Hidden But Never Far From You

The last time we saw an age of "no morality" and "no religion" we witnessed the bloody French revolution.  Rationalism brought with it the loss of religious faith and the era of amorality but there was no freedom in it.  There never is such a species of man who lives outside law; the morals of the whorehouse are just as binding as those of the monastery and the debased sorority is far more dictatorial than any fundamentalist.  Jesus said that out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.(Matthew 15:19 NIV) This is not modern; it is ancient morality that began in Adam.  We all have this mush of values roiling about below the surface of our consciousness and it is our moral baseline.  The myth of our time is that we can live above ourselves somehow, beyond  the values of our grandparents but it is a lie.  The morality of this age is just as rigid as that of the Canaanites and Philistines.  The drug dealer's moral code is more fundamental than a Baptist's and of much greater risk to cross.  Stalin had the morality of Cain etched upon his soul; millions would have wished it were instead the morality of Christ.  One's conscience is nothing more than the biggest values he holds and a conscience is of no use if the morals it knows are of no higher standard than those of Picasso or Jack London.  We do not need a conscience, we need a Savior and it is the Cross of Christ that dips down below our consciousness and raises us up to a new morality, one of love and patience and faith.  The blood of Christ does not make us more aware of right and wrong; it buys us back and transforms us that we can begin to be holy, not out of fear of a rampaging angel but out of a redeemed heart that has been changed with the heart of God implanted within it.  Your thoughts, if you are honest have never been as warm and cool as a teddy bear; you are more like  a snake in your deepest points.  Only Jesus Christ can make your thoughts pure and clean and vibrant with love as you let Him have His way with you.  The Lord is not your polish to bring out your shine, He is the furnace out of which all things are made new.  Never put faith in yourself; but always trust God to make you right.

Trust in God.  Trust also in me. John 14: 1b