I hold no claim to piety or righteousness, but I've come to find what counts is, who am I when no one is looking. If I can live with that man, my hope is that by example, when some are watching, that is who they see. That said, I'm not who or what I was decades ago. I am still flawed, in many ways deeply, but as I like to tell folks, I think I may finally be playing for the right team. I have a new contract and my new employer keeps me busy.
It's so, so easy to talk the talk. Walking the walk is, for me, an exercise in stumbling, tripping, and balancing in order to avoid falling. Sometimes I do fall and I try to get right back up and use the event as a learning opportunity. I am not obligated to LIKE the lesson, either.
Laws can help provide clarity of what society will accept or not accept for behavior. Where I feel we have completely failed is in the complexity of our legal tombs! Give society something brief (like the ten commandments) and you have a chance for people to recognize and follow such laws / expectations. But publish thousands and thousands of pages of obscure legal detail and it's absurd for a society to "follow the law".
As simple as the Ten Commandments are, even those would be broken regularly. The Israelites to whom God first dictated those commandments were unable to keep them faithfully, and that is at the heart of my article. Laws do not make us moral - they reveal our immorality (much like my recent article that showed how laws don't stop criminals, they create criminals). This is why it is futile for Christians to simply rail at sin. We know what is right and what is wrong (God has told us), but prior to salvation, we cannot obey. Even once He changes our hearts, we struggle. If those who have been made anew by God wage an internal war against sin, how can we expect one who is enslaved to sin to free himself?
Humans are "human". We won't always behave "properly". I'm simply extrapolating on your point by saying that if the laws were simpler we'd have a much easier time understanding what society accepts and avoiding "needless criminal behavior" that really only became criminal because of some obscure law.
Holding our children to account, how we raise them, goes a long way to perpetuate morality. Too often, people don’t engage with their children, just throw an electronic device at them while their own head is buried in theirs. And they wonder why their kids are displaying a lack of morality. They fostered it. The internet is poison for children. And then they reap what they’ve sown. I say it’s never too late to give your kid a kick in the ass to reset them on the right path.
We (meaning the Saved followers of Christ) all STRIVE to be better Christians. Though, as you pointed out in the article, we tend to fall short of that goal on a regular basis. That doesn't mean we don't keep striving for that goal.
I know that I fall short of my ULTIMATE goal every day. But, as a goid friend always said, I keep "trudging the road to happy destiny." Some days I am able to SKIP along merrily. Most days I trudged along. And every once in a while my stride is like: skip, trudge, trudge, GLITCH.
Sorry, it seems I have gone off in a totally different direction than the overall topic.
As has been said, I am only responsible for MY actions. I can hold others to avoid certain standard, but ultimately it is up to them as to how they behave. Someone else may have a completely different idea of what the moral "standard" may be. That's fine if they do, so long as we have SOME sort of common ground. Of course, there are some in this world who truly believe themselves to be anointed by God to pass judgment over us on Earth. These people tend to be extremely dangerous and actually are devoid of any REAL moral standards.
What a wonderful topic for self reflection to see where *I* fall in that spectrum at this point in my life. 🤔🤔🤔
I hold no claim to piety or righteousness, but I've come to find what counts is, who am I when no one is looking. If I can live with that man, my hope is that by example, when some are watching, that is who they see. That said, I'm not who or what I was decades ago. I am still flawed, in many ways deeply, but as I like to tell folks, I think I may finally be playing for the right team. I have a new contract and my new employer keeps me busy.
It's so, so easy to talk the talk. Walking the walk is, for me, an exercise in stumbling, tripping, and balancing in order to avoid falling. Sometimes I do fall and I try to get right back up and use the event as a learning opportunity. I am not obligated to LIKE the lesson, either.
Laws can help provide clarity of what society will accept or not accept for behavior. Where I feel we have completely failed is in the complexity of our legal tombs! Give society something brief (like the ten commandments) and you have a chance for people to recognize and follow such laws / expectations. But publish thousands and thousands of pages of obscure legal detail and it's absurd for a society to "follow the law".
As simple as the Ten Commandments are, even those would be broken regularly. The Israelites to whom God first dictated those commandments were unable to keep them faithfully, and that is at the heart of my article. Laws do not make us moral - they reveal our immorality (much like my recent article that showed how laws don't stop criminals, they create criminals). This is why it is futile for Christians to simply rail at sin. We know what is right and what is wrong (God has told us), but prior to salvation, we cannot obey. Even once He changes our hearts, we struggle. If those who have been made anew by God wage an internal war against sin, how can we expect one who is enslaved to sin to free himself?
Humans are "human". We won't always behave "properly". I'm simply extrapolating on your point by saying that if the laws were simpler we'd have a much easier time understanding what society accepts and avoiding "needless criminal behavior" that really only became criminal because of some obscure law.
Holding our children to account, how we raise them, goes a long way to perpetuate morality. Too often, people don’t engage with their children, just throw an electronic device at them while their own head is buried in theirs. And they wonder why their kids are displaying a lack of morality. They fostered it. The internet is poison for children. And then they reap what they’ve sown. I say it’s never too late to give your kid a kick in the ass to reset them on the right path.
"I see", said the blind man to the deaf man.
We (meaning the Saved followers of Christ) all STRIVE to be better Christians. Though, as you pointed out in the article, we tend to fall short of that goal on a regular basis. That doesn't mean we don't keep striving for that goal.
I know that I fall short of my ULTIMATE goal every day. But, as a goid friend always said, I keep "trudging the road to happy destiny." Some days I am able to SKIP along merrily. Most days I trudged along. And every once in a while my stride is like: skip, trudge, trudge, GLITCH.
Sorry, it seems I have gone off in a totally different direction than the overall topic.
As has been said, I am only responsible for MY actions. I can hold others to avoid certain standard, but ultimately it is up to them as to how they behave. Someone else may have a completely different idea of what the moral "standard" may be. That's fine if they do, so long as we have SOME sort of common ground. Of course, there are some in this world who truly believe themselves to be anointed by God to pass judgment over us on Earth. These people tend to be extremely dangerous and actually are devoid of any REAL moral standards.
What a wonderful topic for self reflection to see where *I* fall in that spectrum at this point in my life. 🤔🤔🤔