Inside Our Private Lives

Strange. Sad. Ugly. Bewildering. Offensive. Frustrating. What adjectives would you use to describe what our nation has endured during the first half of 1998? Allegations of sex scandals in the White House have elicited a variety of responses ranging from intense moral outrage to apathetic yawns.

Not Everybody Does

It's wise to withhold judgment until all the facts are clear; but what does it say about our collective moral consciousness when millions wink at sin and shrug, "Everybody does it" or "Whatever somebody does in his own private life has nothing to do with his ability to lead"?

"Everybody does it"? That's a childish rationalization. Remember when you tried that flimsy excuse on your mom? She probably responded by asking, "So if 'everybody' jumped off a cliff, would you do it too?" Besides, everybody doesn't do it. Every man doesn't cheat on his wife. Every employee doesn't steal from his employer. Every citizen doesn't cheat on his taxes. Every church member isn't a hypocrite. Nobody's perfect, but let's not smear all the decent people who try their best to resist temptation and obey God.

A person's "private life"? It's important when you choose a manager, an elder, or a deacon (1 Timothy 3:1-13; 4:12). It's important when you choose a mate. No matter how much you're smitten by romance, it's foolish to marry someone who projects an appealing image but lacks integrity in private life. Wise couples do more than just get acquainted before and after marriage—they work to understand and love each other in depth. Most of all, our private lives will be important on Judgment Day, when "God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ" (Romans 2:16).

Image-conscious

God looks at the heart, and he wants us to be people of integrity in the midst of an image-conscious culture. It's easy to scorn politicians who determine how they'll vote by examining the polls instead of their Bibles and their consciences. But what about the rest of us? Do we voice disapproval of others' hypocrisy while carefully crafting our own public image? Do we use outward status symbols to divert the spotlight from our own private lives?

Stylish clothes, fancy homes, nice cars, and important jobs don't say anything about a person's integrity. Multimillion-dollar facilities and slick-looking publications look attractive, but they don't guarantee that churches or publishers are faithful to Jesus. The Lord bluntly rebuked one church whose image didn't match reality: "You have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead" (Revelation 3:1).

Maybe it's time we rethink the term image. We've weakened this word so much that it usually brings to mind something shallow, deceptive, and unreliable—something "imagined" or unreal, a false impression created by clever advertising. But in the Bible, image meant much more. God created human beings in his image so we could relate to him and to one another (Genesis 1:26, 27). Christ is "the image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1:15) and "the exact representation of his being" (Hebrews 1:3). As believers grow in Christ, God rebuilds our inner lives and restores us to the image of our Creator (Colossians 3:10).

What matters most is not what others see, but what God sees. Our wounded culture will find healing only when all of us, including our nation's leaders, let God transform our private lives and "put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness" (Ephesians 4:24).