Lift Others Up To God’s Standards, Don’t Stoop To The Standards of the World
Word-Of-The-Day: ‘(12) See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. (13) But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.’ (Hebrews 3:12-13)
In January, a Philadelphia Flyers’ hockey player, Ivan Provorov, boycotted the Flyers’ Gay Pride celebration and refused to wear ‘Gay Pride’ livery on his uniform and would not tape his stick with rainbow-colored tape. Mr. Provorov, a devout Eastern Orthodox Christian, may felt he was alone as his other teammates wore the patches, and those ‘woke’ on social media slammed Mr. Provorov’s character. Nevertheless, he stood firm in God’s Word and did not waver.
Was he alone? He may have been in the Flyers’ locker room, but soon after his actions became publicized, his Flyers’ jersey has become ‘sold out’, as many have appreciated his stance against that which is against God. Many, by their actions of the wallet along with their support of Ivan in social media should be an encouragement to him that he has done the correct thing, and we need to do that daily as well for each other. Since then, many sports organizations have quietly dropped such ‘celebrations’ from their activities – though some remain steadfast to do so.
When a Christian or Christian organization begins to tolerate and accept that which is brought in from the secular world that which is not in-line with the Word of God, they no longer represent God but the world. When someone states, ‘I’m a Christian, but <fill in ‘woke agenda item’ here>’, he or she is no longer Christian but of the world. It is therefore a virtue to be for intolerance for anything deviating from God’s Word, and be uncompromising in the actions toward obeying the Word, and we need to be so. This is not in what the world believes Christians should be; we should be ‘accommodating’ and ‘accepting’ all as ‘God’s children’. Yet it is not up to us to accept anyone as God’s child; only Jesus can make that decision and it is someone who remains steadfast in following the Word and obeying the Father.
This does not mean we should shun all those who we love who are worldly or are mired in sinful situations. We do not have to ‘smite’ those who disagree with us; the Crusaders should never have fought to force people to ‘convert or die’. Instead, we should strive to provide Jesus’ Gospel and His Love to them, to convince them within their own free will to follow Him. We should not, however, bring ourselves down to their standards but strive to bring them up to God’s standards. To adjust ourselves or the church to conform to the world is to doubt that God is right; that He is not all powerful and loving but spiteful. That is the start of the road toward unbelief, which is the start of sin.
We need fellowship as much as prayer and Scripture study to ensure we are united with each other, encouraging one another and watching each other’s back. Don’t fall for ‘wokeness’, fall into the Word!
