WE MUST OBEY GOD RATHER THAN MAN!
We must obey God rather than any human authority. —Acts 5:29
Obedience to God will put the followers of Jesus at odds with the worldly culture around them. Here in the U.S. if was been “relatively comfortable” to follow Jesus, but those days could be coming to an end.
“Experience and history have shown us that if the government redefines marriage to grant a legal equivalency to same-sex couples, that same government will then enforce such an action with the police power of the State. This will bring about an inevitable collision with religious freedom and conscience rights. The precedent established will leave no room for any limitation on what can constitute such a redefined notion of marriage or human sexuality. We cannot and will not allow this to occur on our watch. Religious freedom is the first freedom in the American experiment for good reason,” the pledge states, in part.” http://www.christianpost.com/news/pastors-pledge-civil-disobedience-if-supreme-court-redefines-marriage-140196/
The context of the verse above was after the apostles were arrested when their message collided with the culture around them. They were jailed for that message. The same thing will happen in the U.S. as it does in other parts of the world when the state tries to force the church to bend to its ungodly beliefs.
Then there are those like Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton who said “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed…” http://www.christianpost.com/news/hillary-clinton-religious-beliefs-have-to-be-changed-about-abortion-138179/. Here’s a woman who has said that the Bible has always been a guide for her life and yet she does not have any problem seeking to encourage others to believe and obey something other than what God’s Word says.
Dear follower of Jesus, stick close to Him for the days ahead. He never changes. His Word does not change just because a culture or an individual seeks to change it. “Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (I Corinthians 6:9-11). God’s standards do not change with the shifting sands of a temporal culture. May we hold fast to His Word!
Dear Father, please help me to be faithfully shining for You in the authority of Jesus and by the Holy Spirit’s power. May I not be disobedient to Your Word.