I Gave My Life to Christ: Now What? (part 4)
Churches too often focus on evangelism to the exclusion of discipleship. You confess Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and the Lord of life. You’re done, right?
Nope. I’ve already covered three of Brownlow North’s six rules for new Christians, and I believe they really apply to all Christians.
Rule #4:
If you are in doubt as to a thing being right or wrong, go to your room and kneel down and ask God’s blessing on it (Col 3:17). If you cannot do this, it is wrong.
I like this. It touches on the somewhat instinctual nature of moral duties. Normal people know the difference between right and wrong. My daughter, for example, knows what she is and is not allowed to do. She knows that she has to listen to mommy and daddy when we tell her to do things. She doesn’t, but whenever I get into it with her, she admits that she knows when she does something wrong and understands that it is wrong.
Similar to this would be asking yourself questions like
- How would my best friend feel about me if s/he knew I did this?
- Would I feel comfortable if my actions were reported on the front page of the newspaper?
- In my place, would my hero/mentor act this way?
As Dr. Tom Morris points out in Philosophy for Dummies (yes, I’m reading Philosophy for Dummies), these sorts of questions presuppose a generally good nature. Humans, according to the Bible, are so enslaved to sin that we can often rationalize the most heinous of behaviors. However, since we are made in the image of God, we have (at our core) a smattering of goodness that enables us to know the difference between right and wrong.
Asking whether we could, in good conscience, pray God’s blessing over an intended course of action is a great acid test for the validity of such an action.
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Posted on August 25, 2011, in God, Religion and tagged divine blessing, Prayer, Prayers. Bookmark the permalink. 5 Comments.
Josiah Concept Ministries 
Héhéhé…nothing much against nonbelief these days…not much for me to attack, héhé…
Check back soon — I have a series on gay marriage in response to a blogger I found completely by accident yesterday coming soon. That should give you plenty to disagree with (I’m assuming you’re in favor of gay marriage; I have seldom met a nonreligious person that’s against it, though I know they exist).
I hope you can include some secular arguments – looking forward to it 🙂
I have a purely secular case against gay marriage up my sleeve; one by a non-believer that quotes no religious text nor makes a single reference to anything abstract (like objective morality or human nature). The case for gay marriage that I’m examining is built on a conclusion drawn from three premises, and the secular case fits well with one of the premises (i.e. that marriage is a basic human right–it isn’t, religion and government have every right to limit who can enter into marriage). Declaring marriage as a basic human right is a slippery slope, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Basically, the piece isn’t well argued, but the author seems to think he’s made an airtight case. I’m nearly done with the first premise, and (not to toot my own horn too much) I didn’t just refute it–I totally demolished it.
I’ll make sure I invite him over to join the discussion.
You bet I’m in favor of it, héhé…I think you’re right: my brother’s a nonbeliever, as far as most things are concerned (though he does rush to say a prayer at the local Catholic Church when something important to him is happening, like the other day when a friend was going on a visa-interview or something to get into the US), there’s absolutely nothing holy about his behavior or opinions, for the most part, but he HATES homosexuals…and I mean HATE…not disapproving of their behavior like a religious person, actually hates them, completely inexplicable to me…and I once read a female nonbeliever on some blog explaining how she wasn’t religious but was against gay marriage or something…