To be fully HUMAN — A Daily Reflection

 

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel - which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!

 

From reading Paul’s letters, he kept running into the same problem again and again… He had travelled quite a bit, preaching the gospel to the lost, and planting new churches … and not long after he would leave a city or region, others would come along behind him, teaching false doctrine… and the new believers were soaking it all in, and changing their beliefs to fit with what these preachers of false doctrine were teaching.

 

So, just as Jesus had spent many hours straightening out the mess that the Pharisees and teachers of the law had made of God’s word, Paul spent many hours writing letters to the churches he’d planted, straightening out the mess that false teachers had made of the true gospel he’d taught them in the beginning.

 

With all this “correcting” going on throughout the New Testament, you’d think that we wouldn’t run into this kind of thing in today’s world, right?  Wrong!  For every one preacher or teacher who is teaching the truth, there’s at least one (and often more than one) false teacher today who is taking God’s word and twisting it to fit his conception of what HE thinks it says… and just like schools of lemmings, Christians and non-Christians alike are buying into the false doctrines and leaping onto the bandwagon of lies… deserting the one who called them by the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel – “which is really no gospel at all.”  As a result, a world full of lost people is buying into lies, and getting further and further away from salvation through Jesus Christ.  And when – as has happened – a pastor has allowed himself to be deceived, he’s led his entire congregation down that same path, buying into the lies, and selling them to his congregation wholesale.

 

One thing is a proven fact… there is not a person alive who cannot be deceived… IF he isn’t taking the needed measures to protect himself from deception, he’ll buy into the lies… and then “sell” them to his own family!

 

OR, parents who know and are following the true gospel will feel secure about their children… thinking, “We’ve taken them to church every time the doors are open, so they know the truth.”  And then, without warning, those children become ensnared in yet another bag of deception… Too late, the parents cry, “What can we do to get them away from those lies?” 

 

At that point, the answer is… nothing, other than prayer… and “living” Jesus in front of the children in hopes they will wake up and see the difference.  

 

If you’re still in the “safe zone” – with your entire family following God’s truth – then arm your family with the truth in such a way that they will recognize the lies when they come along.  How?  By going to the source… God’s word… the Bible… the ONLY source of truth available to us today.  Be a “Berean”… Acts 17:11 says, “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”  They didn’t take Paul at his word… they listened to what Paul had to say, and then compared that to scripture (what is now our Old Testament, the only scriptures they had) to make sure Paul was telling the truth.  We must be just like the Bereans, using God’s word as our “measuring stick” for truth.  If we do that, we won’t be deceived… and if we share what we learn with our families, neither will they be deceived…

 

Yes, the Bible is 66 books long… and that can be intimidating if you’ve not  yet become familiar with it.  But we all have to start somewhere, so make a commitment today to start spending time in God’s word every day, reading and studying so that you will know the truth and can recognize the lies when they come along.  Then, if you hear something that doesn’t quite jive with what you think you remember from your studies, go check it out… use your concordance to look up scriptures.  Use a “Study Bible” so you’ll have the added advantage of footnotes and cross-references.  If you have children, spend time with them doing the same thing… Possibly studying for yourself one day, and then teaching your children what you’ve learned the next… building their “armor” against deception with every lesson.  If you hear something that doesn’t sound right, but you’re not yet familiar enough with your Bible to know how to look it up, ask a mature Christian to help you.  In fact, don’t believe what anyone says without question – including your own pastor… or this devotional writer… people are human, and we all make mistakes… so check everything you hear against God’s word.

 

Do everything you can to keep yourself and your family from being among those that Paul was talking about when he said, “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.”  2 Timothy 4:3 NIV