Rename

I'm familiar with PCs, so this may not be the same as it is on Macs, for instance, but if you go to a file on a computer and right click and you will be given some options. Among them you might find "Copy", "Delete", and "Rename." I suppose you can figure out what each of those would be good for.

I suspect we're doing some of that with our behaviors these days. Well, to be fair, always have. Humans have always copied others' behavior. You know, "Bad company corrupts good morals." (1 Cor 15:33) Why? Because we tend to act the way that those we spend time with do. That would be "copy" and if we are going to copy someone, it ought not be people of the world (1 John 2:15). But, we know this, don't we? We know that we are supposed to be more like Christ and less like the world. Well, then, good.

So what do we do? We might do the "delete" function and eliminate attitudes and behaviors that we know to be sin. That would be the right thing. Or ... we just might do the "rename" function. Now that seems to work as well because that seems to be "Christian". How? Well, we will take our irritability and self-righteousness and call it "righteous indignation" that we can tote around on our moral high horse. Now that makes it good, right? We will hang on tightly to our disdain for those different than ourselves and call it "Christian discernment", and now we're being "just like Jesus", aren't we? We can take our love of worldly comfort and worldly goods and rename it "stewardship" and we make it sound godly. We can even take a personal "homosexuals are icky" feeling and tuck it into a biblical "homosexual behavior is sin" text and make it sound biblical.

Oh, we're adept at this. That "delete" function isn't as easy as it seems like it would be and certainly not as comfortable as it should be and this whole "rename" function lets us keep our vices and sound "Jesus-like." Except we're not. These things aren't. And we ought to do better. We won't, however, if we keep relabeling sin as godliness. You won't be spending any time becoming more like Christ if you think you already are.

Now, who do you suppose would be at the base of this "relabel sin to look like godliness" thing? Because, you see, even in a computer, "rename" doesn't change the actual content, and it is the actual content that we need to address.