4You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin.5And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: "My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, Nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;6For whom the Lord loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives."
This passage comes after the writer tells us to lay aside every weight, including the sin that so easily ensnares us, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. He is the One who can enable us to walk in the freedom that He alone can give. He has provided the resources that can bring that about. But, we have be willing to make up our minds to walk in His ways. We must make the decision to deal with those areas of our lives that are not lined up with His will, and perhaps even take drastic measures. If we are willing to be cleansed and set apart by Him, then we can experience the power of the overcoming life.
+++++
In Titus chapter 2, we can read a passage of Scripture that can help shape our attitude toward sin in our lives and power that we have available to us to overcome it:
11For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.12It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age,13while we wait for the blessed hope--the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,14who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. (New International Version)
It's being likened to a replay of the plot of the movie, "Footloose," but school officials in Bennington, Vermont are saying that it's a matter of safety and teaching students proper behavior.
The Bennington Banner reports that over the summer, the administration of Mount Anthony Union High School made a decision to cancel the school's homecoming dance after discussions with students did not produce a solution to what school officials felt was an increasing amount of heavily sexualized dancing at school events.
In a letter to the editor published recently, school principal Sue Maguire and dean of students David Beriau laid out some of the reasons they felt the decision to cancel the dance, and to potentially cancel future dances, was a necessary one. "As a school we are responsible to keep our students safe and teach them how to interact with others appropriately," they wrote.
On the other hand, a number of people making comments on the local newspaper's website and Facebook page have compared the cancellation to the events of the 1984 movie "Footloose," in which, as the newspaper reporter points out, a small town bans dancing and rock music.
Maguire responded, "This is nothing like 'Footloose,'...This is a safety concern for us. We, as educators, need to make sure students feel healthy and safe on our campus. If you look at the dancing in 'Footloose,' and the dancing we're seeing, they're not the same at all."
The faculty and administration made the decision to cancel the dance after conversations with students and student leadership last spring and over the summer. Several female students expressed discomfort about unwanted aggressive dance moves from male students. Maguire and Beriau wrote, "One of the issues that emerges with this highly sexualized form of dancing is consent...We need to engage in conversations with our students about how to be respectful to one another." Apparently, there will still be conversations with students about an alternative solution, even though students were unable to come up with one by the end of the previous school year.
You might say there would be another way to handle this matter. In this case, school officials were willing to take strong, some would say drastic, measures in order to clear up a clear problem with students symptomatic of the type of material that is being modeled for them by the culture. It was described in the article as a wake-up call.
I believe a number of Christian parents would find this display inappropriate or even sinful. And, there is a point of inspiration for all of us. We can ask ourselves if we willing to take drastic measures in order to address and eradicate sinful thoughts, motives, and behaviors in our own lives. If we are content to allow sinful patterns to operate in our lives, then we are willing to settle for less than God's best in our lives, to our detriment. And, if we identify a sin area in our lives, then I believe we are responsible before God to take the necessary action to confess our sin, make the decision to walk in freedom from it, and release the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.
We are called to be God's holy people, to be set apart and distinct in our thoughts and actions, and the good news is that He gives us the tools in order to walk in a manner that pleases Him. If we tolerate sin and make accommodation for patterns that are not pleasing to God, then we are setting ourselves up for damage in our lives, as we reap the consequences for not being aligned with God's holy purpose for us.
No comments:
Post a Comment