Pastor Bill, I’m a Christian woman in my 40’s who lived as a lesbian in my 20’s before I was delivered from it by the Lord’s grace, and there’s a few things on this isssue that I ask you to consider. the first thing is that it seems to me that the church in America has largely lost the distinction between being in the world but not of it. The words are embraced but not the actual practice. Above all, you can’t embrace the hopeless world’s entertainments without becoming like the world. i hear Christians all the time say it doesn’t affect them, but it does in innumerable ways. They seem to think they’re “too smart” or “too Christian,” or they’re “evangelizing” by embracing the world. One of the sad things about it, though, is that by barring Christ from reigning in this area of their lives they’re missing out on the abundant life Christ talked about. (Cont’d)
Well said. No man(woman) can serve two masters. For example: I hear contradictory speech from ‘Christians’ quite regularly; saying good and Godly things, and in the same conversation, ‘potty’ language.
The real Christian conversion gives a foundation that changes people. Old things are passed away, and all things become new.
God truly changed my life. For me, the material things of this world became of little importance. I became quite satisfied with just the simple life, instead of trying to follow (or be involved in) all sorts of sports, or trying to keep up with the ever changing things that were ‘cool’ at the time. God showed me (and still does) what really is important. Life is so much better being a servant of the Lord, than a constant slave to the world.
Praise God dear sister, “...And such were some of you, but you are washed, you are sanctified, You were justified in the name of Jesus and of our God!” (I Cor 6) I agree with you, the saturation in entertainment has changed many Christians without their awareness. We are all as Lot and his family, in a sea of evil, and losing more of our souls everyday.
Not only do Christians lose the abundant life Jesus talked about when they go after the world’s entertainment, but they plant seeds from Satan’s spirit rather than the Lord’s, and they aren’t serving the Lord but the Devil.
Christians may believe Satan’s lies, including that they aren’t being affected and no one is hurt by the world’s entertainment itself, but, for one thing, the children around them aren’t fooled. If a Christian preaches what the Bible says, that godliness is part of the Christian life, and then listens to Michael Jackson’s music or watches Desperate Housewives or Modern Family, that Christian’s children aren’t fooled. (Cont’d)
I remember how devastated I felt as an adult in my 30’s after getting rides from two leaders in my Baptist Church and hearing what they had on their car radios. I’d grown up in a lukewarm Lutheran Church, in an area dominated by the Catholic Church. Anyone who talked about Jesus, praying regularly or reading their Bibles was considered a freak. Less than 5% of the people belong to evangelical churches. I was so overjoyed to come to know God’s Word and then find a church that was built on it. But so much of it turned out to be only superficial.
These two leaders both personally talked of how bad the world’s entertainment could be. One, a man, taught adult Sunday school and the other was an older woman who led Awana with her husband. One day the woman offered me a ride and when her car starts up, what’s on the radio but Madonna singing “Like a Prayer”? The man was very vocal about listening to Christian music, but he gives me a ride one day, and I couldn’t place the singer of the song playing, (cont’d)