Our senior pastor preached a very stimulating message today about bearing one another’s burdens (see Galatians 6:2).
In a nutshell, he talked about how Christians often pride themselves on how they don’t “drink, smoke, chew, or hang out with those who do.” There’s an indignation we sometimes feel at the more flagrant sorts of sin that are, shall we say, more colloquial in nature.
Our pastor then posed the following questions:
- How often do those of us who are so very proud of our abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, movies, etc. “fulfill the law of Christ” by bearing the burdens of others?
- If the answer is infrequently, then why is that sin of omission somehow less execrable or more tolerable than more banal forms of carnality?
Tough questions.
As I read the Gospels, Jesus reserved the most stinging rebuke not for the likes of prostitutes or even swindlers like Zaccheus, but the self-righteous prigs of the religious establishment who were high on their own asceticism.
Pharasaism is no substitute for Christlikeness.
Blessings,
Rob
aka The MonT-SteR
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