Well I’d like to start out by saying that this is not an attack on Carrie Underwood. I think Carrie Underwood seems like a sweet girl, and I’m not attempting to say that she’s not a Christian or anything like that. This is simply an observance of modern society and the contradictions that we willingly accept without question. Yesterday while I was getting my hair cut my hair stylist and I started having a conversation about music. We somehow got on the subject of country music and I mentioned that I didn\u2019t understand how the same artist could become famous for songs with messages as contradictory as \u201cJesus Take The Wheel\u201d and \u201cCowboy Casanova.\u201d Or how contradictory songs like \u201cGod is great, beer is good and people are crazy\u201d are. She replied, \u201cYeah, I used to really judge an artist for that sort of thing, but then I realized that I do the exact same thing with my life, I\u2019m just not in the public eye.\u201d<\/p>\n
That really made me start thinking. So many of us as Christians send contradictory messages to those around us with the way we live our lives. We\u2019ll say preachy things every once in a while, some of us even lead worship or speak at our churches, or have our own cell groups or Bible studies that we lead. But we\u2019ll leave church and go to the movies to watch films filled with sex, nudity, and all sorts of other evils. Or one day we\u2019ll make a status update about how great God is, and then the next day we\u2019ll make a post about how drunk we got at the party we were at. I\u2019ve attended several Bible studies for men that ended with guys making perverted jokes and having competitions to see who can come up with the funniest \u201cThat\u2019s what she said.\u201d I even had one friend that used to brag about how he\u2019d party on the weekends but still managed to make it to church every Sunday morning. And he proudly called himself a Christian. Surely you can see how all those things send contradictory messages to those around us. I even started thinking about comments I make to my roommate when it\u2019s just him and I at home thinking, \u201cOh it\u2019s no big deal. He knows my heart.\u201d But the Bible says, \u201cfor of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.\u201d (Luke 6:45) The Bible also says \u201cCan both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?\u201d (James 3:11)<\/p>\n
We need to decide what we want our lives to represent, and then we need to align everything in our lives to that. We can\u2019t afford to be walking contradictions. We can\u2019t preach about modesty and then run around the pool half naked in our bikini, or preach about purity and then get groups together to go watch the latest movie filled with sexual innuendos and lustful images. I could keep going but I think you get my point. Those types of things just make us look like a joke, and in some ways we are when we live that contradictory. If we\u2019re going to talk about devoting our entire lives to God but then can\u2019t even manage to stay out of inappropriate movies, to dress ourselves in God honoring ways in public, or to keep our conversations clean when hanging with our friends then how can we be taken seriously? Think about what kind of message that is sending to unbelievers. It\u2019s very mixed signals. Do you think the enemy is really scared of that kind of an \u201carmy.\u201c If I was the enemy I wouldn\u2019t be. I\u2019d just laugh. If we really want to be a threat to the dark kingdom than we\u2019ve got to quit playing games. There is a price to pay, and that price is everything.<\/p>\n
Why do you think that with a church on every corner that our nation still continues to morally digress at an exponential rate? It\u2019s because many of the self proclaiming Christians in this nation are no threat to satan. If we can\u2019t even say \u201cno\u201d to compromising situations because we don\u2019t want to be left out of the group or thought of as uncool than how are we going to go against the grain to lead reform? If a pretty girl is so enslaved to human opinion that she has to dress like all the other girls to fit in even when she knows it\u2019s not God honoring than how is she ever going to step out from the crowd to lead the reform this generation so badly needs? What is more important to you, your spiritual life or your social life? I travel around the country going from church to church spending time with a different congregation every week. And unfortunately I generally don\u2019t encounter anything more than a social club that meets together on Sundays and Wednesdays. Most of the time nothing that satan needs to worry about. Being a Christian is supposed to be about a lot more than just being part of a social club. We are in a spiritual war! And people are going to Hell everyday and there are millions of people suffering from all sorts of injustice on the earth now. And what do we do about it? Well we meet together in our pretty suits and dresses on Sundays and hang out and watch movies with each other on the weekends. . . ? Am I wrong?<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not saying there\u2019s anything wrong with any of that. It\u2019s important to have Godly friends that you can have fun with. We all SHOULD have that. It\u2019s healthy. I\u2019m just saying there\u2019s a lot more that should be happening than JUST that. What this generation needs is reformists! What the church needs is reform! And when I say \u201cchurch\u201d I\u2019m not talking about a specific building or congregation. I\u2019m talking about US. WE need reform. We\u2019ve got to come out of this compromising, powerless, selfish, lukewarm stupor that has come to define the western church. We are an ARMY with a MISSION! We need to start living like it. I believe that God is going to raise up reformists in this generation. Men and women that refuse to blend in, that are willing to go against the grain, and even when all of society says it should be one way or that there\u2019s no hope of ever changing, that they refuse to accept that and lead by example as pioneers into a new \u201cnormal.\u201d And I believe several of those reformists are reading this right now. Is your heart stirred? Then I\u2019m talking to you. Never under estimate what God can do with even just 1 life fully submitted to him. As the song says it, \u201cDon\u2019t be afraid to stand out, that\u2019s how the lost get found.\u201d<\/p>\n
So what about you? Are you blending in with society? Are you singing \u201cJesus take the wheel\u201d one day and \u201ccowboy Casanova\u201d the next? We must decide what message we want our lives to send to those watching us, and then we have to work fearlessly and tirelessly to remove anything that would contradict that message. Because that is when our message will truly become effective.<\/p>\n
Living to touch God’s heart, Well I’d like to start out by saying that this is not an attack on Carrie Underwood. I think Carrie Underwood seems like a sweet girl, and I’m not attempting to say that she’s not a Christian or anything like that. This is simply an observance of modern society and the contradictions that we willingly […]<\/p>\nRead More Jesus Take the Wheel and Cowboy Casanova<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[54,36,1],"tags":[14,44,16,236,17,237,19,238,239,11],"class_list":{"0":"post-455","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-blast-archive","8":"category-fire-in-my-bones","9":"category-uncategorized","10":"tag-chris-ulery","11":"tag-christopher-ray-ulery","12":"tag-christopher-ulery","13":"tag-cowboy-casanova","14":"tag-god","15":"tag-hypocrisy","16":"tag-jesus","17":"tag-jesus-take-the-wheel","18":"tag-music-industry","19":"tag-religion","21":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/divine-romance.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/contradiction.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p94i1z-7l","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/divine-romance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/divine-romance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/divine-romance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/divine-romance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/divine-romance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/divine-romance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/divine-romance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/divine-romance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/divine-romance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/divine-romance.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nChris Ulery
\ndivine-romance.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"