grateful for Christ

Something I keep running into lately has been people taking everything in the world at face value except Christ and the life He wants to live in us.  The more I look around, the more I realize that Christians, by and large, are gullible people who get taken in by the same things that fool the world.  I actually feel that I should keep this post short, and that I specifically should avoid examples, for some reason.  Suffice it to say that if you think the same way about something (e.g., war/law enforcement, giving, economy, love, truth, politics/government involvement, work, etc.)  as non-believers–especially if your reasons are largely the same–then you need to come before God for wisdom, because you have not let your mind be renewed and transformed by Christ.  You still think like the world.

I echo the word of God spoken to His prophet Isaiah (8:12-14):

Do not call conspiracy everything that these people call conspiracy; do not fear what they fear, and do not dread it.  The Lord Almighty is the one you are to regard as holy, he is the one you are to fear, he is the one you are to dread, and he will be a sanctuary; but for both houses of Israel he will be a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.  And for the people of Jerusalem he will be a trap and a snare.

We have much farther to fall if we stumble than the houses of Israel.  Let us not fall from our high position as sons and daughters of the Most High by acting as though we are sons and daughters of this world.  Don’t play the world’s games; don’t look at the surface and be taken in by appearances.

Whoever does not know Christ cannot do good.  Whoever knows Christ must not live as those who do not know Christ.  And whoever does not know Christ but claims righteousness by the appearances of their actions will lead astray those who are not careful.  Even moreso, beware of those who claim to know Christ, and whose actions seem right, but who are rejected by the Spirit of God for the lies they spew in His name (I have in mind at the moment those who preach moderation in love and obedience to Christ, claiming that we should act with what they call discernment.  He is to be obeyed fully even when it appears to be to our detriment and we must love both Him, our neighbors, and our enemies without condition or limitation.  Never moderate love; never moderate obedience.  Only act with faith in God as the One who makes the impossible way work.).