Growing up as children, most of us were punished by our parents if we did something wrong. You may have told your parents a lie, got into a fight with your brother or sister —- something along those lines. You may have not thought that what you did was that big of a deal or was worth the punishment.
At the time when you were getting punished, you more than likely knew that you were doing something wrong, but you went ahead and did it any way. But your parents, for your sake, reprimanded you in hopes of deterring you from doing something like this in the future.
It seems, however, here at the University and other universities throughout the nation, we love to gray the line. We are away from home, and unless we break a law or a rule that is not set down by the University, city, state or national government, we think we are living a pretty good life.
If you know to do something that is right and do not do it, then it is a sin. There are many things in this life that we know to do that are right and still we do not do them. We may be pretty good people, not breaking the laws of the governments around us, but we are not following what we know to be true in our hearts.
We love to justify our lives and not really look in the mirror and take a solid look at ourselves and see what our lives truly reflect. We like to look into the lives of others, look down upon them and compare ourselves to them. But in all actuality, we need to look at our own lives and then compare ourselves to Christ. You will see how you measure up.
A saying goes that character is what people think you are, but integrity is who you are when no one is watching. You can look at other people and many people may think that you have the “stuff,” or are this awesome person, but who are you when no one is watching?
Jesus said it best when He states, “cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” Sin hinders us from being able to see clearly and before we can truly help people out we need to get rid of the stuff blocking us from being able to see, so we can help others around us.
The only way we can get rid of the sin is to know Jesus as our savior and He will pull the beam out of your eye and show you how to live. When you have a relationship with God almighty and have the beam out of your own eye, then you can truly help your brother and you will be able to see clearly.
You will have an outlook on life like you have never had before, and see things clearly that have confused you for so long.
The graying of the line comes when we have things in our life that we know are wrong, but we do them anyway. We look at the life of another person and say to ourselves, “so and so does it and can get away with it, so I can too.”
But we must realize that when we gray the line, more times than not the act we are committing is wrong.
You might be thinking that I don’t know if what I am doing, or how I am living is wrong or not. Usually if you are questioning whether something is right or wrong, more times than not it’s wrong. My father tells me, “when in doubt, get it out.”
Take a long look into your life and see if it is a life that you would want other people to mirror. All of us have things we need to work on or are not proud of, but take a look and see if you would people to pattern their life after your own.
Throughout this whole article I have been using “we” because I also continue to read the Bible and see how short I fall, but I know that every day I am growing in the knowledge and grace of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and I pray that each one of you would also grow in that.
Jesus will show you how to live each day and if you are obedient you will see change in your life like never before. For without Christ, we have no hope.
E-mail Brad with comments at [email protected].