In every generation there are always a few who occupy the periphery of civilization. These few, for many different reasons, do not subscribe to the restrictions culture attempts to place upon them. In the ebb and flow of time, the few become many and wickedness of all sort abounds.
Yes, the hearts of some grow so cold that to approach a 93 year old woman and murder her in the light of day is a thing to be done. Yes, even the hearts of the young will beat a peer to death. Many of us grieve over the loss of our 4,351 service personnel overseas, but do we equally grieve for the 14,693 who died in one year in the United States as the result of murder?
We live in an age of unrestrained behavior. The religious fervor of the 1950s ushered in the hedonism of the 1960s, the “me” ideal of the 1970s, the arrogance of the 1980s, and the moral confusion of the 1990s. Our culture continues to destroy itself month by bloody month.
In every form of entertainment we fixate ourselves on primordial urges: sex and violence. Our education system is so unsure as to even a definition of a truly educated person that it regularly presents persons with degrees, some advanced, based not on true erudition but on novelty or popularity or sheer perseverance. Our national religion is far more concerned with personal comforts and successes than it is with unabashed, unreserved devotion to God, regardless of the cost. The standard of right and wrong is not measured against an unchanging moral code given by revelation from a God or the gods, but rather by the whim of the moment or, if pressed, the arbitrations of a anchorless legal system.
Many will agree that we have cultural problems, but the only currently accepted solution seems to be “more.” The only “more” that will help is “more of Jesus” and less of me. Call me a simpleton, ignoramus, ignorant zealot if you wish. From my one-legged stool in the corner, I simply respond, “We have more of everything other than Jesus than we have ever had…ever…and our abundance produces unhealthy bodies, unstable minds, unfaithful partners, unreliable governance, unsafe neighborhoods and unruly people. ‘More’ is an unsatiable animal that will allow us feed it until it devours us. Then it will lick its lips and proclaim it’s hungry. The only solution to the quandry of humanity is unfettered pursuit of God’s solution: Jesus.”
… We know our joy in heaven will be greater if the people we treat with mercy are won over to the surpassing worth of Christ and join us in praising Him.
But how will we ever point them to Christ’s infinite worth if we are not driven, in all we do, by the longing to have more of Him? It would only be unloving if we pursued our joy at the expense of others. But if our very pursuit includes the pursuit of their joy, how is that selfish? How am I the less loving to you if my longing for God moves me to give away my earthly possessions so that my joy in Him can be forever doubled in your partnership of praise?—John Piper in Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist.
