Hope in the Heartland
A missing virtue
Pastor, Gracepoint church
It is missing. It didn’t disappear suddenly ... or accidentally. It eroded over time — deliberately erased — generation by generation. The tragic irony is that the harder we fight to remove it from public thought, the more we force its absence into public view.
The consequences have been enormous, but many people don’t seem to mind. In fact, our society celebrates this fight against prudes and prophets. Shame has been banished into the desert where skeletons of many other social mores jut out from the shifting sands as witnesses against the moral relativism that exiled them.
Our culture is defiantly indecent and proud of it. The only thing that many in this generation desire to cover up is the line between decent and indecent, right and wrong.
What’s missing?
M-o-d-e-s-t-y.
Sadly, its absence is all too often noticeable in our churches, where many people are more influenced by Hollywood than heaven.
“But it’s my body. I can do what I want with it,” our culture declares.
If you are a Christian, listen to these words: “… do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.” I Corinthians 6:19-20.
No, it’s not “your” body. You didn’t create it or redeem it — God did. So, do you dress and act in a way that honors Him?
Last modified April 14, 2011