Walk Blameless…
I felt God place this on my heart a few weeks ago and it has been pulsing there ever since. But when I look and see what is happening in our current society; Cancel Culture ready to pounce on people for one mistake no matter how long-ago it was; and kangaroo courts dredging up past transgressions and using them to determine whether or not some action against a person was justified- I see no way for this to be possible. Who can stand up against that kind of scrutiny? Who among us is without sin? Who among us has not made a statement or had a thought or belief that could not be used against us in todays culture where what is normal and acceptable shifts faster than quicksand? What then does it mean to, “walk blameless?”
First, lets talk about what being blameless is NOT. It is not legalism, which is trying to achieve God’s grace by being “good”, because no one could ever be “good” enough to be worthy of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. He went to the cross, taking upon His own body the sentence of death that we all deserve in order to save us from our fate. And he did that while we were still sinners so that no one could ever boast that they earned His sacrifice and take the glory for themselves. It is by His grace alone that we are saved and we benefit from that sacrifice when we believe in His life, death, and resurrection. That is our imputed righteousness.
But that acceptance of imputed righteousness by our faith in Jesus should produce a path towards sanctification. One thing I don’t feel the Church as a whole emphasizes enough is the necessity of REPENTANCE, which is not just merely apologizing for our sins, but turning away from them and replacing them with Godly characteristics. “Create in me, a clean heart.” (Psalm 51:10)- should be the cry of every Christian. After all, God instructs us to, “Be holy as I am holy.” (Lev. 11:45) Sanctification is a continual process that lasts the entire life of a Christian, but it’s not about achieving our own perfection, rather it is recognizing our inability to save ourselves from our depravity and submitting our lives to a constant process of having the Holy Spirit reveal and remove the things within us that offend a holy God. And the GOOD NEWS for those who believe in Christ is that once you repent of your sins, He forgets them completely- “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our sins from us.” (Psalm 103:12)
But, for now we live in the world, and the world is not as forgiving. The interesting thing about cancel culture is that is it completely hypocritical. Absolutely no-one is perfect. Dig deep enough and everyone has done or said something that could be used against them, so how can they then lay charges against another person? And while people believe it is a progressive move towards a better society, so did the crowd who gathered to stone the adulterous woman thousands of years ago. As the Bible says, “There is nothing new under the sun.” So as the world demands a perfection that can never be achieved, we as Christians need to walk blameless according to what God says that means.
Our walking blameless is what sets us apart from the world. They will see it as radical. As sin becomes more rampant, the difference in how we react, how we live, how we love and how we forgive will make our separateness more obvious and our lights will shine brighter in the ever darkening world. It will look like extending grace and mercy to people who wrong us – not because we are weak, but because we believe everyone deserves to benefit from the same grace that Jesus showed us on the cross. It will look like an absolute refusal to accept sin and go along with the rest of the world because we are to be set apart. It will look like rejecting the worlds mantra of “just do you”, because everything that we do should be to the glory of God and not to serve our own purposes and desires. It will look like not being led by the waves of emotion, but walking above them with our eyes firmly fixed on the faith we have in Jesus. It will look like not expecting people to be perfect, but looking for the heart of repentance when they do fall. It will look like, “getting rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.” (Eph. 4:31) so that people can’t use our words or actions, committed in anger, as a strike again us and by default, all Christians- rather, allowing God to be our defender and our deliverer.
None of this will save us from persecution by the world. In fact, walking blameless is very offensive to the world and they will react visciously, even violently. Look no further than our Lord and Savior to see how the world handles those who walk blameless before God. They will even justify their actions against us by calling us haters- we will never be blameless in their eyes. Our walk is for Christ alone. It is so that God can look over our lives and see that we walked in righteousness, blamelessness and integrity according to all HE proclaims that to mean, NOT according to what the world says it means.
So, while we navigate the ever-changing tides that rule the world, let’s keep our feet on the path set before us by the One who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
