Moral Clarity
The United States of America has had the chance to demonstrate to the world how a moral code of ethics produces clarity of purpose and direction. It is a rather obvious statement to say that it has failed to do so. As Frank Furedi, an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent in Canterbury, noted:
“The Western Alliance Is Living On Borrowed Time
It is evident that for a long time, the Western Alliance has been living on borrowed time. The Cold War between the free and the totalitarian world provided the West with unprecedented cohesion. But this was a cohesion that was based on the moral superiority enjoyed in relation to the deeply flawed Soviet Union.
This was a negative form of moral authority based on the contrast with a morally inferior political system. Once the Soviet Union disintegrated and the Cold War ended, the West had to find the moral resources within itself to gain legitimacy.”
Our western nations cannot find moral resources within themselves because we have rejected the source of moral authority. That authority lies with God, not man. However, if you reject the knowledge provided by God, we are left with the human mind to devise for itself a set of moral codes. These codes will inevitably be framed such as to benefit what man really wants to do.
“So they come to you as people do, they sit before you as My people, and they hear your words, but they do not do them; for with their mouth they show much love, but their hearts pursue their own gain. Indeed you are to them as a very lovely song of one who has a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument; for they hear your words, but they do not do them” (Ezekiel 33:31-32).
This is where Christ comes into focus. True morality comes from the heart– it is far more than an intellectual idea. Christ’s death has enabled God to write the law upon our hearts. It takes the law far above just a set of rules to be checked off. It empowers the spiritual intent of the law – magnifies it.
God’s law is a frame of mind. It gives us a mind that can know and understand spiritual ideas and thoughts. It allows us to comprehend on the spiritual level – the level where God’s mind operates.
“Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God” (1 Corinthians 2:12).
As we consider the Passover and all that flows from Christ reconciling us to the Father, we have much to appreciate and consider. We CAN understand the things of God. We need to cherish, nourish and protect the mind we have been freely given. We can make sense of the world in which we live because God’s word tells us in advance. We can know what morality is because God’s word informs us.
We can be the people to represent God’s way of life to this world. To do so we must use the resource God has given us through Christ.
“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
Let’s rejoice in the knowledge of the Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread and use the time to rededicate ourselves to living His way of life as real-life witnesses.
Brian Orchard
