Nothing Can Compare!

It's that time of year again! The time when everyone gets in a festive spirit (or at least tries), decorates for Christmas, and buys the special people in thier life gifts. At work we decorated our department right after Thanksgiving rolled around. With our little Christmas tree, stockings, and snowflakes . . . it really does look cheeful! To add to the Christmas spirit some of my co-workers brought in some Christmas music. (Our department truely is the happiest place in the entire hospital!)

For the first two days I was loving it! Even though all the songs weren't exactly Christ related, hearing those fast pace, jolly songs about winter and Christmas day put me in a good mood and made work a lot easier! But after a few days the excitement started to ware of real quick! I found myself putting in those good old gospel CDs in my CD player while I was on my way home from work. The songs of Jesus and the love He gives us filled me with warmth and refreshed my soul from top to bottom! It's those kind of songs that gives me strength and the help to go about my day even when everything is going wrong. It's those old hymns that keep ringing in my mind that encourages me to be a wittness to my co-workers and the people who waits on me at the gas station. It's the songs like Amazing Grace that puts joy in my soul and a smile on my face. Those songs give me good food for thought. I suppose that is why I don't think I could ever listen to country music, rock, the old classics, or even generic Christmas music. They have no substance. They are not satisfying. Only my God can give me that kind of music!

You're Going the Wrong Way!

Every third Thursday of the month the skating rink in our town has a "Homeschooler's Night." Most of the homeschoolers that come out are Christians, so we get to play our own Southern Gospel Music instead of that contemporary stuff. It is always a lot of clean fun!

This past month a family with six kids, who had just started coming, brought their cousins who we happen to know. As I was skating with one of the girls we began to talk about the way we have always skated. Everyone goes around the rink counter-clock-wise, for the whole night. By the time it's time to leave you will have blisters on that one side of your foot. We both agreed that we should skate the opposite way half of the night.

Not long after that her brother and cousin started going the opposite way! So what did we do? We followed them! The first thing I noticed was how hard it was to skate that way. I found out that not only am I right handed, but right footed as well!

Soon others started to follow us. The first ones to do so were our own brothers and sisters, naturally. After a while everyone started going the wrong way. Obviously some of the kids must have turned around because the lady that was supervising told us that we all had to skate the same way. That was the end of our little fun.

Later I started thinking about how we do this very thing in life all the time. We follow the crowd in the wrong direction. Everybody else is doing it, so why shouldn't we? A lot of times it's not the sinners that we are following, just like we weren't following strangers at the skating rink. They were our friends and family! Even Christians can lead us in the wrong direction. Christians can convince us that contemporary music is okay. They can make us believe that wearing skirts a little above the knee or tight shirts isn't that wrong. Christians are the ones who may lead us to back down on our disciplinary beliefs.

Going with the flow can often be easy, but if we know it is wrong it should bother our conscience, making it hard to continue in this path just like it was hard skating clock-wise. But if we don't listen the the Holy Ghost telling us to turn around, others will start to follow us . . . most likely those closest to us.

But oh, how easy it is to be going the right way once we have turned around! The actual turning around may not be easy, but once we have, the peace of mind and the joy of knowing you are in God's will is so rewarding. May we all strive to follow Christ . . . not the crowd.

Old Fashioned or Biblical Principles?

Recently I had a very thought provoking discussion with one of my coworkers on morals. She was telling another girl that she can’t blame her daughter if she gets pregnant out of wed-lock, because she did it herself, and hasn’t done much to discourage her daughter from follow in her footsteps. The woman that was telling her this said, “I’m old fashioned. I believe women shouldn’t get pregnant out of wed-lock. That’s just the way I am. My mother was real strict like that too.”

As I began to think about it, I realized that is how most people see morals and standards. They think they are old fashioned, not meant for the modern day that we live in. Are they old fashioned? Should we put them aside and consider them as a thing of the past? Or are they Biblical principles that have been forgotten amongst all the wickedness that is in this world?

There once was a day when a girl was ashamed to be pregnant before marriage. In those days, married couples stayed together because they promised to “love and cherish till death do us part.” Women use to stay home to care after their husband and children. Women use to dress like ladies. There was a time when the thought of killing unborn babies was appalling.

Now it is common for young girls to have several children without even thinking about getting married. Divorce is not considered wrong at all so men and women leave their spouse without even trying to resolve the problem. When you tell others that all you want to be when “you grow up” is a stay at home wife and mother, you get a blank stare. When people see you dressed in skirts on a day other than Sunday or Wednesday they think you are Amish or Mennonites. (I have nothing against those two groups, but I simply am not one of them.) Modern society has accepted abortion, and all those who oppose are considered “to old fashioned.”

Yes, I believe morals and standards are old fashioned. But they are still Biblical principles too. They are still right, and still need to be preached all over the world, but let’s face it, it is not popular to live for God. It is not fashionable. It is not respected. Godly living is not widely practiced anymore.

How did this come about? How can a nation accept the murdering of babies and all the other sins that are going rampant? The devil is smart. He knows just how to squeeze those sins in where people will accept them. If he can get sin into a respected person’s home, no one will say anything because of who the person is. Everyone starts to see that if it is okay for that person, it must be okay for themselves as well. Once a family sees that their daughter has committed an awful sin, they make it seem like a small matter because they don’t want to think that their loved one is wrong. Everyone stops speaking against adultery, divorce, and abortion because they don’t want to offend their family member who is guilty of such iniquities. Slowly, everyone becomes accustomed to these ways.

But just because the majority of the world chooses to live opposite of what God wants doesn’t mean that we can follow them. In fact, it should give us a desire to live for him even more because this world needs to see that there are still some Christians out there who want to live for God. We need to stand up for what we believe. Don’t be ashamed to tell everyone that you want to be a stay at home wife and mother. Don’t let those around you get the impression that you think it is okay to be pregnant out of wed-lock. Even if those in high positions at your church have done wrong, you can’t overlook it as a small matter.

Sin is sin and it will always be sin. It is not fun to be opposing, but if a time comes that we have to say something, we have to say what is right . . . in love. We cannot let godly living become obsolete.

“Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.” Ephesians 5:10-11