FAITH STORIES will return next week. I’d love to share your story!!!
Before we get into today’s post, I want to share the new page I have on my website with you. If you have clicked around on my site, you know I have an entire page devoted to the Legacy Bible study. Now, I have a new page exclusively for my new When Words Won’t Come Devotion Book and the When Words Are Not Enough Greeting Cards, both from Warner Press. Please click here to check out my new page and perhaps order yourself one of each of these items.
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Sometimes it seems to me that each new day brings another twist on morality or spirituality. Perhaps others of a different generation have felt this about the day in which they lived, too. It could be that being on a steep downhill slide toward 50 is causing me to be more introspective. These days I find myself in a frightening place.
It takes no more than a casual glance at the evening news, the daily newspaper, or the Internet to know that so much of what my grandparents and parents held dear and sacred, is no longer.
Marriage
Sexuality
Honesty
Freedom
Personal boundaries
For heaven’s sake, even the gospel of Jesus Christ
Our government grows larger and more invasive with regard to personal privacy. Marriage, the bedrock of all society, is being re-defined before our eyes. (Perhaps I was living happily in my naivety, but I never imagined I would see this happen in my lifetime.) The things called wrong by the Scriptures are now being called right by society, and those who disagree are labeled the intolerant minority. Churches and Christians are softening the gospel message so as not to offend any potential donors, er, um, converts. (God is love and He would never send anyone to hell just because they didn’t believe something like Jesus being THE way, THE truth, and THE life. God is more tolerant and loving than that.) For some the Bible is no longer the absolute, final Word of God to mankind on the issue of salvation or any other issues. May are now saying that the Bible needs to be interpreted to fit the relativity of the day. What????
May I share with you that some days I am scared silly; cautiously terrified at what is going on in our world? Oddly enough, my fear is not directed at the world, but rather at myself. I’ll use a couple of Scriptures to explain my ramblings.
In Second Timothy 3, Paul is recounting to Timothy what society will look like in the last days. It looks suspiciously like today. After listing a slew of things that will go on, Paul says the following to Timothy:
But evil people and impostors will flourish. They will go on deceiving others, and they themselves will be deceived. But you must remain faithful to the things you have been taught. You know they are true, for you know you can trust those who taught you. You have been taught the holy Scriptures from childhood, and they have given you the wisdom to receive the salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus. 2 Timothy 3: 13 – 15 (NLT)
I was nearly speechless when I wrote those verses in my Journible this morning. Was Paul reading today’s paper? Stay true to the Scriptures because you trust the ones who have taught them to you. The Scriptures give wisdom for the day in which we live. Yes, we will be labeled intolerant and ignorant, but the price for abandoning Scripture is unspeakably high.
Now, to the reason why I feel a self-focused fear. It comes from 2 Corinthians 11: 2-4 (NLT). Consider Paul’s words to the Corinthians:
I am jealous for you with the jealousy of God himself. For I promised you as a pure bride to one husband, Christ. But I fear that somehow you will be led away from your pure and simple devotion to Christ, just as Eve was deceived by the serpent. You seem to believe whatever anyone tells you, even if they preach about a different Jesus than the one we preach, or a different Spirit than the one you received, or a different kind of gospel than the one you believed.
There it is in bold. I would rather die than to allow myself to be led away from Christ and His Word. I can’t even bear the thought of it. Every day, I ask the Holy Spirit to tune my heart to the heart of Christ. I don’t want to be led astray like so many have been. I’m so thankful the Spirit lives within me to teach and to guide. Yet, I believe it is the better part of wisdom to be cautiously terrified in the day in which we live so we are not led away from Christ and the Scriptures.
Do you understand? Do you feel the same way? I’d love to hear your thoughts?
