Sliding Scale
Theme of the Week: Your Plumb Line
Monday, April 7, 2003
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Key Bible Verse: "And you must love the Lord you God with all you heart, all your soul, and all your strength" (Deuteronomy 6:5). Bonus Reading:Romans 2:12-16
Martin Luther said that failure to obey the great commandment (today's Key Bible Verse) was the great transgression. But that's not how we think. We think, "Yes, we know the great commandment, but to err is human! Nobody's perfect. I don't do it! You don't! Swindoll doesn't! So why sweat it? God's going to grade on a curve, isn't He?"
I became a teenager back when it was still considered a matter of ethics to keep your virginity until you were married. I wasn't a Christian. I heard an older boy talking about this thrilling experience he'd had sexually with a girl that lived up the street. I'd never heard anything like this before. He said, "Try it. You'll like it." So I did. Here's what happened: I came home, went upstairs to the bathroom, and threw up. I was so sick with guilt.
But I learned very quickly how to sear my conscience. I adjusted—not my behavior upward, but my ethical standards downward—to accommodate my behavior. And I'm not the only man who's ever done that. Most of our ethical theories we develop to excuse ourselves. It's a defense mechanism against a holy God.
—R. C. Sproul in Preaching Today
My Response: How have I tended to rationalize my bending of God's standards?
Thought to Apply: The Word is like a mirror; it reflects the sin that is in our lives.
—source unknown
Adapted fromPreaching Today (49) by permission.
Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.
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Thank you, holy God, for clearly revealing Your standards. Please enable me to align my life with them.
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