You must ferret this post out, but it must be written.
There is so much confusion on standards, godliness, and even Biblical truth.
So here we go into hot water, and I hope you will find this little blog helpful.
"Others may, I cannot." I was raised on this phrase. It had the implication that I was being held to a higher standard. Did it make me better? No. It made me think "intentionally" about everything I did. (I hate that word, by the way. It's so misused.)
Usually we align ourselves with a set of rules for living. For a Bible believer there is no question about the 10 commandments. We all should know them and follow them.
Jesus' commands seem to be somewhat more optional, but really only in the sense that they are more positively stated----Not "Thou Shalt Not," but "Come unto me...."
Then come our social obligations. We all live in societies with rules, and problems.
School shootings, drug usage, pornography seem to be the festering issues of our age.
Years ago it was drunkenness, prostitution, .....Oh wait, those haven't really disappeared, have they?
At heart lie the issues of character. We all have known persons of stellar personal character. They rise above petty lying, cheating, stealing. The promiscuity and plain evil which characterizes most of our media intake seems to have little or no effect on these bright individuals.
So how does that happen?
At risk of being called a "legalist" I will put down some standards which I think have shaped those stellar individuals. Of course we write from our own experience, so I can only cite examples from the lives of those I admire.
Dancing/Drinking/Smoking
These activities all had an association with loose living back in the olden days. Let me explain.
Dancing was a way to express your sexual desirability. It was an opportunity to let another person touch and feel you, to get a tactile experience with you. Dancing led to intimacy, intimacy led to ......lust.
Ha ha ha ha haha hahahaha !!!!!
But really. Think about it.
Drinking alcohol is a social custom that varies by culture. I lived in Germany for awhile. Believe me, beer is just a part of the whole lifestyle. Yet even in good old Deutschland I met many people who were not only drinkers, they were enslaved to Drink. Alcoholics, we like to say today. "Drunks" seems so harsh.
"Others may, I cannot." Holding to a higher standard is not to be mocked. Drunkenness is a plague on any society. I live in Minnesota. There is a lovely Indian Museum by Mille Lacs Lake. If you visit it, (which I recommend---we go every year!) you will see the section on social issues. It is sobering. Sadly, alcohol plays a major role in the demise of Native American culture. They admit that there is no denying it.
Smoking. A few years back any veteran's hospital was full of old soldiers dying of emphysema caused by smoking. It's too late to visit and see this sad reality----the patients are certainly dead by now. Smoking hurts. It kills. My husband spent a week in a hospital ward in Innsbruck, Austria, in a bed next to a man dying of emphysema. His racking coughs helped my husband to vow NEVER to pick up a cigarette. The terror of suffocating every few seconds, slowly dying, was excruciating to witness. It was torture for my husband.
Don't start damaging your body. Hold it to a higher standard.
But what about pornography? What about drugs? What about stuffing your brain with senseless and even occult ideas from our mass media?
Where are your standards?
Others may. I may not.
I have a vision of people who are above all that dreck. I know there are families who hold their children to high standards morally, who strive to help them see spiritual power in rising above the low bar of society. It doesn't matter which social stigma you pick------any one can bring on satanic bondage (pride, lust, anger, envy, gluttony, greed, and sloth).
So hold yourself higher.
Marriage:
Recently I heard a statistic. It appears that the divorce rate among true Bible believers (not nominal Christians) is 1 in 1,300-----------------not 50% as among "Christians."
How freeing! How wonderful! The Bible truly is powerful as a standard for living here on earth. Bible believers smash the records. Satan just loves to bring us down, but he can't. He tried to spread the false idea that Christians were no better than anyone else.....
Bible believers AREN'T better, we just have the power to do what is right. We stay in a marriage that is troublesome, we made a promise to God---and we take our promises seriously. We don't just bail out at the demise of love, or problems.
Bible believers will be sinners, but they will NOT be abusers. They will be accountable to God for every single thought and action. Such a high standard!
High standards. Stop looking down at the license of Christ's grace and love. Start looking up and setting God's perfection as your personal standard.
You won't be perfect, but you sure will be better off. Trust me on this.
Satan wants nothing more than to tarnish your life. Don't let him. Set your standards high, and strive for them. Let the Holy Spirit hold you to your convictions, and watch the bright shining light of Christ's glory emanate from your life.
My great grandfather was a remarkable dancer. He was a fixture at every dance, back around 1900. Then he met Christ. He became an evangelist, traveling all over the midwest, back in the days when travel was hard. He renounced his former behavior, especially dancing. In several tracts that he wrote he came down especially hard on dancing! He lived a long and happy life, dying at age 96. His new standards did him good. His love for the Lord helped many to become Bible believers. High standards, and wonderful influence.
Don't scoff at high standards.
God, in His perfect creation, made everything just right. Creation was perfect. Look what happened! Sin decayed every single aspect of this world.
The Word of God is about the only thing we have to help us set high standards that are actually implementable. So get into the Word.
Believe it from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22. Yes, the part about six days, and all those genealogies. Believe that God is big enough to have brought all that about in His timing, His way, His power, and actually had Moses and others write it all down.
That whole creation thing. It is WHY we have standards. God holds us accountable.
At the Creation Museum there is a section which illustrates the effects of sin on God's perfect creation. The outcomes, low standards, and pain are all directly linked to the fall of man.
We are not called by God to live at that level. We are called to a higher purpose.
Set those standards HIGH, and trust the Lord to help you live them.
