Torch, Summer 1998

~ I I ~ convenient. Those golden calves had never done anything for the people of God and they knew it. And it is certainly convenient for us to slip into a Christianity which contains not an ounce of reality and requires not an ounce of consecration to it, even when we know we are failing in our responsibilities before God. I am not referring to those tough times, those times when we don't feel genuine; when we don't feel spiritual; when the reality of our Christian life doesn't begin to measure up to what it ought to be. I am not referring to those struggles and that kind of introspection. We all encounter that. I am referring to something that is deeper. I am referring to those who are just playing games. To those who go through the motions, just like the people back in Jeroboam's day. There wasn't anything to their relationship with the living God. I ask you...is there any reality to your Christianity? Has there ever been any? Or if there was, where has it been this past year? It's important to ask this question because the first evidence of a Convenient Christianity is a lack of reality. The second evidence of a Convenient Christianity is a lack of standards. Verse 31 says, "Jeroboam made a house of high places, and made priests of the lowest of the people." Remember, God had told His people to make priests from the highest of the people. Jeroboam said, ''I'll make them from the lowest." God said, "I want them to be from the tribe of Levi." Jeroboam took priests from every tribe with the exception of Levi. He changed the feast days and he frankly took God's Book and threw it away. Our position on standards is clear. The standards of behavior that we have incorporated at Cedarville College in our student handbook and in our contracts for trustees, administrators, faculty, staff, and students are a reflection of our institutional preferences. There is a difference between a biblical mandate and an institutional preference. Fundamentalism has been plagued by a system of legalism where all of an individual's walk with God has been determined by externals and by a list of behaviors. I pray God will deliver us from that. That is not what we are considering here. But, we should be just as concerned about a system of Christianity that doesn't have any standards at all; that tries to be just like the world in every aspect of living and just lives right out on the edge. That is not a Romans 12:1-2 kind of Christianity. In a Convenient Christianity, everything is acceptable. We live just as close to the line as we can. We try to live with the bare minimums. Instead, we should be willing to say, "God, I don't want the fewest standards for my life. You have called us to be different. You have called us to be a separate people. You have called us to be a peculiar people in the best sense of the word." But in a Convenient Christianity, there is no reality and there are no standards. The final evidence of a Convenient Christianity is a lack of sacrifice. Did you notice the main motivation behind Jeroboam's appeal and why he was able to accomplish the dismantling of the worship of God? He said, "It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem." He said, in essence, "You don't want to walk that far, you don't want to put yourself out, you don't want to do anything extra for God, do you?" Torch 11 ·-- --- - ---------------------