A lull.
It’s February now—a lull—a bit of breathing room. Christmas is behind us and celebrations ushering in the new year have come and gone. Innumerable resolutions have been made—and some kept.
Many followers of Jesus see this as a time to freshen their relationship with the Lord. Others, though professing a heart-felt belief in Him, seem co-joined with non-believers to return to a more worldly routine.
Where are you in this mix, Christian? Do you set the world aside to freshen your relationship with our Lord, the Christ, or do you set the Lord aside to freshen your relationship with the world? Maybe you just straddle this fence, leaning in the direction that best serves your interest at the time.
Whatever your position, you must consider very carefully where you stand. For the rate of cultural decline in the physical world in which we live is increasing exponentially. Our minds were once closed to this decline. Oh, we were aware of what was taking place. But we became conditioned to the reduced standards that crept up on us. We became complacent, apathetic, and largely unconcerned. We accepted the unaccountable decisions of others to set the standards for us. And we lived by them.
The Apostle Paul wrote about this in the Book of Romans, Chapter 1. Although written in another place, at another time almost 2000 years ago, his Spirit-inspired words are applicable and reflect the conditions of our culture today.
Paul was looking at the human condition, God’s judgment, and the need for salvation. Regarding the human condition, Paul wrote, “Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.” (Romans 1:29-32, NLT)
Sound familiar? Make no mistake about it, we, as Christians, have contributed to this human condition. And we are just as accountable for the resulting sin as a common sinner. Whether young adults or elderly, Satan has used our complacency, apathy, and lack of concern to lull us into a state of near acceptance of what should be considered abhorrent behavior.
Sure, we go to church. Many Christian believers attend denominational and non-denominational houses of worship regularly. We go to potlucks, prayer meetings, Bible studies, home groups, concerts, seminars, summer camps, winter camps and innumerable other activities geared to develop within us the values we are to aspire to in living a godly life. But that, for many, is as far as it goes.
We have fallen short. As Christians, we have remained silent. We have become self-absorbed. We have resigned ourselves to expressing our disgust about the world condition only with each other. The bad news? Things are going to get worse.
Consider, for example, the growing expectation that our current President, Joe Biden, will likely not serve the full term of his Presidency. His service will be aborted before the next election. Our current Vice President, Kamala Harris, will assume the Presidency. Though a historic event for the United States (and the world), this will provoke increased chaos throughout an unbridled bureaucracy bent on promoting further moral decay.
The good news? When world conditions are ripe with sin and corruption, when there appears little or no hope for the continued existence of our Republic and its founding principles, when freelance government representatives we’ve elected and trusted are in the process of exhausting all the mental, physical, and material resources available to them to compel their constituency to adhere to some personal, immoral agenda, God is going to intervene.
God alone will orchestrate the conditions necessary for order to replace chaos, morality to replace immorality, right to replace wrong, and righteousness to replace unrighteousness. Right now, here-to-fore silent, anonymous Christians are being inspired to step out of the microcosm of their comfortable, Christian circles to expose current cultural practices and behaviors as part of a grand Satanic lie.
Time to ask yourself where you are in the mix, Christian. We’re in a lull following the holidays, but not really. The stage is being set for God’s intervention. The question is, will God be working through you, or will you choose to remain anonymous?