Someone once said that at one time the church was so heavenly it had no earthly value. Now, it is so earthly, it has no heavenly value. I don’t know when those words were spoken, but sometimes it seems that the battle to keep the world out of the church can be terribly overwhelming.

God did not take us out of the world when we became Christians, but He does expect us to be different from what the world has become. We look about us and see the world is in really bad shape. We find evil being called good and good being called evil. To address sin puts the Christian at odds with the majority of society and even opens one up to be called all sorts of names. Sin is still sin. The fact we have been making every effort to eradicate the concept of sin from our culture has not changed the truth that sin is still present.Call it by any name one chooses, and it is still sin.

When Paul wrote his letter to the Colossians, he spent considerable time in laying out the Biblical truthof Jesus Christ. In chapter three he begins with the words “Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ,  keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above not on the things that are on earth.” We need to have a heavenly mindset that keeps us focused on the eternal. We are to be dead to the practice of immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed which Paul tells us is idolatry. Furthermore we are to put away anger, wrath, malice, slander, abusive speech, and lying. We look at the above things the apostle tells us to rid ourselves of and we all see that it should be a given. But is it? I would like to think it was, but the words spoken by the anonymous speaker who said the church is too earthly, keep coming back to haunt us. Is that person seeing something that is not true, or have we become so accustomed to living here below that we fail to see our own imperfections? Each of us must grapple with how we are perceived in the world.

That we have godly people in the family of God is a reality. Unfortunately, because godly people are not hesitant to call sin sin, they are labeled with terms that paint them as being hateful, and unloving, which is not true.

We cannot control what people say about us, but we can so live in such a way that in spite of their hateful words, we have a clear conscience. Let us keep having a heavenly mindset, and trust God for the outcome. Remember too, there were some ugly things said about Jesus, so we should not be surprised if we receive the same treatment.

Norm Russell