“Our greatest danger comes not from cultural forces we oppose, but from those we embrace.”
Most of us would not embrace such obviously denigrated values as abortion upon demand, unbridled pornography, and violence in the media, soft laws on drug use and drug peddling, etc.
But is it possible that we, like the frog slowly boiling to death in the pot, are unknowingly and perhaps unwittingly being seduced to embrace cultural values that violate Biblical Christianity? For example:
- Our inability to do anything for Christ, due to our indebtedness and contractual entanglements? (Romans 13:8; 2 Timothy 2:4; Proverbs 6:1-5)
- Our mediocre and naïve approach to carefully reading, understanding and applying the Word of God to our lives? (2 Peter 3:16b; Ezra 7:10)
- Our unquenchable quest for recognition and affirmation? (Matthew 23:5-10)
- Our insistent drive for material possessions and financial security? (1 Timothy 6:7-10)
- Our puzzling judgmentalism of others? (Matthew 7:1-5)
- Our pursuit of sexual pleasure, through literature and the media? (2 Timothy 2:22)
- Our resistance to living a life of sacrificial service to others? (John 15:12, 13)
The night before the cross, Jesus prayed thus to the Father on behalf of His disciples: “My prayer is not that You take them out of the world but that You protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth.“ (John 17:15-17)
Jesus knew that the only way we could survive the Enemy’s seduction, is through the cleansing power of His Word… this (worldly) seduction is carelessly embraced today by much of the Body of Christ.
And it is exactly because of its deadly seduction, that our compromising embrace of modern cultural values, is infinitely more lethal than the more obvious sins the world attempts to impose upon us.
