“In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.” ― Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

 

I am in no way endorsing or recommending a song of the same name by the singer Robin Thick.  But for just a moment in our pop tart world with its cheap, catchy beats and lyrical lines filled with double entendre our messy morals are exposed in the light.  Many people want instant gratification and pleasure without the consequences or guilt.   Yet when confronted with their choices of immoral decisions and behaviors some simply deny any wrong doing or blame someone else. 

 

We live in a blurred lined culture where right and wrongs are subjected to an individualistic and hedonistic world view.   Do you remember the prophet Hosea?  God told him to marry a prostitute named Gomer (Hosea 1:2).  Reading this passage of scripture one might proclaim shockingly, “God did what?”  God told one of his prophets, one of his faithful servants to go out and marry a woman who was a known ‘lady of the night’.   God used Hosea and his marriage to an unfaithful harlot to illustrate how adulterous his chosen people Israel had become.    

 

Israel had blurred the lines of moral, set-apart living.  They had stepped out on God.  Just think of it for a moment.  God had given himself fully to his people Israel.  His love had been poured out upon them.  He blessed them with prosperity and riches and protected them from the dangers of other encroaching cultures.  But Israel had been hell bent on their selfishness and their lusting after sin.  They had broken God’s heart again.  Just place yourself in their story for a moment.  Imagine you were the faithful spouse.  Imagine your soul mate, your beloved being in caught in unfaithful acts over and over again.  Feel the shame and the embarrassment.  Feel the hurt and gut wrenching anguish.  “How could you do such a thing?” You might exclaim; “I trusted you!”   God was fed up with Israel and their unfaithfulness.  Hosea became a living testimony of God’s love and faithfulness to red light prostitute named Gomer who illustrated Israel’s adulterous ways. 

 

‘How did Israel get to this point?’ one might ask.  Blurred lines are the answer.  When they ignored their moral compass and did what they wanted anyway it happened.  When they rationalized their sinful persuasions as ‘okay with me’ it happened.  When they settled for instant gratification that lasted for but a moment instead of an eternal kind of love it happened.  They blurred the lines of right and wrong to fit their sinfulness and corroded moral compass.   What started out as ‘innocent fun’ turned into a full blown heartless affair with other gods wrought with immoral choices and selfish acts.  They started out as a ‘set-apart’ people of God but ended as a torn apart culture wrecked people. 

 

The Danger Zone:

This danger zone doesn’t include fighter jets from an 80’s movie, but it does include us and our culture that we live in.  We live in a very media saturated world where right and wrongs are based on an individual’s sense of morality.  Where we are taught that to defend God’s word and his laws of living is considered intolerant in our society.  If this is intolerance then so be it.  I would rather have God find us faithful than find us acting like Gomer or Israel as we prostitute ourselves out in a lost and dying world.   The danger zone is the blurred lines in our world today.  Those who profess to be Christ followers ought to know better!  Those who claim Christ with their lips yet live a life contrary to their claims WATCH OUT!  God doesn’t want your ritual or your lip service…He wants you!  He wants me!  Don’t let blurred lines of loose living dilute your faith!  Don’t give that slippery slope of immoral living a second glance.  Be faithful to God.  He has set us apart for a reason.  He loves us so deeply and when we serve Him we not only display our love back to Him, but we display what a lasting love relationship with God looks like for the world to see. 

 

Don’t allow these blurred lines to blur your faith or your love relationship to God.  He wants us to live above reproach and above these influences.   2 Corinthians 5:17 – “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old (blurred lined life) has gone, the new life has come.”