Fresh Manna
by Pastor Tim Burt
Today I’d like to ask you a question. Do the sources of information that are trying to sway you to a particular belief or view, hold your moral values and love for God? Does their opinion on behavioral boundaries and lifestyle match those that Jesus and the Bible teach us? If not, why let them influence or even touch your thinking? Why let them have any voice or input into your life? 
In Ephesians 4 the Apostle Paul teaches that God’s goal for those that mentor Christians in ministry, is to help Christians grow up and mature becoming productive members of the body of Christ. Christians are to learn how to reach, teach, and touch others with the love of God. God has given us His Word that we should grow up in spiritual maturity and become productive members of the body of Christ reflecting His love. When that happens this will be true in us! “Then we will no longer be like children, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching forever changing our minds about what we believe because someone has told us something different or because someone has cleverly lied to us and made the lie sound like the truth. Instead, we will hold to the truth in love, becoming more and more in every way like Christ who is the head of his body, the church. “ ( Ephesians 4:14-15)
Media will teach us that sex outside of marriage, and with the same sex, is okay. That making fun of the President or those in authority is okay and even the right thing to do! They’ll teach that homosexuality is just an alternative lifestyle. That abortion isn’t the taking of a life. That defending your country against terrorists is an act of aggression. The media will desensitize us to crime and murder and senseless violence. It will make even the most profane words a normal part of communication. Does God agree with all this? 
When the world of opinions fly, people get discouraged and think, There is no truth—it’s all a matter of perspective and opinion. When someone comes to that conclusion, Satan has won and that person has become deceived! Then the stark difference of right from wrong and good from evil becomes blurred. There are no more absolutes. That leads to this conclusion. People can do whatever they want as long as it doesn’t affect anyone else. The problem with that thinking is it’s wrong! Whether you realize it or not, everything we do, in some way affects others—always and eventually!
So what do you think? Do the opinions of worldly sources lead our lives or do we let God become the anchor of our thoughts and lives so that we aren’t tossed to and fro like children. God wants to be the anchor of our soul and the primary input of counsel and discernment for what we think about and how we make decisions.
Ephesians 4:17-31 NLT says, “With the Lord’s authority I say this: Live no longer as the ungodly do, for they are hopelessly confused. Their closed minds are full of darkness; they are far away from the life of God because they have shut their minds and hardened their hearts against Him. They don’t care anymore about right and wrong, and they have given themselves over to immoral ways. Their lives are filled with all kinds of impurity and greed. But that isn’t what you were taught when you learned about Christ. Since you have heard all about Him and have learned the truth that is in Jesus, throw off your old evil nature and your former way of life, which is rotten through and through, full of lust and deception. Instead, there must be a spiritual renewal of your thoughts and attitudes. You must display a new nature because you are a new person, created in God’s likeness—righteous, holy, and true…”
World views, morals, and beliefs shift with the wind. Stop being a part of ignorant conversation that has nothing to do with real life and that distracts you from becoming that mature Christian purposing to be a touch of God in the lives around you! Don’t you be tossed to and fro. The degrading moral values of culture are not supposed to change Christianity. Christianity is to restrain culture from ideals contrary to God’s ways! Make God’s Word the anchor for all you think and believe, and for how you communicate and live. It’s your calling in Christ. He never changes, nor should you!
Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever.
In His love,
Pastor Tim Burt
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