Christ Above Culture, Career and Convenience
Rev. Aniekan "Mbomboyo" Okokon ·
We must obey God rather than men. — Acts 5:29
Few believers in Eket will be asked to deny Christ outright. The pressure comes quieter than that, from three directions at once, and each of them sounds reasonable.
Culture
Culture says: this is how things are done here. The extended family expects, the community assumes, the tradition requires. Much of it is good, and Christ does not ask us to despise where we come from. But culture is not Lord, and where it asks what He forbids - the bribe that is "just how it is", the ritual that owes more to fear than to faith, the silence that keeps peace at the cost of truth - the believer belongs to a higher country. Our citizenship is in heaven, and we bring its customs with us.
Career
Career says: this is what it takes to get ahead. It is the most respectable of the three rivals, because ambition wears a suit. But a career can become a god without anyone noticing, demanding the Sundays, the honesty, the family and the health it was never given the right to take. Christ does not ask you to be unambitious. He asks to be Lord of the ambition, so that you work heartily as for Him and refuse what He refuses even when it costs the promotion.
Convenience
Convenience says: not today. It is the weakest rival and the most effective, because it never argues. It just suggests that the discipline, the confession, the gathering, the generosity can wait for an easier season. Christ above convenience is the daily choosing of the harder good, and the discovery that the easier road was never as easy as it looked.
Keeping Him above all three
- Decide in advance. The bribe is refused before it is offered; the Sunday is kept before the contract is signed.
- Keep company. Culture, career and convenience win most easily over a believer who is alone.
- Remember whose you are. "You are not your own; you were bought with a price." Nobody who belongs to Christ is free to be sold to anything else.
Above does not mean instead of. The Christian belongs to a culture, works a career, and enjoys convenience with thanksgiving. But he belongs to Christ first, and where the two collide, the apostles gave us the sentence: we must obey God rather than men.