- Feb 5, 2002
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<B>Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God -- this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is -- his good, pleasing and perfect will. [Romans 12: 1,2]
By Jim Brown
(AgapePress) -</B> A Christian author and financial expert says far too often, Christians lower their standards to those of the average around them.
Larry Burkett says to some extent, the mediocre attitude can be linked to a shifting of power in the American post-modern culture, where a younger world has been given authority and power over its older generations. But even more importantly, he says, people have not been challenged enough.
"In my parents' generation, my mother and father really didn't accept much responsibility for the bad things their children did -- they punished them for it, and the kids were expected to perform properly, and they gave them very little slack," Burkett says.
"I sometimes think that we as a generation -- in fact, in my generation, as well -- probably made an error in the other direction; we did too much for our kids. We felt that by giving them things, maybe even by protecting them, that we were helping them," he says. "But in large part, I think we have trained them to be mediocre."
Burkett says the trend today is to seek the path of least resistance and then, if the going becomes difficult, to give up. Part of that trend, he says, is the you owe me attitude actively promoted by today's politically correct society.
For example, Burkett says, many Americans think a lifetime job with good pay and a guaranteed retirement plan at age 65 comes with just being born in the U.S.A. But he says "the world doesn't owe us anything."
"We're supposed to earn our way, we're supposed to prove our value," he says. "I think John Kennedy said it better than anybody else did -- 'Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country.' I didn't know him, obviously, so I don't even know if he meant it, but what he said was absolutely correct."
"The world doesn't owe us a living -- we are here to serve God and to serve God's people."
target=_blank>[url]http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/6/262002f.asp[/URL]<!-- BEGIN TEMPLATE: postbit_signature -->
By Jim Brown
(AgapePress) -</B> A Christian author and financial expert says far too often, Christians lower their standards to those of the average around them.
Larry Burkett says to some extent, the mediocre attitude can be linked to a shifting of power in the American post-modern culture, where a younger world has been given authority and power over its older generations. But even more importantly, he says, people have not been challenged enough.
"In my parents' generation, my mother and father really didn't accept much responsibility for the bad things their children did -- they punished them for it, and the kids were expected to perform properly, and they gave them very little slack," Burkett says.
"I sometimes think that we as a generation -- in fact, in my generation, as well -- probably made an error in the other direction; we did too much for our kids. We felt that by giving them things, maybe even by protecting them, that we were helping them," he says. "But in large part, I think we have trained them to be mediocre."
Burkett says the trend today is to seek the path of least resistance and then, if the going becomes difficult, to give up. Part of that trend, he says, is the you owe me attitude actively promoted by today's politically correct society.
For example, Burkett says, many Americans think a lifetime job with good pay and a guaranteed retirement plan at age 65 comes with just being born in the U.S.A. But he says "the world doesn't owe us anything."
"We're supposed to earn our way, we're supposed to prove our value," he says. "I think John Kennedy said it better than anybody else did -- 'Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country.' I didn't know him, obviously, so I don't even know if he meant it, but what he said was absolutely correct."
"The world doesn't owe us a living -- we are here to serve God and to serve God's people."
target=_blank>[url]http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/6/262002f.asp[/URL]<!-- BEGIN TEMPLATE: postbit_signature -->
