Grow up

Being part of a school or office environment that isn't entirely centered on God (at least not the way they should truly be) could oftentimes be a struggle for me. I remember a time when I was once told off by my professor in Theology class when I was a sophomore that to claim that the 'human nature is naturally sinful' was a heresy. But that's exactly what the king of this world wants us to believe. The result is that we downplay the occasional gossip, slander, cursing and not to mention green jokes, thinking that they're all just harmless fun and a part of life.  More often than not, I get teased by a few friends for being innocent and not being "in the know" of "current stuff'" simply because I refuse to take part in their coarse joking. The reactions I get come from both ends, sometimes being "aww how cute, you don't know!" or "uy wag kang makinig, bata ka pa" ('Don't listen, this is adult-stuff') and other times, I'm looked upon with hate saying that my standards are too high.

But being raised in a Christian home does not exempt me from the usual struggles and temptations every teenager faces. I am in the know, and I am aware of what they talk about (or who), its just that when we're faced with such a situation, we'd opt to turn our backs on it and run the other direction. It's not a matter of innocence, but it's all about purity.

Jesus calls all of us to remain pure in Him. Not to be innocent -- there's a big difference. Innocence has to deal with being completely oblivious to a situation because one does not have the capacity to process it completely in their head, take the innocence of a child for example: a 4-year old would have no idea what the 'birds and the bees' are compared to what a 24-year old knows -- but this is where purity steps in. Purity is all about knowing what it is, but turning the other way and refusing to take any part in it. And it's not just on the physical level, as some might assume. While this too is very very important, I think it'll take a purging of the heart first before we can truly be considered pure in God's eyes from the inside out. Oswald Chambers couldn't have said it better himself:

"Jesus Christ never trusted human nature, yet He was never cynical nor suspicious, because He had absolute trust in what He could do for human nature. The pure man or woman is the one who is shielded from harm, not the innocent person. The so-called innocent man or woman is never safe. Men and women have no business trying to be innocent; God demands that they be pure in virtuous. Innocence is the characteristic of a child. Any person is deserving of blame if he is unwilling to reconcile himself to the fact of sin."

I know this topic might be old, seeing that there have been a number of articles already written on it, but I find it to be such an important issue to address because I see it still happening today. Christians or at the least, kids who try to remain good are manipulated into thinking that "growing up" is all about taking sin and facing it head on, like a man. To grow up is to look at pornography or sex or gossip, slander, coarse joking and whatnot straight in the face and saying "I can handle this." This has to stop. We can't handle this. We shouldn't. I'm saying 'we' because as I type this, I'm also speaking to myself. It's not that my standards are too high, it's that God's is, and I simply want to meet those standards. Being holy requires us to be set apart from everything else. Jesus reminds us in countless verses such as John 15:19, Romans 12:2 and so on that while we are in the world, we are not of it and should have, under any circumstance, no part in it. Jesus looks down with hurt as well as disgust on people who cheer on unrighteousness. He doesn't hate them, He just disapproves of what's taking place. It's like seeing someone being tricked into drinking a cup of dirt and cheering them on as they chug it down and finally applauding once they fall and get sick. What kind of a twisted world do we live in? Stop trying to 'handle it'. Don't kid yourself, hindi mo kaya. But the beautiful thing is that Jesus already did -- kinaya Niya para sayo, right when He nailed all of that along with Him on the Cross.

It's time we stopped hiding in the dark and recognize the reality of sin. Grow up and deal with it -- not by facing it head on like an adult, but by reconciling to the fact of it and turning away. I'm completely against 'playing it safe' or 'going with the flow'. As Bing would put it, "Radical Christian living is Radical Christ loving." It's about time.