PSA Lesson 7

We live in a world which follows the philosophy of relativism, there is no absolute standard of right or wrong, but right or wrong is determined by the individual according that individual’s culture, upbringing, peers and the time in which they live. The culture of a society is passed from one generation to another by way of their parents, their education and by the media culture of the time. But what happens when parents do not parent i.e. they are not involved in the lives of their children to the point where they pass on what is right or wrong. That leaves their education and the media telling them what to do. In this culture, day and age, the educational system and the media are teaching that whatever is right in the eyes of the individual is their right and no one has the right to challenge their rights. In theory, society will step in and stop a person from exercising their rights when they begin to harm others. In theory, it is wrong for someone to go into a crowd of people are start shooting them, particularly if the person getting shot is themselves. At the same time it is a right to murder a baby either in the womb or just born, one of those many inconsistencies with this philosophy. It is perfectly okay for people to do whatever they want and live any life style they want to live as long as they are not pointing a gun at your head. But for the believer it is different as we have an absolute standard for what is right and wrong. That absolute standard is clearly taught to us in the inspired word of God, the Bible. The problem is not the knowing of what is right or wrong, the problem is in the doing of it as we have two elements working against us. The first of these is peer pressure from our culture that is as we just observed previously in this article. The second, is our own nature as we read in Romans 7, “For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.” (vs 15). What we should be doing, we do not do but what we should not be doing, that is what we do. We end up sharing the lament of the Apostle Paul, “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (vs 24). That text goes on to explain that first, there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus (8:1), our mistakes or lapses into sin do not cause us to lose our salvation. The solution to doing what is right and not doing what is wrong is that we order our conduct according to the Holy Spirit within us, who uses the Scriptures as our guide for life and practice, “that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (8:4). The key to our life as a priest is to know what is right and wrong in the Scriptures and then yield to the Holy Spirit within us to do what we know. In this manner we follow the teaching that we find in the book of James, “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” (James 4:7-8).