Christian Living

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Living For Now
©
by

Stephen A. Peterson


While engaged in a discussion with an atheist, he said: “You Christians! Your problem is you people live in the past with rules and ideas long since outdated and irrelevant to today’s realities!”

“Not so,” I responded to his statement. I let him know that throughout the Judeo-Christian faith and its history we are very clearly told by God through Sacred Scripture (Bible) to move on with our lives. God emphatically states to His followers that trying to live life in the status quo is not satisfactory. We are commanded to “Forget the former things! Do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!” (Isaiah 43:18-19).

It was the same way with Noah. Noah was not a sailor nor a shipbuilder but a shepherd who just put his trust in God. God then told him to build an arc (a ship) and prepare for a new world that was to come. Noah was commanded by God to put his trust in Him by faith that God knew what He was doing.

It was also so with Abraham. By Biblical and archaeological accounts and data, Abraham lived a very comfortable life in the cosmopolitan city of Ur in what is now the present day country of Iraq. God told Abraham to trust Him and move to a NEW place he called Canaan. Abraham and his family traveled for many years before finally settling into what we now refer to as the State of Israel. Yet Abraham throughout his life was constantly challenged by God to doing NEW things.

Centuries later Jesus told His followers: “A NEW Commandment I give you.” Likewise, Paul the Apostle recognized Christ’s concept of moving on when he wrote the Church in Corinth, “Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a NEW creature: old things are passed away: behold, ALL things are become new.” (Corinthians 5:17).

As I pointed out to my atheist colleague, it is important for people to be enriched by the past and to appreciate what our ancestors have laid down for us—to remember the past but not to try to live it. God tells people to grow spiritually as a person, as a family member and as a society and as nation. Christians are never charged to be complacent. Christians are charged to be forward thinking, bold, to risk and to challenge ourselves and others, not to live the ways it was. Life, regardless of age, is a risk.

What I find among opponents of Christianity and some professed Christians is their desire to nullify Judeo-Christian truths, such as the Ten Commandments. To change these principles of God from Ten Commandments to ten suggestions. In doing so, they may put in place personal hedonistic desires and behaviors and rid themselves of the laws and rules to make humankind the center of existence.

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