As I was reading my devotions this quote stood out to me. The first part, " we should not go about begging pardon of the world because we are Christians." How do we do that practically? So often we come into conflict with the rest of the world. The music people are playing is not the type of music that edifies us and brings us closer to Christ. Family members bought you tickets to a soccer game on the Sabbath. Someone buys you ice cream on the Sabbath and expects you to be happy because they know it is your favorite flavor and it is 90 degrees outside.Culturally it only makes sense to apologize if your world view conflicts with someone else's. We live in a society of compromise and conform. The only to not be rude is to apologize. "I'm sorry but today is my Sabbath I cannot..." and you give them a pitying look that says "I'm really sorry if it wasn't for this constraint I would do this with you."
Maybe we have become too culturally conditioned. The second part says "I beg pardon of Jesus Christ only, because I am not complete in him..." I think too often we are too concerned with what the world thinks. We try not to offend people because we want to win them to Christ. The only problem is that people don't see Christ because they only see our half-hearted convictions. This world is filled with half-hearted convictions and they are looking for something deeper. Oh if we were following God and not apologizing that we serve Him then people would see something different.
But there has to be something more. When we stand up for our convictions we must be converted. Our eyes must be heavenward or else we will point people to ourselves. The only one to apologize to is to Christ. He is the one who died for us so that His image can be restored in us. He is the one who gave us freedom of choice. He has taken us from our wretched bondage to sin and given us victories; removed our filthy rags and covered us with robes of righteousness.
Thankfully we don't have to apologize to the world because of the God we serve. We only need to point them to Him. God is the sun and we are the moon. We do not do anything but let the God of the universe shine through us. We only need to be totally completely surrendered to Him.
2 comments:
I really like this post! Thanks for the enlightening thoughts. Now, what phrases do you recommend for not compromising your convictions while not insulting gift-givers and turning them away from truth?
I have no clue. I think that it is easy to say and in reality hard to do. We shouldn't be purposely insulting people because we are to live our lives abiding in Christ and they will see Christ in us. I guess everything we say must be in love.
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