HELLO! Things have changed. They should not be like they were before.
Are you a Christian because your parents are? Are you a Christian because it is a family tradition? Are you Christian because you go to church on Easter and Christmas.? Christianity is not that kind of a religion; it is a personal decision.
You can't call yourself Christian and then do whatever you want to do. If this is how you live you have reduced a very intimate relationship to a mere title. It is like a woman taking the name of her husband but never moving in with him.
Becoming a Christian, a follower of Jesus, means an entire life change. It doesn't mean that we change ourself but that the Spirit of God transforms us. Without the Spirit we do not have Jesus and without Jesus we have nothing. Without the Spirit we are fakes and fakes will not inherit eternal life with God.
How can you be a Christian and still be intimate with the darkness that once possessed you? You can't. You have changed. That darkness no longer has any power over you unless you give it power. When darkness comes to your door to court you again, if you have changed and are possessed by the Spirit, you have the power and authority to tell it to go away because you are now with Jesus.
There are no loop holes in this. You can't have Jesus and the supposed pleasures of the dark as well:
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light ... (Ephesians 5:8)
North America just celebrated Halloween. Christians participated out of pure ignorance. They don't believe in ghosts, witches or mediums, even though they exist in the Bible. God didn't tell us to have nothing to do with them because he was trying to protect our pocket book but because they are real. However, Halloween is an extreme example. Christians participate in evil every day as we lie, cheat and gossip. Christians have sex outside of marriage all the time and excuse it away. Men participate in pornography. Christians make excuses for abortion and defend homosexuality. But Christians, those who follow Jesus and are possessed of the Spirit, cannot live like this; it's just not in them:
Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness,righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. (Ephesians 9-10)
See what the light consists of? Goodness, righteousness and truth are now at the core of our being and if they are not then you have to seriously ask yourself the question if you even understand what it is to be saved. Truth is not as we define it but as it is revealed in the Word of God and found in Jesus. Do you know Jesus? Have you died to yourself and been raised to life in him? Are you possessed by the Holy Spirit?
Christians only have one desire: To find out what pleases the Lord and doing it. The words that stick with us are when he told us that if we loved him we would do what he said. Obedience is what God is looking for, not sacrifice. He wants relationship with us not some form of man made religion. And when you have intimacy with God you are changed. When you are intimate with the Light you no longer desire intimacy with the dark. If you still desire the dark there is something wrong in your intimacy with the Light.
A relationship with Jesus is a personal decision not something you were born into. It is a decision that transforms and changes everything. You cannot stay the same. And if you do, you have't really made the decision. Those of the Light no longer participate in the activities of the dark. It's a decision. Which do you choose?
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