The world’s value system differs from the one espoused by people of faith in Christ. We are not surprised when those who believe in another ‘god’ or who believe in no god at all speak and act differently than the way prescribed by the Word. The scriptures are quite clear as to how our Holy God expects His people to comport themselves.
Beyond the Ten Commandments (see Exodus 20:1-17), there are myriad places in scripture where we are told how we are to live, including how husbands and wives should interact (see I Corinthians 7:1-40 and Ephesians 5:1-33), how parents and children should interact (see Ephesians 6:1-4) and how masters (employers) and slaves (employees) should relate to each other (see Ephesians 6:5-9).
We are not surprised when the world does not evidence respect for these God-given admonitions. But what do we do with the reality that many Christians don’t either? How do we deal with the fact that many Christian husbands do not love their wives better than they love themselves? That many Christian wives to not reverence their husbands? That Christian children are rebellious? That Christian employers/employees defraud one another their due?
When we see these discrepancies between profession of faith and implementation of it in our own lives, we must reconcile the breech. We must either face the fact that we do not believe the God who saved us has authority over us or we must conform our lives to that belief. We can’t have it both ways. If we live by the world’s standard, we may justify our reaction to another individual by the way he treats us. If we live by God’s standard, we must react to each person in our lives as the Lord would have us do.
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