Philosophical Excuses

I recently read an argument from a very wealthy person on how they had no more responsibility to help the poor than anyone else. Many interesting arguments have been written against responsibility of this or that type in recent days.

Christianity cuts to the core of the issue. The human heart is bad. Many arguments crafted by great intellectuals fail at this point. The motive is bad.

If we are not required to help others than we don't want to. You see this is the complete opposite of the intent of God.

God calls mankind into faith with himself and then asks that they seek to bless the world. God does not intend for mankind to sit and ask if inaction is permissible.

Christian love seeks what is right, loving, and true. It does not sit and ask is it ethically permissible to do nothing?

God cuts to the bottom of our human condition. We are to like Jesus who actively sought to help those in need at each moment. The question for the Christian is how we express love actively in the world, not whether it is ethical to do nothing.

Convenience and Christianity

In the modern world we seek conveniences constantly. This or that will make our lives convenient. We place conveniences as an absolute good.

We often wonder why the world around us is falling apart. In part it is because dealing with the problems around us is inconvenient until the problems affect us.

The Christian message comes and tells us that what is of real significance and that the significance will be a great inconvenience to our lives. We are called to be like the man who found a pearl of great value in his field and sold everything he had to get the field.

We often find that this or that keeps us from the gospel or this or that good thing. We are always people of excuses. We do not like the truth about ourselves--it is inconvenient. This is the issue; we often make up excuses because that is the easy path.

We are always too busy to do this or that but never too busy to spend three hours playing golf or watching sports every Saturday. Christianity is a religion of joy.

True joy is fellowship with God, but true joy comes with a cost. Sometimes true joy pushes into our lives and displaces some temporal joys which are getting in the way.

You see Christianity in no way suggests that joy, even joy in the world, is wrong. But it calls for priorities and sees the need to at times act even when it is inconvenient.

Suspicion of Self

There is a healthy suspicion of self that comes with a healthy Christian faith. In life a lot you find that you are not always the person you had imagined yourself to be.

The good news for progress in the Christian faith in sanctification is to first admit when you are the person you had not hoped yourself to be. Most people who progress few steps in sanctification always act as if the sin they have done was an aberration rather than that it says something about oneself.

The excuses are easy, "I was too tired" or "I had a bad day." Certainly there is truth in these statements, but underneath them is that our sin does say something about our heart. We were not simply unjustly angry because we were too tired, the tiredness simply allowed an opportunity for something of our sin nature to slip out.

Many Christians fear viewing themselves as sinners. As if the perfect work of Christ can be undone by some action they have done.

The reality is that we have started with an infinite debt, and have been sanctified by a grace which is even more infinite. Your righteousness is not in yourself it is in heaven seated at the right hand of God.

We don't have to pretend that we have no sin, because to grow it is necessary to first admit what we struggle with. God's love is not dependent on our works rather God's love is dependent on his love for Jesus who has already paid the price.