In the current environment, our culture would have us believe in the power of 'self', and there is a strong ethos towards building up 'self' – we are told by the media we need to have self-confidence, self-esteem, self-motivation, self-will, self-importance, self-fulfilment, self-gratification. We cannot live in this world without being bombarded by the constant pressure to succeed in every department of our lives. In this environment where we have made ourselves the very centre of our own universe, with the planets and stars revolving around ourselves, it can be difficult to convince anyone that there is a higher truth outside their own arrogance. People are told by preachers on the street corners, that God loves them unconditionally, and then they are told that they have to change and do all this stuff before God will love them. This is a mixed message. Does God love us for who we are? And if so, why does he want us to change? If God really does love us, why won’t he accept us for who we really are?
These days everything is geared toward self gratification, and advertising has a big part to play in conditioning us into certain ways of thinking which are contrary to what God would have us think. This article attempts to prove that this kind of thinking is no more than selfishness, and brings nothing but self-discontentment.
The Bible describes God as a god of truth, i.e. everything he says and does is right and true. This is the key to understanding everything about God.
Psalm 33:4 says...
"For the word of the Lord is right; and all his works are done in truth".
This verse unlocks the mystery of why God cannot accept us as we are. We need to conform to his ways for us to become acceptable to him. In the book of Zephaniah in chapter 1, verse 1, we can see that God seeks vengeance on those who ignore the truth to serve other Gods. Why does God hate idolatry so much? The answer is tied up in Gods affininity with the truth. He hates anything that is not true. It’s simply not true that there are other Gods, so God is not going to sit back and turn a blind eye to what is going on - He simply cannot accept it - we are told it is an "abomination" to Him (the meaning of this word is extreme disgust or hatred). We also learn from Zephaniah that there is no double standard with God and he doesn’t make allowances.
As I mentioned earlier, someone once said to me, if God loves me, why does He want me to change? And unfortunately at the time I didn’t really have a good answer. If God loves us, why doesn’t He just accept us for who we are? Well, it is clear that because of Gods inherent righteous nature, he cannot accept our sins since he is Holy and we are capable of being quite the opposite. But I think the real clue here is that everything about God is true. --- Everything --- about him is true. And when we sin, we are denying the truth that fabricated us the way we are. Think about it this way: If you think about every type of sin there is, most (if not all of them) have something in common. All sins are a denial or rejection of God's truth.
Lets take a look at a few examples...
1. To commit adultery is turning your back on the truth (i.e. that you already have a wife).
2. Stealing goes against the truth that somebody else is the rightful owner of something. Lying is a blatant denial of the truth.
3. Murder shatters the truth that God has given another person life.
4. Blasphemy denies the power of truth itself.
5. Selfishness means you have chosen to ignore the truth that there are other people that Jesus also died for.
…and you can probably think of more…
So if you want to please a God who doesn’t accept anything that’s not true, you shouldn’t be willing to accept anything that’s not true either. And it follows on that we shouldn’t expect others to accept anything that’s not true. Where necessary, we need to fight to uphold the truth, and we should stand for the truth even when there is no other truth around us…
And this leads on to my next point, that is we should be prepared to rebuke others if required to uphold the truth. We shouldn’t sit back and watch while the truth is derailed in front of our eyes. We need to do something about it.
Rebuking is important for a number of reasons;
- The person may not realise the impact of what they have done, and by kindly making them aware of this, you could prevent them doing it again.
- You could gain respect from the person, who might not have realised what they were doing was actually wrong. If the person is conscientious as most people are, they might even thank you for letting them know! If we fail to rebuke someone, we are showing our approval for their words or actions, even if it is indirect. And if we don’t speak up or do something then we are still conforming to their thinking. Romans 12:2 says "Be not conformed to to the pattern of this world… but be transformed"..
- Jesus says "do to others as you would have them do unto you, and love thy neighbour as thyself". So if you accidentally did or said something damaging to someone else, would you like it if nobody told you and that person secretly hated you forever? Personally, I would rather somebody told me what I did or said to offend someone, then at least I would know whats going on.
But there are also some very important conditions to rebuking that need to be clarified.
a). It should be noted that rebuking is different to judging or condemning others. James5:9, Matt7:1
b). Rebuking should be 1 on 1 – Matt 18:15
c). We also need to be aware that by rebuking someone we could be casting our pearls before swine, and this is just not beneficial to anyone. If you are talking to someone who is set in their ways, even the best argument will not challenge their mind.
AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST!!!
Col 3:8 and 4:6 says to let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt. Its your attitude that really counts here. Its not about being bossy or and telling people what to do. You need to do it gently, and your motivation should come because you genuinely care for the wellbeing of everyone involved. And having the best interests of others in mind.
Read Romans 14 (whole chapter)
What can we learn from this?
Everyone is different, and who are you to judge another mans servant? Are they a good servant? How can we tell?
Eating meat offered to idols is such a small thing really. Can we think of any other things that are equally trivial that we have argued over whether it is right or wrong?
It really is such a small trivial thing, but the point is, if it might cause someone else to sin, we should be considering the best interests of others before ourself, and this should take precedence over what is true. In the case of meat offered to idols, there is no law against eating meat offered to idols. Is it true to eat, or not? Well, because there is no actual law depicting whether it its right or wrong, that depends on personal preference. Would you eat meat offered to idols? Does it matter where it has been? Well, there is no answer it could be a yes or a no depending on your background and conscience. But if there is even the slightest possibility that someone might look at us differently to what we really are, we shouldn’t do it. Lets not forget we are all role models to the younger followers of Christ who always look up to us and model their behaviour by what they see. Practically everyone is a role model to somebody else, and we need to be upholding the truth. So we can see that just doing what is right and true, is sometimes not good enough if we aren’t considering those around us.
This profound statement is taken from the Christadelphian Birmingham Ammended Statement of Faith (BASF) sums this up well … “Whatever you do, consider the effect of your action on the honour of Gods name amoung men.”
"Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God".
1 Corinthians 10:31
We need to make sure the motivation behind what we are doing is always to uphold the truth.
To summarise what we have learnt…
- We cannot live in this world without being bombarded by the pressure to achieve personal gain, to accrue the best possessions for ourselves, to store up personal wealth, to have the brightest kids that go to the best private schools available, to achieve personal happiness and fulfilment, to have....
--- self-importance
--- self-gratification
--- self-confidence
--- self-fulfilment
- Let's remember, every one of the above means you have chosen to ignore the truth that there are other people that Jesus also died for.
- God is fully righteous and has an affinity with truth. He knows the truth because he created the truth and has revealed it to us. The truth is so intertwined into his very being, and this explains why he cannot accept our sins, and needs us to repent.
- We shouldn’t sit back and watch when others go outside the boundaries of what is true we need to correct them and if they need it we should give them what they need to help them find their way back.
- Before rebuking someone though, we need to remember a few things. That is, rebuking is not to be done as a means of making someone feel inferior, but should be done as the Bible says in a spirit of love.
When God allowed Jesus to die on the cross, the Almighty was showing us that we need to act with the best interests of others in mind. He didn’t want his Son to die, but knew it was the only way to bring grace and forgiveness to multitudes of believers. When God allowed Jesus to die on the cross, he was putting the best interests of us, before the best interests of his only Son whom He loved very much and who was very much a part of him.
“For God so loved the world that he have his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)