Tracks to Stay on Course

For this month's devotional, I want to share something I read recently that was written by the founder of one of my favorite Christian organizations, GFA World. The author, K. P. Yohannon, is talking about the importance of passing on our beliefs to our children in a real and viable way, and I really don't think I could say it any better than he did. Enjoy. 😊

"We are living in a post-Christian era country. If you have any doubts, look at the solid biblical principles and values our nation was founded on--and people used to honor and live by--and where we are right now. During the second half of the 19th century, our culture began to change drastically as many of our biblical values were replaced by secular wisdom and whatever felt good. As a result, we are now experiencing a flood of ungodliness, celebration of perversion, rejection of Judeo-Christian values and hostility against Christians. 

This change of foundational beliefs and their external forces has taken over the lives of individuals and families in our nation and churches. In the process, we lost shared religious convictions and traditions that were once part of our cultural heritage and that bound us together as a people.  Mary Eberstadt wrote in her book How the West Really Lost God that religion is important to both family and community. 'All it takes,' she said, 'is the failure of a single generation to hand down a tradition for that tradition to disappear in the life of a family and the life of a community.'

I was shocked when a senior Christian leader of a big church in England told me that he believes that should it come to a severe confrontation between the post-Christian culture and the Church, most Christians will give up or compromise. I thank God we still have many churches, pastors and sincere believers in our nation that will resist being swept away by the present culture and will stand up for the truth. However, it is not enough that we ourselves make it somehow safely through the stormy waters. 

We are given by God the responsibility to pass on our faith to the next generation, that is, our children and all those who newly come to Christ. They will have to live in an increasingly ungodly and hostile culture that no longer respects biblical values. For them, to learn how to live for Christ and how to practice their faith takes more than hearing a sermon and seeing other believers for two hours at church every week. They will need to have the opportunity to observe, experience and participate in real Christian community life [italics mine].

We live in a society where individualism is the norm, and we are conditioned to think and act
independently, even as Christians. Yet the Bible talks about the Church being a living body where each believer is a vital member, depending on each other for strength, supply and survival. This is not meant as an abstract theological concept, but as a practical truth for us to live out on a local and worldwide level. Such a body or community life is especially important in a hostile environment in order to preserve and pass on the Christian faith, values and traditions.

Have you ever asked yourself how the Jewish people managed to survive for more than 2,000 years as a nation without a country and being scattered all over the world? Amazingly, they kept their identity, faith and traditions alive through wars, exile, horrendous persecutions, near annihilation and the Holocaust.

Besides a miracle from God, the thing that enabled them to survive as a people was their Jewish community life. According to their Sabbath laws, Jewish families were required to live within walking distance of their synagogue. This put them in proximity of their worship place and each other, cultivating community. It allowed them to study God's Word and practice their 3,500-year-old faith and traditions together, thus passing them on to their children. Those among them whose lives revolved around their synagogue, prayer times and each other were able to maintain the most distance from the destructive influences of the culture surrounding them. They also saw themselves as part of the larger Jewish community around the world. We would do well to learn from their example.

Faith in itself is invisible and abstract, yet it influences our will, mind and emotions. It has to be maintained through the biblical culture that goes along with it, otherwise we have a difficult time holding on to it. This culture is the track for the train [of our faith] to run on.

God's Word combined with biblical culture will keep us in the direction we must go and protect us from losing our way in a confusing and turbulent world. The early church fathers understood the importance of biblical culture and put scriptural practices and New Testament traditions in place within the church to serve as tracks for the faith. Unfortunately, over the centuries, we have allowed much of it to fall by the wayside.

We must re-establish those tracks and provide deep-rooted biblical culture in our families and churches. Only then can we confidently hand over the torch of the Christian faith and the Great Commission to the next generation of believers. Only then will they be able to stay the course till Jesus comes."