"God MUST Understand"...A Conversation With the Old Me

     Times have certainly changed.  I was speaking with a young cashier in Wal-Mart a while back and in the course of the conversation, she sounded very proud to be 18 and working.  She was also engaged and she mentioned that she was going to live with her boyfriend for a few years before they got married to make sure that they could tolerate each other being in the same house.  I thought to myself, “Wow, that sounds very strange, but then again it is not uncommon.”  Not to be a hypocrite, my wife and I lived together during the summer before we got married.  We both went to school in separate places and one summer she came to do a rotation in North Carolina.  We lived in my apartment and I must say that it was not a very good idea.  I make no bones about my former life and how messed up I was so I hope that I don’t offend anyone.  One of the reasons we got married is because I got tired of being a phony. Danielle got me going back to church and whenever we got there, I’d be in church feeling as guilty as sin because of our relationship and the pre-marital sex that we engaged in.  Truthfully and candidly, shacking is not marriage but marriage is no longer respected as an institution created by God.  In 2012, the prevailing attitude regarding marriage is simply two folks living in the same space and sleeping in the same bed.  No wonder that the divorce rate among Christians matches that of non-Christians.  Even though people get married in church, they sometimes forget that their vows are before God and not just the preacher and the witnesses.  Marriage has even been perverted to include same sex couples. 

     Crude behavior is much more acceptable now.  I can remember when I was a boy and I watched a movie called “Night patrol”.  It was a comedy that depicted a rag tag police force that was always up to some shenanigans.  It was rated R but was much raunchier than the R rating.  The language was obscene and the sexual references abounded.  The “Police Academy” series was probably inspired by this movie.  Other movies like the animated “Heavy Metal” and “The Adventures of Fritz the Cat” were also quite crude and offensive in retrospect.  Looking down the telescope of time, I can see where movies like Jacka**, the Hangover,  the Scary Movie series, the Adam Sandler collection (his movies are actually pretty offensive if you are old enough to understand the humor) etc. got their inspiration from.  It seems now that the more crude the movie or the humor, the more laughs you get.  I personally get offended now by much of the same stuff that I used to think was funny.  A teddy bear having sex?  C’mon folks.  I guess Paul was talking to himself in Ephesians when he said that there should be no coarse jesting or silly talk between us...then again, the people that make these movies probably think Ephesians is some sort of skin disease or something.

     There is no such thing as modest dress anymore. EVEN KIDS CLOTHES ARE FORM FITTING NOW! I catch the devil buying clothes for my 6 year old daughter.  I literally want to find the designer that created skinny jeans and knock him over the head with my bible!  Just kidding, but it is quite annoying.  I remember when spandex was used strictly for workout gear and not to wear to school, to church or even just out period.  If a girl wore spandex with nothing covering it up, which is the current cultural trend, they were immediately seen as an easy target for sex.  The thought was, “Any woman that comes out of the house looking like that MUST be easy or looking for a man.”  I remember when crack cocaine got a foothold in my neighborhood; spandex was common wear for those women that sold their bodies to get drugs.  Now, if you go to any college campus, high school football game or wherever, you can see young ladies sporting leggings with simply a short t-shirt to ensure that you get the full effect of the outfit.  Peter says in his first epistle that we are to dress modestly and that a woman’s beauty should come from the inside, not the outside (1 Peter 3:3, 4).

     What have also become common are coy attitudes regarding God.  We see God as nothing more than a granddaddy in the sky that is there to simply give us gifts and make sure we get home safely when we are on a trip.  I was reading “The Knowledge of the Holy” by A.W. Tozer and his chapter on the immutability of God is what inspired this post.  This particular chapter has a very salient point near the beginning- Tozer is quoted as saying this” God is perfectly holy, He has never been less holy than He is now and He can never be more holy than what He already is.” (Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, P. 49).  When I read this statement, it made me realize that my own attitude toward God used to be VERY BAD!  I mainly minimized God to justify my own desires and participation in sinful activities like pre-marital sex, excessive drinking, lust…etc.  An example of what a conversation would be between the 22 year old me with a Christian telling me about God’s holiness would have gone something like this:

Me: “God has to understand that times have changed!”

Christian: “Well, times may have changed but God has not changed at all.  The bible says in Malachi 3:6 “I am the Lord, I change not.”  Hebrews 6:18 says that God is immutable and His promises are immutable.  Do you know what that means?  It means that God cannot be moved from the position that He has taken.”
Me: “God can’t expect me to stay celibate with all of these women throwing themselves at me and all of these hormones!  Why did he make me this way only to stunt my access to the things that I like?”
Christian:  “Well, your attitude is quite cavalier towards sin.  Actually, God made sex to be enjoyed between a married man and woman.  Adam and Eve were the first couple and God said that it was not good for a man to be alone.  Sex outside of marriage is no better than two animals mating in the woods.  There is no intimacy, no spiritual connection between you and your partner and no real love.  It’s just a means to an end.  Not to mention 1 Corinthians 6:15 which says that every time you lay down with a woman you are becoming one with her and it is equivalent to lying down with a prostitute.”
Me: “God couldn’t possibly expect a young man like me to stay away from the vices of the world!  He must know that times are different now!  How could God punish me for something that comes so easily to me?”

Christian:  “Well, although you think that you are special and that there are new things happening, the bible says in Ecclesiastes 1:9 that there is NOTHING new under the sun.  Everything sinful vice that you like, people liked it in ancient history.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news to you but God is not going to change for you so that means that you are going to have to change to meet his standards.  God demands holiness, He says “Be holy as your Father in heaven is holy (Matthew 5:48).”  God also says through John the revelator in 1 John 2:16 that we are not to love the things of the world system: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.  What Satan is presenting you with young man is a trap that is a certain pathway to destruction!  Remember, sin does not pay a very high wage; the wages of sin is death.  It costs MORE to persist in sin and it costs NOTHING to accept the free gift of God’s grace.” 

Me:  “Holy?  Holiness is unattainable.  There is no way that I can be holy!  I love sin too much and people like you that always scream at people like me about being holy are just hypocrites!”

     At this point, I am taking the blog back over from the old me and to things straight.  That was me around 15 years or so ago: looking for loopholes, looking for ways to justify sin and looking for an easy way out instead of looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of faith.  I had a mental ascent to believing in Jesus but Jesus was not in my heart.  Today, by the grace of God, I can truly say that not only does God understand, God TOTALLY understands.  The problem is WE don’t understand!  God gave us a way out of the vices, the sinful attitudes and actions that fallen man seems to enjoy so much.  God gave us a way to fellowship with Him and enjoy Him that we don’t readily see when we have a downward view of God rather than the upward view that God demands! 

     God gave us Jesus, sent to earth as the standard bearer for the Father, sent to earth as the second person of the Trinity and sent to earth to bear the sins of all mankind.  For all that come to Him and believe that He is sent from God as the only begotten, that He is God, that God raised Him from the dead, they shall be saved!  All of their sins are forgiven the instant that they acquiesce and say to Jesus, I need your forgiveness and I desire for you to be Lord over my life.  The way out demands, in reference to the final statement above regarding holiness, surrender of my will and my perceived sovereignty over my life to the will of the Father.  The Way out demands that I get off the throne of selfhood and bow at the throne of Godhood.  In order to be holy, first we must be transformed and not only that, submit to the process of transformation.  Jesus said to Nicodemus that we must be BORN AGAIN in order to see/enter the kingdom of God and as a result escape the flesh and the corruption that comes along with it. 

    So, I guess this leaves us with a question.  What is your view of God?  Do you see God as holy and supreme over all things OR do you see God as limited in His power, limited in His ability and at your beck and call?  If you chose the latter, and believe it or not, many folks do, then you’ve got some serious soul searching to do.  The way that we view God will determine how we live our lives.  Often times, people that do not view God as the incredible Creator and master of the universe, see him as granddaddy in the sky that winks at the sins that we commit.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  God is holy and that alone demands our reverence.  He does not have to change with the times, He lives outside of time and cannot be placed under the demands of mankind.  He fully understands who, what and how we are.  Now it is time for you, if you have not already been enlightened, to understand exactly WHO HE is.  The Holy Scriptures would be a good place to start.  Grace and peace to you my brothers and sisters.