Lets Raise Up A Standard!

I'm going to open this up by saying this simple statement: There aren't too many things worse than a half-hearted christian.  A christian that knows Jesus, a christian that believes in Jesus, but for some reason or another doesn't want to follow Jesus.  This christian is forgetting about the '-ian' which literally means "follower."  So if you are a Christ-ian you literally are making the commitment to follow Christ.  Denotations aside, differences aside, the Holy Spirit is Jesus interacting with us.  And when a Christ-follower purposely decides not to continually listen to the Spirit, then there is a huge problem.

The great thing about God's grace is that he is indeed a God of a second, third, fourth, fifth...infinite chances.  That's one of the reasons I'm completely in love with God.  But with those chances do come consequences because the Bible reminds us that the wages of sin is death.  So every time we miss the mark, we are literally killing ourselves even if we don't know it.

Now, if an unbeliever continuously misses the mark, that's one thing because they don't really believe in the mark to begin with.  However, when a professed believer "misses the mark" DESPITE the warning signs that the Holy Ghost gives us, that...that's a WHOLE 'nother issue.

It is clear in the Bible that God treats ignorance and complete disobedience on two separate levels.  On the one hand those that are ignorant of God will indeed suffer his wrath if they never confess Jesus Christ as Lord.  BUT, those that know what they know and DESPITE that still disobey, that's a huge issue.

An example from the Bible is taken from Jeremiah 3:11 where God speaking through the prohpet Jeremiah says: "Faithless Israel has shown herself less guilty than false Judah." (emphasis mine)  Now lets give a little background information.  Israel and Judah used to be one nation (God's chosen people).  However, Israel continuously disobeyed God thus propelling God to weed out his "true" peeps = Judah. So, from that point on Judah was considered God's chosen people.

One of the reasons that God allowed Israel to drift apart (because God could've kept Israel around because..well, he's God) was to show Judah what he was capable of.  God used Israel as an example in hopes that Judah would not falter and if they did, repent.  So time elapsed and Judah started to follow her sister, Israel, down the same path.  By the time this verse in Jeremiah comes along, God is pretty much disgusted with both nations.

But let's point out that God emphasizes that the now ignorant Israel is held to a lower standard than the kept Judah!  What does that tells us, that those who have the Gospel, those who know the Gospel are held to much more esteem.  And with that esteem comes a responsibility   And when that responsibility to taken advantage of, consequences will happen.

I'm here to challenge those of us who profess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior.  Will we rise up and set a standard that says that we will not be moved!  Sure, we will fail every once in a while because we are humans, but in the long run, we need to be committed to following Christ's teaching to the best of our abilities.  Lets raise up a standard!

We don't have too much wiggle room because the world already looks at us with suspicious.  Like hungry hyenas, waiting for us to stumble so they can pounce on our mistakes and boast at our failures.  I say, we like the Apostle Paul boast at out own failures.  Acknowledge that we have all screwed up but it's only by the grace of God we are now becoming a new creation!  If we take our standard, our calling seriously, the devil, the prince of the air, will have no way to criticize us.  The Bible reminds us that Satan will flee from us if we attack him with the Full Armor of God!

There aren't too many worse things that a "christian" that is only half in.  When it comes down to it, if you aren't for Jesus; you are against him (Matt 12:30).  When will we take our burden, our responsibility serious enough and go out and be the salt & the light to the world (Matt 5:13-16)

Lets Raise Up & Follow Our Standard!

-MJA