I know, I was told that my blog was not updated and boring. I have my reasons! (....And there is too much detail for this space.)
Well, today here is my new entry. Finally...
I love Deviled Eggs. My daily step challenge ended today with 4400 steps. I'm improving. My goal is 10,000 per day.
Where does enthusiasm come from?
I'm still reading Leading with Integrity by Fred Smith Jr. If you want to be a leader, this is a must....
Chapter 8: Challenging the Virtue of the Age....
Are our human values rooted in divine virtues so that we don't end up controlled by our human desires. To have complete authenticity and authority over our behavior requires that our values be rooted in divine virtues--not those that we have manufactured, but those we have discovered that are given by God. Our authority needs to be outside ourselves. Christ based His values in God.
What is the danger of manufactured virtue? Examine "tolerance", which has been elevated by our society to a universal virtue.
In his book, Smith states that Intolerance has become society's unforgivable sin. We hear "only bigots are judgmental." Seemingly the intolerant do not deserve to be tolerated.
Tolerance is attractive to our society because it is permisive. It is pleasant because it doesn't require hard thinking. Cliches and bumper stickers can deal with it. Best of all it is nonconfrontational. Our society has lost the willingness to confront error in search of truth. These benfits are all given by Satan as an allure. As usual, sin gives the benefit first and extracts the price later. Blaise Pascal warns us, "It is false piety to preserve peace at the expense of truth."
Three tests of tolerance:
1. Is it taste or is it truth?
2. Is it preference or principle?
3. Is God tolerant in this area?
Want to know more ? Get the book. It is awesome. The part I love is when he talks about areas that God is intolerant... Smith talks about the false teaching that "all religions are the same; all are different roads leading to the same place. He says that this teaching humanizes God and deifies man. It makes the Cross unnecessary, with Christ dying as a martyr, not a sacrifice. It indicts missionaries as presumptious.
"The Word became flesh and dwelt amont us" -- it didn't remain the written word.
Martyrs are fools if all religions are the same.
Society expects us to be tolerant about sin, to embrace moral relativism. God is not tolerant toward sin. How much better to be forgiven than tolerated. We all have Ex's in our lives, Ex-druggie, Ex-convict, Ex-wife, etc. The good news is that we can be changed and don't have to be an Ex anything. We are a new creation in Christ Jesus. Clean! Not just tolerated.
Tolerance is passive, to love is active. God goes beyond tolerance. He loves. Love disciplines, suffers, challenges, corrects. So, for the Christian we are to demonstrate self-scrificing love, not self- righteous judgement.
I leave you with this last quote from Horatius Bonar:
- True Christianity calls sin sin in whomever it is found and would rather risk the accusation of being motivated by a bad spirit than no discharge explicit duty. It does not fear to speak the stern words of condemnation against error nor to raise its voice against surrounding evils knowing that it is not of this world. It does not shrink from giving honest reproof lest it come under the charge of displaying an unchristian spirit. The religion of both Old and New Testament is marked by fervent, outspoken testimonies against evil. To not do this is a betrayal of the cause of truth and righteouness.
Be careful to not sacrifice truth on the altar of popular acceptance
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