Two weeks ago, I was invited to vote for some friends who are in a band competition and while I was watching the videos of the other bands in the competition, just out of curiosity of the talent, or lack thereof, that they were up against, I came across something that has been disturbing me for 2 weeks now. I have tried to shake what I saw and thought, but as I was reading my bible this morning, the same issue arose, and I just can’t seem to shake it, so decided to speak about it.
While watching those music videos, I came across a band that was singing about trusting in God for whatever comes their way, not living in fear or anxiety about the future. The message of the song, was really powerful, but I was distracted by the chickens running around the video and the band members that were trying to catch these chickens. I know I am of a completely different generation, so take this with a grain of salt, but what I see is that people have become comfortable with contradictions. We are saying, or in this case, singing about one thing, yet our actions, the videos people are seeing are not lining up with what we are saying. The message we are speaking is different than the life we are living and we are comfortable with this.
John 18:28-31 says, 28 Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas to the Praetorium, and it was early morning. But they themselves did not go into the Praetorium, lest they should be defiled, but that they might eat the Passover. 29 Pilate then went out to them and said, “What accusation do you bring against this Man?” 30 They answered and said to him, “If He were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered Him up to you.” 31 Then Pilate said to them, “You take Him and judge Him according to your law.” Therefore the Jews said to him, “It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death.”
The Jews would not kill Jesus because it was not lawful for them to put anyone to death, but they were okay with someone else killing him, as long as they would not break the Mosaic law. Comfortable with contradictions.
This is very disturbing to me on many levels, because when we get comfortable with contradictions, 1)we are confusing those who are listening; 2)we are more powerless than we realize; and 3)we are deceived and we do not even realize it. The bible never affirmed the idea of being comfortable with contradictions, it actually warned against it. James 3:10-12 “10 Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. 11 Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? 12 Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh.”
I realize generations come and generations go, I know culture changes, and that we live in a day and age where these things are accepted as normal, but the Bible does not change, Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, and despite what the spirit of the world is saying, the spirit of God is saying that He is not comfortable with contradictions and neither should we be. If we do not speak, sing, shout, show the same thing in our lives, we are living with a contradiction. The problem is not that we have contradictions we have become comfortable with, the problem is that we don’t care. We like saying one thing on facebook and another in church; we like dating unbelievers and are looking for others to say it is okay, we want others to affirm our contradictions and if they don’t we declare they are judging us. I may be from the old school, but one thing I know, is that God is not comfortable with contradictions and neither should we be.
I heard someone say the other day, that he is not concerned with the sins that people struggle with in the church, what concerns him is the lack of alarms that are being sounded in the church about these sins. I guess you could say, I am sounding an alarm, it is time to wake up to the reality that we all live with contradictions, but if you have become comfortable with them and have become comfortable with other people’s contradictions who claim the same name you claim (Christian, disciple of Christ), then we have a problem. It is time to stand up to this spirit that has told us to be comfortable with contradictions.
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