For if I by grace be a partaker, why am I evil spoken
of for that which I give thanks? Whether therefore
ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the
glory of God. Give none offence, neither to the Jews,
nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God:
even as I please all men in all things, not seeking
mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they
may be saved. Be ye followers of me, even as
I also am of Christ.
1Corinthians 10:30-33; 11:1
A fact that cannot be denied is that all persons develop in their personality, their exercise of life, by means of influences in their lives. This is especially true about one's religious belief as all things that are learned, those events in a person's life develop character and by that character their behavior. It would seem that a person who has come to understand of Jesus, even if inadequate and about the work of the cross and thinks that acceptance with God is based on performance, or a kind of religious experience would develop a great strictness to follow the teachings of the Bible to be generated. One would think so! But the opposite is true. Here is a difference between liberal, or cultural Christianity and Authentic Christianity. Authentic Christians are those who hold to Biblical doctrines of the work of Jesus Christ to be the basis of acceptance by God and are those who take the Bible's instruction concerning righteous living more seriously. Liberal, or cultural Christians are those who have developed a system of their own and tend to water down what God requires for the practice of their faith. Liberal, or cultural Christians tend to create standards of behavior that fit their own lifestyles. These developed by cultural or liberal Christians do so because they know that they can meet these standards without the aid of God, even though they may speak that it is of God. This cannot be true if what they are exercising as faith has no Scriptural warrant, it only gives to them a way of life that is characterized by ignorance and conceit.
A problem, not a new one, is that too often if a person says that they are a Christian, even if they do not know what it means, what that really means, and if they are not guilty of gross violation of the accepted cultural morality, then they are not questions as to whether or not that person is indeed a Christian. What has come to be is that all a the word "Christian" implies then is that it is a general assent to Christianity and some degree of morality in life. This is no different than we can see in the religiosity of Hinduism, Muslim, or Buddhist, or Mormons, or Jehovah Witnesses, or other forms of religion.
A sad report is that this cultural Christianity is the state of much of the Christian world. Here is a question for thought: If Christianity were proven not to be true would a cultural or liberal Christian change their way of life, their behavior, or thinking? Would these persons still attend Church as a sort of social responsibility? Would this knowledge that the Bible was not true still cause them to seek counsel the way as before, or remodel their behavior seeking a new sense of meaning or purpose?
Those questions are really not needed as we can see that we have many examples of unbelievers whose lives are morally superior to those that call themselves Christian. Here is a fact: Authentic Christianity has and is the most superior moral system in existence. Yet we do not live by it, so then what good is it? Let us compare religions that are not Christian. Let us see this that where ever Christianity has flourished society has flourished and developed in sciences, socially, educationally, medically, and in all areas of life life is better. Let us look at Hinduism where it is easily seen that they live be a caste system and until recent times whereby companies from Christian nations added them or gave to them jobs their lives where horrible. In fact they are still horrible in many ways: i.e., the buying and selling of children, prostitution, murder, etc., and look at the Muslim countries, not just Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Iraq, look at Thailand, or Laos, or Viet Nam and until modern companies gave to them jobs and some meaning their religions have hurt people in many ways, and in fact are still hurting people today. The contrast is night and day!
Here is a thought for all of us: we say that Jesus is our Savior, do we not? Yes! Yet we forget that He also said that He was our example and that we are to deny ourselves and follow Him. We are be His arms, legs, mouth to spread the Gospel, His commandments and requirements. We are to believe in Him, yes, but we are to follow Him. Did not the followers in the early days after the death of Jesus Christ do that? Yes! These followers changed the world, the world took notice, why? Because they lived as Jesus commanded them, us, to live: "Then said Jesus unto His disciples, if any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me" (Matthew 16:24).
An interesting fact is that while people will deny the doctrines of the Bible still see that the morality of Christianity has and is raising the standard and strive to not just recognize this, but to strive to achieve this standard. What is being done is to give little significance to the practice of faith and its foundations that to practice Authentic Christian Faith based on the foundations of the Bible give to the unbeliever, or liberal, or cultural Christian cause to say that that that foundation is irrelevant to practical living. This is tragic to the high cost of God to send His Son, Jesus Christ to die and to die in vain. What is more tragic in some sense, other than the tragedy about the death of Jesus Christ is that in Christendom there is a practice of faith that produces no greater morality that is being practiced by unbelievers. In fact: go to a Church and see if you can see any real difference between the parishioners and the world, by dress, by attitude, by a lack of urgency to bring to the world the Gospel, ethics are pushed aside, respect is pushed aside and given are excuses as to be reasons that the Church is not holding high the standards of God, to influence to the better the standards of this world. The Church has lowered the bar to meet the low standards of this world. This is cultural, or liberal Christianity at work in the Church.
The problem seems to be with a faulty understanding of what God requires of us in terms of practical Christian living.
Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful
of the land, that they may dwell
with Me: he that walketh in a perfect
way, he shall serve me, he that worketh
deceit shall not dwell within My house: He
that telleth lies shall not tarry in My sight.
Psalm 101:6-7
Change from the inside/out to the better
Richard L. Crumb
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