MAKE UP YOUR MIND...STAND FOR SOMETHING

The Bible contains some challenging words for all of us.  Sometimes there seems to conflicts between what is said and what we do.  When one does not "practice what he preaches", he or she is labeled a hypocrite.  A hypocrite pretends to be something they are really not.  As one old evangelist use to say, "Plastic flowers may look like the real thing, but they are not.  They are hypocrites." (By the way the next night of the Revival, real flowers were on the table in front of the pulpit). 

James 1:5-8 gives a challenge to us,

5 If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. 6 But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. 7 Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.

Wisdom, the ability to look at tradition, experience, intelligence (reason), and Scripture, challenges us to make choices with prudence and circumspection.  This means wisdom thinks before it leaps.  With caution, wisdom calls for looking at the bigger picture before taking a risk.  Wisdom does not mean we never change or stop growing or stand for what is right.  Yet when confronted with a challenge, wisdom makes changes when common sense is applied to situations.  Common sense is not something learned in a textbook.  Common sense is gained through the school of hard knocks (experience), the application of reason (logical thought), tradition (what we have been taught or practiced) and Sacred Writings.  

In a world of paradoxes filled with clashes of ideals, we find ourselves at a stalemate between the forces of ideology.  We have those who call for religious control of political power to the extent that those who disagree or have a different belief are killed.  We have those who label those who differ with them as "left-wing" or "liberal" or "right-wing" or Conservative.  This is currently the case in the United States.  

If one supports gay rights, Obama care, granting status to illegal aliens and changing the name of the Washington Redskins, they are "liberal", socialists, communists.  If one supports strong military, deportation of  illegal immigration, no rights for gays, and cannot see why anyone should be upset by the name of the Washington Redskins, they are "right wing conservatives", tea party members, who seek to impede and stop anything that the other group wants including shutting down the government.

What a mess!  Who is right and who is wrong?  What should we do?  It is time for wisdom to prevail.  We need to evaluate our ethics or those moral principles that guide us whether they be based on religion or not.  We need to lay down the name calling and the character assassinations and look to our moral principles.

This is what wisdom calls us to do.  What moral principles guide us?  That is really a good question, isn't it?  Think about it.

Roy