HSL Better Than Stuff Series: Give the Gift of Fidelity

Christianity is suffering an identity crisis, but it is not because of our Christ. He is unchanging in word, nature and deed. Our groom is steadfast and steeled. It is the bride that has cold feet and finds herself hesitant to take His Name. And it matters. To everyone, particularly our familie3s and children.

 

Choosing to follow Christ is a mistake if you thought it would expand your social circles or the infinite and aggregate networks you are welcomed into. The letters in red never promised that, in fact the opposite is true. “Come and follow Me…” In every other language means, “Leave everything else behind.” Carrying this cross means no rest, no people, no home… minus what we find in Christ. The truth and reality of Christ brings together and bids all come, while constantly pointing out truth, dividing, correcting, convicting, and forcing us to define just how “set apart” we are. A holy tension if ever there were.

 

Sometimes “Christian” is synonymous with something for a season, like a party, a platform, or a denomination. But, seasons change, new winds come, and we are forced to declare once and for all— to whom do we belong? To whom are we faithful?

Think of all the things the youth of today have seen the church swear allegiance to recently. Do you think our version of fidelity is likely to make them more or less faithful in their own walk? We have served up confusion, frustration, and deconstruction on a platter for them to try to decipher and navigate.

 

Our standard is God’s Word and God’s Word, ALONE. Not a party platform, not a professional playbook, or strategies for success. The Word. Period. This should be easy to agree on. Binding ourselves to God’s Holy Word, perfect and true and refusing to move from THIS ROCK never leaves us compromised or inconsistent. Our God is unchanging, fixed, an ever-marked spot, the I Am who was, is, and will always be. And yet we allow our inconsistency and conditionality to be an acceptable reflection of Him.

 

It’s not the first and it won’t be the last, but today—politics and culture are the altars the church laid its consistency down on. And rather than reclaim it in grief and clarity… we justify letting it remain there, a “necessary” but unfortunate casualty.

 

The Lord of the Army of Hosts was never confused about sides, for His is the only one. The trouble with choosing the lesser of evils, is that ultimately, we *choose* evil. And then we throw open wide the gate to justify every other evil, both lesser and greater. In fact, we make it impossible to reject any evil thereafter.

I understand the arguments for it, some both logical and valid but every one of them, EVERY single one of them reveal this—we fear men more than God, we love their acceptance more than His.

 

We fear having earthly power and authority diminished.

We fear conditions less optimum to our loyalties.

We fear the cost of our faithfulness, but we do not fear infidelity to our Groom. We do not fear God.

 

What if I told you compromise or a convenient lack of conviction may go further to secure our earthly interests, but the inconsistency it requires terribly limits the eternal interests of the Gospel? And limits our influence in our home.

Persecution doesn’t diminish the Gospel, it fuels it. But often inconsistency in the bearers of such glorious Truth, justify its rejection.

We hoped our “flexibility” would prolong the last days of sun that shined on simpler, more moral times and delay the decline and decay we grieve. But we’ve guaranteed and expedited every breakdown we hoped to avoid by bending and bowing to lesser things.

 

When you look at the Daniels in Babylon or Josephs in Egypt, it was *with* the lion and *in* the prison God protected and blessed them. There would be no story and no need for a miracle, had they compromised to a lesser life of lesser truth. Even to procure greater safety. Your family needs to see and know what conviction looks like. They need to see that God is worthy of our faithfulness, worthy of any discomfort it may garner. If you asked your family what costly stand they had seen you make, what would be their answer?

Give the gift of courage to your family as you count the cost of obedience and demonstrate His worth with every faithful step. That gift will sustain and keep them in ways no game, gadget, or other gift will.