Monday, October 3, 2011

What Are You Living For?


I went to Courageous the movie recently. It was great, well worth the money I spent on it! What I was not expecting was what was in the previews. As one was about pastor’s daughter disobeying her father and going into the secular world and hooking up with a street dancer who wanted to express himself by secular dancing. One that, I was even ashamed to be seated there listening to the preview. The next one was about a church choir and how two people were fighting and competing to be the choir director at the church and trying to make the choir better. With several inappropriate comments thrown into the preview I was absolutely appalled at the message it was portraying. When some of the Christians around us started laughing at it I was disappointed and saddened that that was what the world portrayed as Christianity. I asked myself why? Why would the world look at Christianity like this? The only reason can be because we have been a poor reflection of Christ. We have been not been imitators of Christ. Friends why? Why have we been a poor reflection? Do we think we have a license to sin? Do we think we are good enough? What are we thinking? We cannot let sin continue to be a part of our lives. We cannot allow it to become a plant with a deep root, that is very hard to pull out. Friends God is calling you to a life that is honoring to Him. Let me ask you something. Why do we watch something that is not honoring to God?

What is a good definition of sin? Many times we think of it as what we think, say or do that is not pleasing to God. Brothers and sisters why is it not also what we listen to, or what we watch that is not pleasing to God. Do you think that listening to a movie that takes God’s name in vain is pleasing to God? I don’t think so. How about the cussing and swearing in a movie is that pleasing to God? Think of what you can do other then watch a movie? Share the gospel with someone, have a coworker over for dinner. We always want to be entertained instead of bring glory to God by sharing the gospel.  Do we really want to bring glory to God or do we want to satisfy our selfish desires. Think of the money you spend on one movie. Anywhere from $7.75- $11 for that amount you can buy 70 -100 gospel tracts. You could plant that many seeds in the hearts of men for the price it is to go to a movie. Friends, for a fee we satisfy our temporary selfish desires by going to a movie that is most likely not pleasing to God. Hmm something seems wrong here. I am saddened to see these things.

Friends it is time to become more like Christ, to hate evil and to love what is good. Why do we not stand up for this? Why do sit back and want to be entertained by sights of evil and ungodliness. Why do we fill our brains with such things? Why do we not fill them with the things of God? We need to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and pursue righteousness, holiness, godliness. Movies are only one example. What we put into our minds is what we imitate, what we reflect. That is why we are such a poor reflection of Christ. We do not want to reflect Christ, we would rather be doing something else rather than spending our time telling others about Christ, or getting to know our Savior more, and taking time to talk to him. What if you spent the time you watch the movies in prayer with your family or reading the Bible together. Can we ever get to much of Christ? No! we cannot. Friends, we cannot stand idly by waiting for a “great person” to come and start a revival. It must happen first in our hearts. We are the ones who must stand firm against the forces of evil. We need to live lives that are pleasing to our Savior. If we do not then why are we Christians, why are we followers of Christ. If our goal is not to live for Christ then what are we living for? We are living for ourselves. Friends, I plead with you to live a life that is for Christ and not for yourself.  We do not have time to waste on our selfish desires. Let us desire to do what God wants us to do and devote our whole beings to Him to do His will.

No comments:

Post a Comment