July 2 Devotion: What's Happening?

2 Timothy 4:3-4

3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;

4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

         What has happened to America? What has happened to the church? What has happened to common sense and standards of excellence? What has happened to common goals and working together? We may not understand all the why’s but we all can admit that something has happened. It is not the same. One group says this is the change that is right and needful while another says that the change has taken us away from what is right. The truth is, when you change the standard, something will happen contrary to the way it was. Again, one group says the standard needed to be changed while another says there was nothing wrong with the standard. So, conflict ensues and chaos runs rampant. Turning a blind eye to it does not cause it to go away. It only fuels it. What is happening?

         Let us consider some verses so we can understand.

Judges 17:6 In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

Proverbs 14:12 There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

         When man is not yielded to God as Lord, then man becomes god in his own thinking and practice. Anything man comes up with is right in his own eyes. The standard of decency is always fluctuating because there is no real standard. It is only the whims and opinions of those that believe their thoughts outweigh someone else’s. I know it seems like we are living a different day than ever before, but in fact, this is the way it has been since the garden of Eden. (It only seems different because of how readily available information has become. We see skewed news in real time.) When man chooses man’s way and abandons God’s standard, then your world becomes splintered and chaotic. It is the world in which we live but it is not a world we need to bow down to.

         You cannot yield to God for someone else, but you can be used by God to be a catalyst in pointing people toward his standard and specifically toward his Son. The answer to today’s craziness is the same answer that it has been for past generations. We need Jesus. Everyone needs Jesus. Not man-made religion, but Jesus. Man’s way leads to destruction. The Bible says it is the “ways of death”. But Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. (John 14:6) His standard is the only true standard. His way is the only right way. You can’t choose that for someone else, but you can receive it for yourself and then share it with those around you. That’s what needs to be happening.

In Christ’s Service,

Bro. Adrian Moore

2 Cor. 4:5