biblical morality

What is our hope for a more moral future?

Let’s conduct a brief thought experiment centered on this maxim: When we love someone, we love what they love and hate what they hate.

If I love my friend who has cancer, I must love his children and hate his disease. However, this principle is not entirely true for everyone in every circumstance. For example, if I love my alcoholic friend, I must hate the alcohol he loves and love the sobriety he hates. Thus, our maxim unconditionally applies only to our sinless Lord (Hebrews 4:15). Jesus is the only Person who perfectly loves what I should love and hates what I should hate. In short, to live a moral life, I should love Jesus like he loves me and then love others like he loves them.

The collision between religious liberty and sexual freedom is escalating daily. Laws banning “conversion therapy” have been passed by more than a dozen countries including France, New Zealand, and Canada. Several U.S. states have also banned the treatment.

Let us pray today for war to be averted in Ukraine and for peace to rule. Let us pray for wisdom for our leaders and for those with whom they are negotiating. Let us pray for protection for our soldiers, embassy personnel, and others who are potentially in harm’s way. And let us pray for our Ukrainian sisters and brothers in Christ to turn their anxiety into intercession and to confront their fears with faith.

If you and I want our culture to value biblical morality, we must demonstrate personally the liberating power of biblical morality through a transforming, daily encounter with the person of Jesus. If we want more people to identify as Christians, we must exhibit the real and living Christ in us. If we want more Americans to pray, we must show them what happens when we connect personally and powerfully with Christ in prayer.

We have focused this week on the courage God’s people need to engage our broken culture in transforming ways. In a society that continues to reject biblical morality and suffer the consequences, Christians can become deeply discouraged about our ability to make a meaningful difference. In response, let’s close with this note of encouragement: as we work, God works.

The more we experience God’s transforming love, the more we will be empowered and motivated to share it with every person we can. And the more we will love them as we are loved. Imagine the difference it would make in the world if Christians were known for loving others as God loves us.

If we will pray for the courage to share God’s story through ours, he will answer us. And when he does, because his word never fails (Isaiah 55:10-11), our world can never be the same.

Weiss and Glaser report that many parents miss the fact that kids often pursue pornographic material to meet unmet needs; to heal wounds, to resolve shame, to feel connected, to ease anxiety, to alleviate stress. So, try to find out what’s going on in your kids’ lives that drive them to seek out pornography. Breaking this debilitating habit will take a long time and involves developing new thought and behavior patterns.

Yesterday we discussed the crisis of Christian leadership in our day and identified four temptations of the enemy. Let’s respond to each of these deceptive ideas with the truth of God’s word. I see these four steps as a blueprint for engaging our anti-Christian culture with biblical truth.