Award-winning Christian artist Danny Gokey is warning Christians in a new series of videos not to "drift" from the faith or obtain their morality from the culture, saying God has "made it very clear" what is right and wrong.
Gokey, who has won Dove and K-LOVE awards and was nominated for three Grammys, said "the drift" is "the most dangerous thing that can happen to a Believer." Gokey never used the word "deconstruction," although his comments, made on Instagram, involve that much-debated subject.
Gokey read Hebrews 2:1: "Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it."
"[It] is very subtle, and sometimes you don't even catch it," Gokey said of drifting. "... Imagine you're on a boat, you're heading towards a specific direction, and you had a motor on it, but you decide to turn that motor off, you decided to relax. And unknowingly, the ocean or the culture … took you in a whole different direction."
"That's what's dangerous to the Believer," Gokey said. "If we don't hang on to the Word of God, if we let the culture define what our values are, what our morals are, we'll pretty soon find out that we had a form of godliness, but we denied the power thereof. The drift is so real because the drift will take you away from what God wants you to do."
He then read Hebrews 2:2-3: "For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard."
"You know, Jesus didn't die on the cross so that we can go back into our sin pattern that we once had," Gokey said. "We must pay all the more attention that we don't drift away from who God is, from what He says is right and wrong, we don't allow that culture to start redefining what right or wrong is."
Using the boat illustration, Gokey urged Christians to "let God's Word" be the "motor in the boat that will push you toward Jesus, and not allow the culture to push you away from Him."
"God has made it very clear what is righteous, what is holy, He says it in His Word," Gokey said. "Watch out for the drift, because the drift will pull you away from God, the drift will make you look like a Pharisee because you'll have a form of godliness while justifying your bad behaviors, like the Pharisees did. But God won't be in it. The drift is real."
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Terry Wyatt/Stringer
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.