Made in the Image and Likeness of God

I have been pondering, more accurately commiserating over the elastic social mores, the undulating morality of our culture in which the ribald, profane and straight up wicked lifestyles can seamlessly intertwine with the sacred.  One of the unintended consequences of “tolerance” or moral relativism is that it pasteurizes, homogenizes and dilutes the sacrality of the righteous standards of the Bible-God’s immutable, inerrant, infallible word. Some of us in the body of Christ are so thirsty for the acceptance of the lost that we continue to create “seeker-friendly” environments that expunge any element that would bring conviction or condemnation to people bound by sin.  Oh yeah, the “s” word!  Despite Romans 3:23 clear declaration that,” all have sinned and come short of the glory of God”, and the Jeremiah 17:9 edict ,”The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it”, we continue to capitulate the myth that man is intrinsically good and in an effort to spare people’s feelings refuse to emphatically articulate the dreaded disease we were all born with….. a SIN nature.

Part of my diatribe is based upon the recent release of a “gospel” album by the west coast rap legend Snoop Dogg. The urban street poet’s offering has been gulped with an enthusiasm that mimics the purple, cyanide-laced Kool-Aid of the Jim Jones followers. Your rebuttal may be that the content was palatable, beats were on point and it was more than a pedestrian effort by a secular artist to do something positive.  You get no argument on any of those points.  However, there is a growing bandwidth of tolerance for duplicitousness or a dichotomy between lifestyle and art. I happen to have the misfortune of being asked to listen to Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr’s( Snoop's government name) response to the egregious tirade of one lost soul known as Kanye West.  The expletives projectile vomited from his mouth reminded me of this strange fire that we have gotten so comfortable with.

“Everybody cusses” is the refrain I often hear or worse; “God knows my heart and I am a work in progress”.  Psalm 84:2 says, “My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.”  Psalm 119:11 says, I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”  Ephesians 2:10 says,”For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” II Cor 5:17 says, If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature : old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”  Gal 5:22-23 says,” But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentles and SELF CONTROL!”

What is being lost in translation is that GOD IS HOLY above all things.  His spirit, the incorruptible seed, that indwells us at the moment of salvation, comes with a promise.  John 15:7 says, “Ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”  What that DOES NOT means is a laundry list of material acquisitions. Verse 8 of that chapter says, “ This is to my Father’s glory that you bear much fruit.”  That promise declares that He will respond to every longing for personal righteousness; a process like human growth takes time and is gradual. We seem to more and more celebrate people who either have rotting fruit, a twig of a vine or the similitude of godliness( having a form of godliness but denying the power therof).  WE ARE the salt and light.  Jesus said in John 12:32, “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me.”  The evidence of the power of salvation, the actual indwelling of the spirit of God, is a TRANSFORMED LIFE, not snippets of goodness, accepting an invite to a gospel function or recording with so-called gospel artists.  We have become afraid to demonstrate the immutable characteristics of God, His holiness and His righteousness.  The Great Commission was to go and make disciples- spread His teachings to the nations through the spoken and demonstrated Word.  Catering to secularism, moral relativism and flat out wickedness not only is an exercise in futility, it exacerbates the effort of those who understand that to live for Christ is counter cultural and antithetical to Aleister Crowley’s destructive edict to “ Do what thou wilt.” Run tell that!