And after eight days again His disciples were
within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus,
the doors being shut, and stood in the midst,
and said, Peace be unto you. The saith He to
Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, ad behold My hands,
and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into My side:
and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas
answered and said unto Him,
My Lord and my God.
John 20:26-28
In the role of a Christian there are two things that must be understood: emotion, and faith. This is true for as human beings we all can admit that human beings are emotional beings and are beings that can have faith. Emotions and faith play a major part as to who we are and how we address life. God did not make us to be a robot and only doing what He desires to be done, and to live a non-emotional life for if that was true then we would not be able to appreciate all that this world has to offer, its beauty, as well as its struggles. God gave to us this capacity and we are to use it and only in the right way. Emotions, and faith can be so misused.
Emotions in the Church and in the lives of many Christians do not have Scriptural warrant. Let us look at how emotions are being misused. Music: oh, how I love music, and probably you do also and yet there is good and there is bad music. Not just the lyrics, but, how the music is performed. Cultural emphasis on Christian music can be seen in such as "Christian rock" where the musicians are so tatooed, up their arms, on their necks, wearing rings in noses, and eyebrows, and in other such bling just like non-Christian musicians. The effect of acting like the worldly musicians can be seen in the music, loud, rocky, making people to go euphorically wild. The women, the girls dress in the skimpy of clothing, revealing much of their bodies, as do the non-Christian "rock" women. This they say is to bring to the world the gospel and this is how to reach those lost sinners. Really? We see pastors and leaders dressed in jeans, tennis shoes, long unkempt hair, shirts that are usually reserved for hikes, or going to the park. We see pastors leaning on the pulpit or such devices as though by this non-assuming position they can reach more people with the gospel. Really? Celebrities think, even believe that they can do just about anything and get away with it because, they are celebrities. The were tuxedos with tennis shoes, just to show some independence. Celebrities women wear just about nothing, bikinis that are two small pieces of colored cloth, more as underwear used for swimwear. Dresses revealing so much flesh, then they wonder why men stare at them and even show so disdain, even false disdain that a man would look at them as a possible sex tool. Is this not what they want. These people, both Christians who have become cultural and those who are not Christians are not so different; they want to arose emotion.
Is this not true? Christians should be raising the bar, the bar of respect, and of ethics, not lower the bar? There is such a thing as proper dress, proper emotion, proper faith, and a time for both respect type dress and for play time dress. An Authentic Christian will know and use the difference. Are you raising your children to know what it means to be respectful, to use good judgment when dressing, to be a citizen, an Authentic Christian? Think on this: even sport announces, even sport announcers at boxing matches were a suit and tie. When going to see the President would not the respectful and proper thing to do is to dress appropriately, to dress respectfully? Yes!
Cultural Christianity is such a Christianity that is not all that afar off from the world's culture, in fact, it is hard to tell the difference. Maybe it is because it is not different, only, as the old saying goes: Do you know the difference between and drunk and an alcoholic? Yes! Us drunks do not have to go to meetings! The difference from a cultural Christian is that they go to meetings, Church, whereby those other cultural people do not feel the need to go to Church. Why should they?
I am not laying down rules, or to create rules to control emotion. What I am saying is that there is no Scriptural warrant for much of the emotion, this euphoric display of emotion that many Churches promote. I am not advocating to put away, to destroy emotion. To do that I am advocating doing away with humanity.
Thomas displayed true emotion. Thomas had a hard time believing that Jesus actually rose from the grave. When Jesus came to him and asked him to put his hand on the nail holes and into the side where the spear struck him, Thomas cried out: My Lord and my God. What a display of true emotion. When you come to the place where Jesus is real to you, not just a story in a book, but real to you, when you actually come to believe that He is the Messiah, the Savior who came to save the world of its sin, and to apply that sin to you, to give to you eternal life: what more can there be to give to you true emotion? You, if you believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ will live eternally. Not because you have done something, other than to believe upon Him, you are give this free gift of faith, a faith that leads to true emotion, not some false euphoric display of emotion. No, we are not to be stoic, to put emotions to death, we are to be real humans, to be real Authentic Christians who know that that are saved, that you have eternal life, that God loves you enough to come to earth to die to pay your debt so that you can have eternal life as He intended for mankind. This is emotional! This may, and maybe should bring tears to your eyes: God died for you! Will you accept Him? Will you deny yourself to no longer be a cultural Christian, to use emotions as they should be used? Will you present to the world what it means to be an Authentic Christian and raise the bar of respect, of proper virtue, to be what God wants you to be: AN AUTHENTIC CHRISTIAN!
The LORD God is my strength,
and He will make my feet
like hinds feet, and He will make
me to walk upon mine high places.
Habakkuk 3:19
Be an Authentic Christian
Richard L. Crumb
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