If your faith is in Jesus (or you know a lot of people like that), then you're probably used to having some pretty mixed messages in your life. You've got media pressure to buy more, get more, and have more, because that's what puts you above everyone else. That's how you can be more. But then you have Christians who say give more, serve more, and love more. After all Jesus says the last will be first.
Fashion says that the more you can show off the sexier you are. Guys seem to encourage it too, and want to see even more. If you don't show it to them they'll go somewhere else so you should wear the hottest low-low ride jeans and the sexiest low-low cut top. But then those Christians say things about guarding against lust. They say to dress in modesty and to respect each other.
Then you've got friends (some of whom might even call themselves Christian) who drink alcohol excessively whether or not they are even old enough to drink period. They say it's okay to mess around and hook up with a bunch of people. After all, it's "technically" not sex so it can't be wrong. But then the Christians say that you shouldn't get drunk, and to save your whole body until marriage.
Yep, you've heard the mixed messages. Are you used to being in the middle of the fight? "The world" as they call it trying to pull you into its way with temptations and immediate pleasures, and then the church is promising freedom and everlasting life after you die. Each, of course, condemns the other. The world calls the church an outdated myth for uneducated people, and the church calls the world a place full of evil and lost souls.
Living in the Word with Christ in our hearts, the answers are painfully obvious for us. Unfortunately, they seem just as obvious to those living with their hearts invested in the world, only they do not see the same answers we do. But this doesn't cover everyone. Many are somewhere in the middle, searching. Do you know someone like this? Maybe you've tried giving them your answers and it just hasn't worked. We have enough people in this world trying to give us answers, there's just too many mixed messages.
What we need is hope. What we need to hear is not simply a message, but a proclamation. Yes God gave us rules and instructions, but that's only part of it. He gave them because He loves us and doesn't want to see us hurt. God doesn't want to see the woman hurt because she thought the man loved her but he only wanted her for her body. He doesn't want us to feel alone and empty while we keep trying to fill our lives with more and more things and distractions.
He created us to be in a loving, perfect relationship with Him. When we act in ways that turn against that relationship, we are endangering ourselves. It's like any household product with the warning "use only as intended" or "use as directed". It's not about giving us laws or rules. It's about protecting us and caring for us.
The intention is a loving relationship with God in constant worship and communion with Him. The direction is the Word. It's Jesus. He is the reason for the hope we have, the answer to those mixed messages. It's about a Father who loves us and cares for us. Who gives us potential, and freedom to achieve it. It's about a Son who dies for us. Who shows us life to the fullest, and gives it to us forever. And it's about a Spirit who is at work in us. Who saves us and transforms us.
God is the "Great Unmixer" of mixed messages.
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