August 27, 2014
Seeking the Righteous
I recently spent a few days in the metro area where
sexual immorality is blatant and seems more pervasive than in a rural community.
Similar to those with righteous indignation against Sodom and Gomorrah, I
shared my distress level with the Lord. “Then the LORD said, “The outcry
against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I
will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has
reached me. If not, I will know”” (Gen 18:20-21 NV). The Lord revealed His intended
actions to His friend and servant Abraham; and surprisingly Abraham took an
opposite view of the situation. Rather than focusing on the grievous sin being
committed by the majority of the people, Abraham focused on the righteous who were
living in the midst of sin. I hadn’t before realized my tendency to overlook righteousness,
but yet allow sin to get in my face.
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Gail;
-----How easily we forget that God’s work for us to do is believe in Christ. No wonder morality and human decency have deteriorated. “Just believing leaves a lot of real estate for wandering,” it is natural to then presume. I’ve heard and read that Protestant girls are more generous than Catholic ones. Maybe that is because Catholics are more ritualistically bound to the concepts of performing works, while simply thinking in a certain way is enough for the general Protestant.
-----I would side with the Protestant about believing, regardless of the girls, if the surmise itself were true. But I would only while stressing “in a certain way.” To believe is a framing sort of thinking. It sets the object of belief upon the highest rung of the logistical ladder, and every progression of assembling ideas into concepts must then support that top rung, be adjusted to support it, if it can, or be discarded if it can not. So, doing the work of God soon involves correcting your own thinking to more and more match the concepts Christ has taught which the Holy Spirit animates, “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (II Cor 3:18)
-----The Word of God itself impugns the world for its unrighteousness. And when you get really down to the brass tacks of what comprises all things in the world you notice the little stuff everyone regards not worthy of sweating is indeed what makes the bigger stuff. A strand of DNA is said to be over a mile or more long when unraveled, yet it folds into a compartment within the bowels of a cell so small that very powerful microscopes are necessary to see it. Yet this minuscule molecule is responsible for your body being human, your health being good or bad, and a myriad other aspects of you. Small stuff can be quite sweatable.
-----Even the big stuff in your life - your job, your spouse, your church, your car - are small things in your community, tiny things in your state, and microscopic things in the world. Yet, like the processes of a dividing cell are required to replicate that tiny DNA perfectly, you have a responsibility for the correctness of your tiny things, too. And nothing seems tinier than a fleeting thought.
-----But fleeting thoughts nest in the subconscious to come forth in attitudes. “The good man out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.” (Mat 12:35) Therefore it behooves us to “Keep your heart with all vigilance; for from it flow the springs of life.” (Pro 4:23)
-----Everything in this world, matter not how small or large, including the treasures of our hearts, is a unit comprised of smaller units, and itself a part of bigger units. Everything being constructed of incredibly intricate parts having innumerable interrelationships inevitably is a mixture of both good and bad. Christ is the only one escaping the incorrectness of even one intricacy. All else is a mixture of good and evil. Therefore, it is sometimes necessary to focus on evil, while it is sometimes necessary to focus on only the good. The important thing is to develop the frame of mind acknowledging they both exist in everything, even myself, and it is only Christ, upon whom we believe, who will eventually separate all of the one completely from the other.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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