Let me read you a description of a society of people and see if you recognise where it came from. It’s a description of people who kid themselves that everything will be O.K. in the end because nobody is perfect. It contains people who sleep around, wife-swap, commit homosexual acts with other consenting adults, pilfer the petty cash, steal from stores, mug people in the streets. Drink so much that they become dangerous. Having tongues which spit poisonous opinions, filthy language and obscenities, and yet sometimes respectable sounding high-faluting character assassination.
Where do you read that? In today’s news? Well you could, but it’s from the New Testament! It’s a description of what Christians at Corinth had once been like, before they became Christians.
The difference Christ had made was visible and clear. That difference means that if you live a pagan, godless life it’s no use kidding yourself that you are a Christian, you are not! You’ve made God into your enemy. Real Christians don’t live like this at all. They are different and the difference shows. Paul says, ‘You were once like this but now Christ has got you and you have been washed and put right with God and accepted’.
This is the question of today. Are you a real Christian or just kidding yourself that you are? It is going to matter very much indeed in the end, and it matters very much right now today. By the way, it does show.
Now read: I Corinthians 6: 9 – 11 and 18 – 20.