Sometimes the decoys look better than the real thing
Photo by US Fish and Wildlife Service
The main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main things!
~ Hebert W Armstrong (quoting a familiar saying)
I got tagged recently on g+ by a group calling itself “The Church of God”. As usual, it all starts out OK, but then they make the bold statement that belief in a millennial rule of Jesus Christ was “heresy”.
Why even call yourself “Christian” if you are not going to believe the clear words of the Bible? It is interesting, to say the least, to read a rant about deception from someone who is even more deceived than those they rant against.
Still, their emphasis was on “The” Church of God, a spiritual organism not necessarily defined by organizations and traditions of men. This got me thinking. We are supposed to examine ourselves this time of year, and it seems appropriate to take a view as to how we examine ourselves, our doctrines, our relationships with each other as well as with the corporate church body and our relationship with God.
I have stressed many times in the past that we should be children of truth. Examining ourselves does no good if we are trying to justify ourselves, our particular group or even what we might think our calling is supposed to be.
In fact, only two things matter: What is the truth, and, once we know what the truth is, what are we going to do about it?
As we examine ourselves, I challenge each of us to ask the following questions, at minimum:
- Am I truly examining myself according to what God clearly desires?
- Am I examining myself according to what my spouse, child, parent or sibling desires?
- Am I examining myself according to what my church organization desires?
- Am I examining myself according to what I desire?
If we answer anything but “yes” to number 1, we are clearly in trouble. If we answer anything but “no” to number 4, we are probably on the road to self-deception. If we answer anything but “no” to 2 and 3, we had better be sure we are making them subservient to number 1, else we on the road to being deceived by others.