Knowing how to live

Knowing how to Live

“Our condemnation is that we know how to live better than we are living.” –Leonard Ravenhill

That’s a brilliant quotation from Mr Ravenhill.

We ignore injustice usually on the grounds that it doesn’t affect us. We ought to know better than that.

We ignore the plight of widows and children – and countless others worse off than ourselves. We ought to know better than that.

We see those in want and ignore their needs when we could easily help to fulfil them. We ought to know better than that.

I read recently about the difference between Christianity in the West and Christianity in the rest of the world. In the West, there is no sharing. In the West there is no helping your brother or sister. In fact, in the West, there is very little cognisance of brothers and sisters in Christ.

In the rest of the world, there is much more caring and sharing; more togetherness; more recognition of each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. This is not to say that there is no loving our neighbours as ourselves in the West – its just kept very well hidden – probably so it can be ignored.

In the West, we look after ourselves first, our family second, the rest of the world third. It seems that the way of life outside the Western nations lends itself much more readily to a caring sharing attitude than our more self-centred way of living. When Leonard Ravenhill spoke those words, I think he was God’s mouthpiece. “Our condemnation is that we know how to live better than we are living.” I really think that we know better than to live the way we do and we also know a better way of living than we live. Either way of understanding his words, our condemnation is surely that we do know how to live better than we are living.