A Moral Compass

 

 

According to Dictionary.com the term “moral compass” is “used in reference to a person’s ability to judge what is right and wrong and act accordingly.”

 

 

 

• We (as a nation) are willing to call the killing of 6 million pre-born babies a “right.”
• Many are calling the evil of pornography good.
• Just as many think that disciplining children is evil.
• We have exposed our children to the perversion of sexual exploitation.
• The human trafficking problems keep getting bigger in our own cities/states/country.
• The family is losing its strength as the foundation of society.
•  Apparently, even football games have turned into opportunities to display socially acceptable                                                                                  pornography at half-time
• Our biblical underpinnings are being forgotten and shunned or mocked.

Surely, this not an exhaustive list but this list does raise the question, “Where does our moral code come from?” Clearly, it is no longer coming from the scripture.

Historically, we could look back and point to when the Bible was taken out of the public schools. We could point our fingers at pastors who want to fill pews so they do not want to teach the truth from the pulpit. Or, at parents who have abandoned the True God for other gods.

Schools have evolved from places of academic teaching to include sports and entertainment that keep many kids in the buildings and away from their families. The idea of family devotions seems to be too much for families with kids in several sports and clubs so they have limited the teaching of the scriptures to whatever happens in an hour on Sunday morning.

We can blame all sorts of things but the bottom line seems to be a point Jesus made to the Sadducees. In Matthew 22:29 He responded to a question about marriage in the resurrection.

“Jesus answered and said to them, “You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.” Matthew 22:29

Lots of Christians still read their Bibles. There are many who are still doing family devotions or at least reading their Bibles as a family. But, do we know and teach the “power of God?”

Clearly, we have little understanding of what it means that He will bless us for obedience and curse us for disobedience. We seem to think that His Word is something we should know and be willing to think about, but it is not for today. This is especially true of the Old Testament and God’s covenant relationship with His people.

God gave Ezekiel a message for His people. He said, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”  Ezekiel 36:26

It was to be a New Covenant but it did not exclude God’s Law. Through Paul’s letter to the Galatians we learn that the Law is still for us so we will understand our sinful nature. No one can keep the Law perfectly. When we think that the law is not important, that it is somehow null and void because of Christ’s blood, we lose our true Moral Compass.

That Compass is the Lord God Himself, in the person of Jesus Christ who came to fulfill, to fully explain and implement, the Law of God. Do we know His Law? Do we have an inkling of what His Power is capable of with regard to the sin of man?

Are we mistaken about the Law of God because we do not know the scriptures or the power of God?  Jesus says, “Yes.”