Culture is a word that I hear often. It is also a word that is defined but is ever-changing. As culture is in a continuous cycle of change it becomes very easy for Christians to become heavily influenced in their faith by the culture that is around them. Is this always bad? No. But it is also not always good or necessary. This is something that I have often struggled with.
When we begin to deal with these sort of issues we must ask ourselves questions and allow the answers to guide us as we deal with the topic of the culture around us influencing our walk with God.
I believe there are 3 questions that can help us if we feel like the culture around us is influencing our faith more than our faith is influencing the culture around us.
Who is this benefiting?
Whatever decisions that we make in our walk with God this question should be at the forefront. Is this benefiting myself and my desire or is this benefiting the Gospel of Jesus and leading others into the direction of Jesus and His truth for our lives. As you walk in your faith is culture influencing you to make decisions that help yourself or is your faith guiding you to make decisions that put Jesus and others first?
Is this Sin?
While this might be an obvious question it is one that is often forgotten. As Followers of Jesus our goal is to walk in the same manner as Christ did. One of those manners was Jesus living without sin. While there will be sin in our life it should be out of the desire to be like Christ that we should not live in sin.
Has culture influenced you in a way that you have become blind to the sin in your life? As culture has seemingly accepted all things as truth have you also? Followers of Christ look different than the world. If we look like the culture around us there may be sin in our lives we are not dealing with.
Is what I’m doing attempting to bend God’s character?
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever
Hebrews 13:8
This verse shows us that the character of Christ and who Christ is has not changed. Often though as time goes on there is an attempt to change the character of God as being one that is accepting to however we desire to live. This cannot be true. If how we are living is seemingly spitting in the face of God and His character then we more than likely have adopted a culture’s view of God and not God’s own view of Himself.
As we are living and walking in faith with Jesus we should seek to recognize if the culture around us is influencing how we view and respond to God. If we ask ourselves these questions I believe that we can be able to recognize if culture is influencing us more than God and His call on our lives is.