Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
-James 1:27
It is absolutely fascinating to see how different people are raised. One most definitely gets to see that in college.
Whether you were brought up in a Christian home or not, ethics, either the teaching of or the learning of, becomes a huge aspect of our childhood to early adulthood. It seems as if every family, Christian or not, seem to focus on a select group of ethics. The children, thus, become focused on those ethics for at least part of their lives if not all of their lives. It is important for us, as Christians, to realize that non-Christians or other groups of Christians may be living a more godly life than we are. Sometimes we get caught up in our society, and the Christian society that has formed in the US, and we stop getting caught up in how Christ tells us to live.
It's great to support Christian artists by buying a band's new CD, or a clothing company's new Christian t-shirt--there is no doubt about that. However, does Christ tell us to live a life keeping up with pop-Christian culture, or does He tell us to give all that we have to the poor? Why are we so quick to judge the non-Christian's motives for working a day in a soup kitchen, when we spend the whole day in our room bumming about and rocking out to the new Above the Golden State CD? Why do we speculate as to why the atheist student volunteers to wake up at seven on a Saturday morning to bring inner-city children to breakfast at the cafeteria, when we're sitting there eating waffles and watching ESPN? Let's face it, we may know the Truth, we may even speak the Truth, but do we live the Truth? To the fullest? At all?
Reading Christ's Word and understanding Christ's word is just part of it. Your faith truly develops when you love Christ with your whole heart by listening and doing whatever He leads you to do. It's time to readjust our mindsets, to be truly focused on Him.
In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.
-Luke 14:33
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