Always Reforming

It's instinct.  Someone with funny clothes or messy hair walks past you and you smile.  Maybe you laugh a little.  You can't help but to criticize him/her.  It's human nature, right?  Why is it that we humans are so inherently condescending?  Anyone who is different from us is automatically open for ridicule.  We're constantly searching for ways to critique those around us, even, or perhaps especially, those to whom we are closest.  We do it at work.  We do it at home.  We do it school.  We most certainly do it at church!  Sometimes we do it verbally, either by harsh words or passive aggressive sarcasm.  Sometimes we do it by the look in our eyes.  Sometimes we keep the thoughts to ourselves, despising others in our hearts.  Whatever our personality may be, we express our disdain for others differently.  We all seem to struggle with being critical of others. Why is this?  Is is pride?  I think so...

    Want to start an internet debate with your fellow Christians?  Simple.  Just tell someone that something they want to do is wrong.  Tell them that some part of their appearance, entertainment, worship, or general lifestyle is wrong, and you're certain to get a visceral response as hordes of hedonists ignore plain mandates from Scripture in order to protect their personal pleasures.     Let's be honest.  We all have a tendency to defend the things we really want to do.  We humans have this innate ability to rationalize behaviors that, if we were to view them objectively, would be obviously inconsistent with a profession of Christianity.  The truth is that we are all hedonists from birth. Our depraved natures are regenerated at the time of our conversion, but remnants of the old man (or flesh, if you prefer) are left over.   Hedonism  is one of those subconscious attitudes we struggle with as we seek to become more Christli...

    Political correctness--we see it all the time.  A celebrity says something insensitive and is immediately forced to apologize.  A state makes a law that the left doesn't like and are immediately shunned until they change their minds.  Sports teams are forced to change mascots because someone might be offended.  If someone does something that is against the agenda of liberalism, he must be shamed to the point that he concedes, recanting and apologizing, even though we all know that the remorse is fake and forced.  People avoid saying things just because they don't want to be seen as insensitive or backwards.  It's manipulation.  We all know it and it's getting ridiculous.       Thankfully the Evangelical Christian world doesn't have to deal with too much of this liberal PC nonsense, but we do have our own sort of political correctness.  There is a term that gets thrown around quite a bit, especially when someone is ou...

"For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins."     The debate over the continuity/discontinuity of the Old and New Covenants rages on.  There are those who see absolutely no continuity between the covenants with regard to redemption and the moral code.  They would see little need to read the Old Testament.  On the other side you'll find those who incorrectly see no distinction between the covenants.  They say the only difference is that the New Testament now includes the previously-ostrac...