Christian Living

New Lives For Old

by Jeff Drinnan
10/01/20
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The Bible says "to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." -Ephesians 4:22-24

Be in the world but not of the world.

I was recently admonished in my reading of Christian materials to make God the focus of my life, and not become distracted, pulled away by worldly desires. Some influences are wrong and others are not inherently wrong but can be a problem when it upstages the gospel.

Christmas commercialism is wrong; it's analogous to the money changers that Christ drove out of the temple. Some of our cultural traditions, such as Christmas trees and Santa Claus, are not wrong in and of themselves, but if Christ's birth doesn't become the reason for the season, then it is wrong. My pastor gave an example last upcoming Christmas season. Seeing Santa Claus outside the church isn't a sin, although some Christians, myself included, wonder if even playing make believe with a Santa Clause (he's not real), and the subtle message of faith by works is a bad idea. Santa Claus should not come to the church. God should!

In my Christian reading, the writer urged Christians to spend more time in the Word than with worldly pursuits. The writer said that there's a problem when Christians know more about celebrities, sports, etc., than they know about spiritual matters.

TV in particular is a worldly influence that we should minimize, or in some cases ban. Some media is just down right sinful, for example a popular sit com where a marriage between two guys is depicted as normal. There's a Walgreens ad that comes on where two guys, evidently who have a romantic relationship are dancing together. Much of the evil OK'ed and even glorified is subtle, but the world has been getting increasingly more brazen.

When my daughter was little, I didn't let her watch two shows. One was The Simpsons, because children were taught disrespect for authority, including their parents. The father was depicted as a boob. The other was Captain Planet, where industry is shown as inherently a bad steward of the earth.

Even when media does not show evil as being good, too much TV is bad. It's good to limit shows and be selective. Recently I watched "I Can Only Imagine", the story behind the wonderful Christian song Bart Millard wrote. One salient point in the movie is that God can take (in Bart's words), "a monster" and redeem him.

Decades ago when I interviewed an exchange student from Germany for a local newspaper, the high school kid remarked that Americans "watch too much TV". When TV dominates your life and is your whole world, it becomes a psychological opiate.

A woman who wanted to conquer her voluntary slavery of drug addiction thought she was in good company when she lived with a woman who was not addicted to drugs, but was addicted to TV and food. This and sleeping was her whole life! Much of their conversation revolved around TV shows, and a prescription of what they would watch, a soliloquy by the "clean" woman. The gal in recovery had started reading Ed Welch's "Addictions, A Banquet in the Grave; Finding Hope in The Power of the Gospel", but she said she got "sucked in" by the TV and her roommate's constant running commentary. Consequently, her reading stalled.

Relgious freedom per se was not the main reason the Dutch came to America. The problem was that Christians' children were lured into the wordly ways of the culture in Holland at the time (it was before the Reformation). They came to America for a fresh start in order to bring their children up in the admonition of the Lord.

Americas Keswick, the faith-based based drug and alcohol rehab insitution, where participants heavily read the Bible, is an example of how staying in scripture keeps you on God's path. "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." -Psalm 119:105.

Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly.

Drug addiction is sin, where people get sucked into the voluntary slavery of addiction. The armor of God is how to protect yourself from it. During a Bible study about addictions, my pastor said he doesn't have to debate that Biblical counseling is better than secular counseling for drug addition; he said he just points to the success rate at Keswick!

The Bible is sufficient. "By his devine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence." -2 Peter 1:3.

All the king's horses and all the king's men can't put broken people back together again. Only the true King, God, can redeem broken people and make them whole! New lives for old!