Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Student Devotions - Tuesday, October 28

Good morning students,

I do not even want to talk about where I am this morning. Let's just leave it alone while I try to get past it.

We live in an impossible situation; we may even call it Mission Impossible. Our God has told us that we are to remain separated from sin, pure and holy in his sight. Have you taken a look around lately? Talk about a mess and we find ourselves in the midst of it.

The vast majority of Christians have not kept themselves separate from the world because that was never the Father's intention. He did not tell us to go buy an island somewhere and set up our own little world. Jesus asked that we would not be taken out of the world because we had a mission to complete. How can we minsiter to a world when we are aloaf from the problems of this world? But herein lies the struggle. How do we live here without becoming like here?

Face it, most of us have allowed ourselves to be sucked into the entertainment of this world. We watch the movies and the television shows; we listen to the music and read the books. When it comes to how we allow ourselves to be entertained we do not find much difference in the Christian heart and the non-Christian. And do not tell me it has no effect on you because it does; it does on me too. Watching the very things God told us to avoid as entertainment dulls our spiritual senses and we do not care. I am telling you we stop noticing how many people we watch get murdered in an evening. We are horrified by scenes of rape but we still watch. We do not even take note the number of times we watch non-married couples having sex; that's just the norm. With these being normal we rarely pick up on the more subtle things like the message that there are occasions when it is okay to lie.

It is because our senses have become dull to these things that we do not even notice the infectious disease in the midst of the Church because the disease is on us. In a collection of books called The Circle Series the author rights an allegory of what sin should look like to a Christian. It is a disease that hides our true form as God intended it. The ones with the disease cannot see that they are diseased because it is their normal. In today's reading you can see how careful God was about infectious disease in the camp of the Israelites. It was the same attitude toward sin. Drastic steps were taken to prevent any spread of the disease. Can we even see it?

I am fearful for you young people because you have come into a messed up world and a messed up Church. How can you possibly understand what is holy and pure with so much disease around? We often tell you to be careful what you watch, listen to and read because this is an echoing message from generations before but it is only an echo. We tell you but we do not listen to it ourselves. Thankfully we still have Jesus, even though the world has tried to cover him with disease. They have tried to deny the Biblical Jesus because for them he is impossible. Parts of the Church are now denying the Biblical Jesus because of the same disease that is in the world. So now you have two things you must decide on; to believe that the Biblical Jesus is real and to accept him as both Lord and Saviour.

In my opening I said that we have an impossible mission. It is a half truth. It is impossible if we continue on our present course because it means that we are leaving Jesus behind. Without Jesus it is impossible for us to live in the world and not be invected by the disease. However, when Jesus is our heart song, when he is our reason for existence, then the impossible becomes the possible. We will again have eyes to see and ears to hear. The solution does not begin by turning off the TV; it begins by seeking Jesus which will then give us the courage to turn off the TV.

In a world where being entertained is our greatest goal I have to wonder if this is just falling on deaf ears or should I say "rocky soil"?

11 comments:

Brandon said...

I think we shouldnt be dragged in by the things of the world. We should always look at good things. We have to let the world know that it is bad.

M.K. "Blue Monkey Ninja" said...

I hope you feel well and i agree with Brandon we shouldn't be dragged in by the thing of the world and but i alway think of the bad stuff and not the good stuff but we are always look on the bad stuff.Thank you.

Naomi S. said...

It is hard not to be sucked into the worlds ways, especially for us young fogeys. Staying pure in an unclean world such as ours is impossible without God. And boy do we ever need Him now. :S

Kendall said...

I dont think there is a single Christian that isn't pleased by the ways of the world. we are so caught up in the things of the world we dont see anything that God is saying.

Ray said...

I read the Circle series! I really like those books. =) .... and I think it is hard for everyone to not get sucked into the world's ways, not just for the young people.... (I think I still am in the young group!)

Niki said...

We don't even realize what we're watching most of the time. It's just another T.V. show that we enjoy. We really need to be more careful with this sort of stuff.

J_For said...

About five or seven years ago, we changed TVs. As it was, we did not have an antenna for the new TV, so we just stopped watching TV. To tell the truth, we never missed it. So much of the programs today are pathetic even by non-moral standards that we didn't really care if we saw them or not.

Our family has always been pretty conscious of what we should be reading and watching. That does not necessarily mean that we always watched and read good things, it just means that we knew we shouldn't be when we did.

There is a clause in the agreement contract for student behaviour at this school. It also applies to home, and one of the provisions is that we will not watch inappropriate movies or TV shows. There are several things that I discontinued in order to comply with this agreement, ans since there is such a heavy workload, I have not really had time to worry about those things, anyway.

jessika said...

Well i guess that it's true how messed up our world is. We see so many horrible things going on in our world and all we do is wacth, Sadly we now concider some of this things as normal. We should work really hard in improving our relationship with God and we should all try to tell others about him too. We are constantly being told that we are in the last days, so should it not be more of a reason to change our outlook on life, by that i mean that we should act and to things like Jesus would,and we have to try and bring as many people to the Lord, no matter how old you are!

kaylah said...

I think it's hard to not get sucked into the ways of the world.Most of the time,we watch bad things or listen to bad things.We don't even realize that it's bad,we think it's just another T.V. show.It's also hard to keep ourselves pure in a very unclean world.We should ask God to help us resist from getting sucked into the world.

sasha said...

I have seen many things in this world that aren't supost to be done as human either as chriatain.But stil I have done some of those thing too - even if we try to live our life's as christian we can't always do the right thing and take the right desicion thats why we need the Lord Jesus Christ- in our life.Its hard to live in those bad time where the world is up side down but I take that mess as a struggle that I can past through with God.

Kathryn said...

I totally agree with this - we need to guard what goes into our hearts and minds, but its difficult when there are so many "distractions" coming in through the little box in the corner. Are you willing to put away the TV? I know I should, but then what else is there to do? It is not hard to know what we need to do, it is hard to actually act on our knowledge.