The other day I was watching Peter Pan with my son, Drew. There’s a scene in the film where Peter Banning, the adult Peter Pan, has one of the lost boys living with him, back in London, England. Well, at the beginning of the film Peter Banning doesn’t know that he was once Peter Pan. Anyway, living with Peter Banning was as an old gentleman, Tootles, who was constantly walking around the house saying aloud that “I think I lost my marbles, can’t find my marbles.” Well, it turns out toward the end of the film that Tootles really did lose his literal marbles. Come to find out, one of the Lost Boys back in Never Land stole them from him when they both were young lads.
Well, I said all that to simply say that I often feel like I have lost my marbles. Only I’m not referring to literal marbles. I’m talking about my mind, my way of thinking. The other day I was visiting with an acquaintance, and the comment that was made went something like this, “I just started dating this person and we decided to live together for a year to see if we want to get married.”
Okay, okay. I don’t want to seem as if I’ve buried my head in the sand. I know that we are living in a different time. But when I was young, I knew when I made a decision to do something whether or not it was dishonoring to God. My acquaintance made this comment and had no clue as to why it was not good to “shack up.”
I am writing today to encourage my brothers and sisters who claim to know the name of Christ to continue to call what's right, right and what's wrong, wrong. Because the truth is what the scripture calls wrong is wrong despite what society accepts. Note this scripture I think it rings true more and more as each day passes Proverbs 20:7“The just [man] walketh in his integrity: his children [are] blessed after him.” Ok, I've got to show you another. Check this one out, too. Proverbs 10:11“The mouth of a righteous [man is] a well of life: but violence covereth the mouth of the wicked.”
What I am saying is that we can’t falter in calling Christian brothers and sisters to walk with integrity before God. If a man says he’s following God, then according to scripture he must at least make an effort to walk with integrity. And according to what we just read, when we live and walk in righteousness before God, our children will be blessed. What a promise!
Then the other Proverb teaches us that when a man is righteous, his life is lived out well. I really like that. We can’t stop calling men and woman to walk upright before God. You know when I was younger I knew certain truths. I knew premarital sex was wrong, I knew shacking up with a girl was wrong, etc. I knew it because I had people in my life who lived right and who taught me what was right. And they didn't care if I wanted to hear it or not. The older folks had wisdom and we can’t deny that simple wisdom in light of modern evangelism. Allow me to use some literary liberty becaue the truth is I don't know who my great great grandmother is or even if she was a believer for that matter. However, I can almost hear her in my spirit say these words“Tell em, da truth son even if dey don’t like it, cause God don’t like ugly.”
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