Our Lord warns us in His Word that we cannot serve two masters, we are either for God or against God, there is no halfway position we can take with God.
This can cause confusion when facing the enemy in that in our efforts not to judge another we end up practicing false charity. And also by our acquiescence we are encouraging wrongful behaviour, by our silence when faced with those who knowingly or unknowing are committing a sin!
God through His Word does not teach us how to win friends and influence people, our Lord teaches us to speak the Truth, as it has been revealed through Scripture and the Traditions of our Church.
Many can become confused when it comes to charity, for it is not charitable to condone bad behaviour or sin. Especially when the intent is not so much a fear of judging another, but a fear of not being liked.
When we look beneath the surface of many who practice false charity, they do so from a need to please others in order to gain the approval of whatever company they are in. This is highly selfish as many who condone sin or bad behaviour do so from their own self love and not from selflessness.
Did the Saints who went before us endeavour to enter popularity contests? Was their Faith all about them or did they live their Faith by speaking God's Truth with love even at the cost of their lives.
The Saints knew that to approve of another’s sin would be not only false charity it would be grievously wrong! Because the Saints were aware that being a Christian carries responsibility to speak the hard truth rather than a nice lie. They lived for the Truth and many died for this same Truth, for to do otherwise would have meant endangering their own salvation but also those who were in error.
In these days where every lifestyle has gained respectability, from practicing homosexual Bishops to an acceptance of pro-choice as a viable option, what then does this say about present day Christians?
Has it got to a stage where so many are too frightened to speak the Truth lest they be ostracised or thought to be 'meanies', and then lose favour in the eyes of others.
This course of action is the ultimate betrayal not only of what Christ taught us but also of those who need to know the Truth that Christ set down in His Word and through the Church! But instead of speaking up many instead comply and agree with every group they encounter, in order to be seen as 'nice'.
For at the core of those who go along with the crowd, is the heart of the truly selfish, for these people love themselves, more than they love Truth and more than they love Christ.
It is not the sinner who will find themselves in trouble, for God loves the contrite sinner and like the prodigal son our Heavenly Father longs for His children return to His Love. But it is the lukewarm who will find that their own soul is in peril through their lack of courage and their willing withholding of Divine Truth as revealed in Scripture and the Tenets of our Church.
For these people do not practice charity they are practicing self love even to the point of losing souls, as in a spirit of false charity they condone and even encourage sinful behaviour.
We were not created to get along with the world but to indict it! For like the Saints before us, many in today’s society look to today’s Christians to set the example of how God wishes us to live. So if so many are too frightened to speak the Truth what hope then for those who do not know it?
In the end whom do we serve, God or ourselves?
Peace of Christ to ALL
Copyright © 2005 Marie Smith. All rights reserved.
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