spiritual battle right now, this is not about buildings, or restrictions, or even about resuming worship gatherings, it is about the preeminence of Biblical application in following Jesus as authentic believers.  We must not compromise God’s truth, His commands, His ordinances, His precepts, or His principles for living in right relationship with Him and living a life that stands firm in Biblical truth.  If we are not alert spiritually, we will be caught off guard and find ourselves in the deception of compromised Christianity defined by the world and not our God!  Hold fast to our God, our Lord and Savior, and genuine belief founded on God’s unchanging and eternal Word.

“Be sober-minded, be alert.  Your adversary the devil is prowling around

like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour.  Resist him,

firm in the faith, knowing that the same kind of sufferings

are being experienced by your fellow believers throughout the world.”

1 Peter 5:8-9

“Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by His vast strength. Put on the full armor of God

so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil.  For our struggle is not against

flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness,

against evil spiritual forces in the heavens.”

Eph. 6:10-12


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