Where is your loyalty? Specifically, unlimited loyalty, absolute loyalty, unrestrained loyalty, unwavering loyalty.
It is either given to God and His word, or it is given somewhere or anywhere else.
There are varying degrees or forms of loyalty, which belong to family, friends, country, community, associates, associations. But the only worthy focus of our complete loyalty is the God of the Bible.
You cannot be a Christian if your basic and ultimate loyalty is not given to Jesus Christ. Any other object of full commitment is an idol. Some of the idols of nominal Christians (Christian in name only) are family members, finances, political affiliations, vain philosophies, personal pleasures, social status, material wealth, physical health, the natural realm, errant religious beliefs and life itself. Some people have idols of stone, wood, steel, flesh and blood, ideology, relationships. The Bible tells us if we love the world or the things of the word, then the love of the Father is not in us and it also says that greed is idolatry.
Only Jesus is worthy of our total, uncompromising commitment. Every other loyalty must come into alignment with Biblical truth and faithfulness to Jesus Christ.
Some people give God divided loyalty or lip service when life is easy and some people abandon God altogether when life is oppressive, and some people have no idea that absolute surrender is the norm for salvation because they accept a form of godliness, which denies the power of God within the life of the person.
Absolute loyalty to Christ is always important, but being fully committed to God and His truth in the good times prepares us to fully follow during the hard times. God's word enlightens our minds and enlivens our spirit, so that we are enabled live in undivided submission to God. We must renounce the obvious deceptions of Satan and the hidden dangers of popular religious beliefs (even when they are dressed in Christian terms and traditions.
"BACK TO THE BIBLE" is not simply a Christian catchphrase, it is a call to godly behavior based on Biblical belief. It is too late to start yesterday, but it is not too late to start now. Hebrews 12:2 (KJV) tells us we should "look" to Jesus. A better translation is to FIX OUR EYES on Jesus, and a better understanding of the verse is to TURN OUR EYES AWAY FROM (something) and to FIX OUR EYES ON JESUS. It is a transfixing of our attention, our loyalty from darkness to Light, from death to Life, from deception to Lord. Christ is our Way, not simply our beginning and end. We are called to a walk, not an abandoned relationship.
God will never leave those who continue in the faith, those who continue in the Lord, continue in the grace of God. The days ahead are going to be deceptive to those who do not have the mind of Christ (the lost, the sinner) and to those who are double minded (carnal, fleshly oriented). God will draw near to those who draw near to Him.
The song says to Christians, "Rise up oh men of God..."
God's word says Christians, "Present your bodies as a living sacrifice unto God... entirely acceptable to God... be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the continual renewing of your mind."
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