Who’s to say what’s right or wrong? Each of us has our own convictions, and so what you consider to be wrong might be okay for me. This is the view where each of us gets to determine what is truth for us – that morality is relative depending on who you are and that there is no absolute truth. But if you read the Bible, you’ll find that God takes a different view.
There is an absolute truth – truth that is right at all times, in all places, for all people. That truth is found in the character traits of Jesus Christ. This is the declaration that God makes to us.
Living on the coast after Katrina, thousands of volunteers came in from all over the world to help us. A volunteer who lived in a large city in Colorado told me that until he came to the MS coast, he had never seen such “moral relativism” – meaning that each person could justify any immorality by believing that what one person might call sin wasn’t sin to them. And that view is expanding all over our nation and world. I find that it is now a strong belief in middle MS – in what we used to call the “Bible Belt.”
There have been plenty of Christian scholars who have convincingly argued that there is absolute truth, but one of the simplest and most effective ways I ever saw it written was in a teacher’s room at Bay High School. It was a poster that hung above the chalkboard and it said:
Wrong will always be wrong even if everyone is doing it;
and Right will always be right even if no one is doing it.
This next week, my plan is to go out each day with the knowledge that Jesus Christ and His character is to be my guide –
I will be a person of love, b/c Jesus is the embodiment of love.
I will be a person of joy, b/c Jesus is my joy.
I will be a person of peace, b/c Jesus is the ultimate Peacemaker.
I will be a person of faith, b/c Jesus is faithful.
May we always base our behavior on Jesus – the authority of what is absolute truth.
“I am the way, the TRUTH, and the life.” – Jesus
Have you encountered people who justified their behavior even though it went against God’s Word? How do you help them find the Truth?