No Gray Area

7 October 2014

“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:" (1st John 1:5-6)

I recall the first year I began teaching in public school. I was teaching choir in my hometown of Plano, Texas. All around the building were posters reminding the students of various test taking strategies and key points for them to remember when they would take upcoming state assessments. 

One of the posters caught my eye. It was titled "Fact vs. Opinion." I thought, "well that is a very important thing to teach kids," as I went through the two column list I was quite happy with their approach. That is until I reached the bottom of the "opinion list." Morality was listed as an opinion. I remember thinking that I was going to have a very hard time as a public school teacher if this was part of the state core curriculum.

Nearly twenty years later, I am still teaching public school choir. I haven't been fired yet! But the decay of morals in our society spirals moral and more into the abyss every year. That is because men who reject God as the Sovereign King over His creation tend to make up their own rules and principles of morality. They determine morality based on whatever situation you are in. The line between right and wrong is obscured. Morality is, at best, lost in the fuzzy gray area they have created between right and wrong.

But with God, there is no gray area. Sin is sin, and righteousness is righteousness. What God says is right is right. What God says is wrong is wrong. God does not change so neither does His moral character. What was sin 2,000 years ago is still a sin today.

If we want to conform our lives to the pattern of Jesus Christ, we must have this same view of absolute morality. If we feel that we can sin because we have a good excuse, then we have denied that God has said that sin is darkness. Jesus had the same mind as the Father.therefore, to have the mind of Christ, we must view sin as God view's sin.

We must stop seeking to self-justify our sin and repent of it. We must realize that regardless of circumstance, there are right choices and wrong choices. We should choose the right path even if it means we walk opposite all of the world.

Bryce Lowrance

Elder Bryce Lowrance

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