“Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you, JUST AS YOU SAY HE IS.” Amos 5:14
We can “say” a lot of things about God, but that doesn’t mean they’re true. We can “say” that Christ is tolerant of sin, that He is easily pleased with our sinful lifestyles, or that He doesn’t demand Lordship or justice, or even that we’re forgiven. We can post any number of quotes or heartwarming slogans, but that doesn’t mean that God is with us. “When you did these things and I kept silent, you thought I was exactly like you.”
We can believe anything we want to believe – God’s free will has given us that ability – but regardless of what we tell ourselves, we can not – and will not – change the realities of a Holy and Just God. A God that has never winked at or overlooked sin, but a God that punishes sin to the extreme. If you need proof of this, just look at the cross. God’s treatment of Christ was a proper and pleasing sacrifice for sin. And we thought sin held no real consequences!!
We will not change the realities of Hell. “For unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”
We will never change God’s standards of righteousness, nor His laws. This same God has said both, “Be holy just as I am holy.” and “I, the Lord, do not change.” This same God is described this way in Psalms, “You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with You the wicked cannot dwell. The arrogant cannot stand in Your presence; You hate all who do wrong.”
And we thought He was with us, why? Because we posted some picture on our facebook wall saying, “Like if you love Jesus”? How does God answer this question? “Seek good, not evil, that you may live. THEN the Lord God Almighty will be with you…”
The Bible alone sets the standard for what is good. If your desire is to have God with you as you say He is, then you can not look to the world’s standards for righteousness. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” Proverbs 14:12
You see, we are not good judges of what is right. In our own sinful, fallen flesh, what seems right is always directly linked to our desires, which more often than not, is sinful. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9 Did you hear that? God said our hearts are DESPERATELY WICKED. That means that when we follow our hearts – something that the world has told us to do while Jesus said follow Him – we are following our wicked desires. If we can’t trust our hearts to lead us in the right direction, who can we trust? Jesus. And His heart as revealed through the Bible. Be careful not to seek His approval for your sin outside of the revealed Word of God. If the Scriptures call your lifestyle a sin, then it’s a sin. Repent.
Now either God is a liar, or we’ve been wrong about a few things. If you believe that God is a liar – and you have the free will to do so – then you can not possibly trust Him for Your salvation. It is not possible to trust a liar and so you should have no reason to rely on the promises found in Scripture.
But if you’ve just realized that God can’t possibly be lying – which you’d be right, the Scriptures teach a sinless God that can not sin in any form – then you’re left with the fact that you may be called to alter your thinking. If you still believed the world’s lies about Christ, then you will have to put away what you’ve been taught and seek out the pages of the Bible to learn what He says of Himself.
“How long, O men, will you turn My glory into shame? How long will you love delusions and seek false gods?”
Seek Good and Not Evil
Christian Author: A.M. Heath 
This reminds me so much of the quote by C.S. Lewis:
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
Ultimately, we are not left the option of standing in between good or evil. As much as we like to think of things in shades of gray, they really are black or white–pleasing to God or not.
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I love that quote, thank you! “Patronizing nonsense.” That’s it, exactly! Our pastor was once preaching on the account where the disciples come to Jesus and say, “Some think you’re Moses. Others say you’re one of the prophets..” And Jesus asked them, “Who do you say that I am?” I’ll never forget how he brought these theories to life for us. I grew up seeing Moses as a main figure in the old testament, but for these people he was a HERO. They were paying Him quite the compliment to assume that He might be Moses. Brother Jonathan said, “Calling Him Moses was meant to be a promotion. Moses is tall cotton. UNLESS YOU’RE GOD!” What a slap in the face it was to call the Son of God “Moses!”
And you’re absolutely right. There are no “50 shades of gray” where God is concerned. It’s right or wrong. You will camp out in one of the two camps. There is no middle ground.
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