Paul, our beloved friend and apostle, challenges us and calls us to be imitators of God, in other words, to live like Jesus. The question we should therefore ask ourselves is this: 'What would Jesus do if he were in my place?' He himself established a cause-and-effect relationship between loving Him and doing what He says.
So in every circumstance, what matters is not what I think at first, but what God thinks. Before forming an opinion on anything, the Christian must first discover what God thinks about Him; and adapt accordingly. We all have people whose opinion is precious to us; only the young and the foolish think they know everything and oppose their points of view to those of the wise.
God wants to be the first to be consulted on everything before we form an opinion. It is so easy to get carried away by the prevailing currents of thought and accept compromise. The world and its desires are fleeting. Those who delight the heart of God are not those who allow themselves to be dominated by the world but those who go against the current and firmly maintain their faith. We will often be asked not to be so rigorous, in exchange for promises of friendship, esteem, and so on.
Recently on a long flight with several stops, I had the opportunity to have a long discussion with someone about various issues including God, faith, Christian marriage, etc., etc. As we parted ways in Doha, she expressed how happy she was to be talking to me and said goodbye something along the lines of, 'try to compromise/bend your positions anyway,' to which I replied, 'absolutely not, why do it? What I believe and do works, it's true and it works for me.' And she said, staring at me, 'yes, it works, it's obvious when you see it.'
My friends, it works. The truth of Christ, the choice of holiness, works when we choose to embrace it fully instead of grumbling and accepting it, even as we eye the world and those in the world, telling ourselves that these lucky people are having a lot more fun than we are. When you definitely side with God, you can get your fill of His attention, and it shows. All the gold in Sodom can hardly compete with the treasures of God's kingdom.
Shalom
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