Musings:01/17/10,A Predilection We Can Do Without. by John

A Predilection we could do without.

One of the problems we have today is our personal identification with power figures. I wanted to be like Tarzan when I was a little boy, at least when a Tarzan movie was showing on Saturdays at the local theater. When I read the comics, I wanted to be like Buck Rogers and fly through space performing deeds that would defeat Ming the Merciless. Oh, there was the Green Hornet, then Superman, Captain Marvel, The Phantom and scads of other hero types. I embraced them all hoping I could be like them one day. Yes. I knew none of them was real. They were figments of imagination, and I figured I would grow away from them. I did, but I discovered I tended to adopt new ones like Roy Rogers, "Duke" Wayne and a few others.

Our children today have far more hero types, and like others of us, they grow away from them, but they tend to adopt new ones and sometimes with a vengeance! They would gladly join Carl Perkins and Elvis in singing don't step on my blue suede shoes, but they'd change it to something like, "Don't mess with my religion!" They've fallen in love with forms and figures, and sadly, many have missed Jesus!

Why do you suppose people get angry when someone tells them they believe a false doctrine? It could be because they don't, couldn't it? More likely, they have an underlying fear that they do have flaws in their beliefs. None of us are perfect, are we? The first year I served as pastor, 1947, a middle-aged lady about twice my age told me she had never sinned! I pointed out I John 1:8, "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." That's strong language, isn't it? John simply reported to do such a thing was to be a liar! She grew angry and expressed her extreme displeasure with me. I showed her I John 1:10, "If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives." She expressed more displeasure. I probably showed little tact, and maybe I didn't reveal to her that Jesus loved her. If so, the only excuse I have is that I was 19 years old.

Sometimes hearing the truth is extremely painful, but there is no substitute for truth. Jesus said, "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:32). Truth frees us, and most of us have experienced what lying will do. When we lie, we have to tell others to cover up the first one. It's a never-ending struggle, and eventually we lose the battle, or we confess our sins.
That brings us up to that final predilection we could do without, our tendency to believe that God thinks like we do. Any time we begin to interpret things that happen and say, "God did this," we are in danger of putting ourselves in God's place. I think ministers have a real problem at this point. I've been watching them from outside the ministry and from the inside, so I include myself in this statement. Others also have this problem, and when we put ourselves in God's place, as our pastor said this morning, "That's blasphemy!" We are putting ourselves in the place of the Judge of everything! Years ago, a minister asked me why I left a thriving church to go start a new church, and I said I believed that was what God wanted me to do. He shook his head in disbelief apparently that I could be so mistaken. I asked him, "If God told you He wanted you to leave the church you serve and to take a smaller one, wouldn't you do it?" Without blinking an eye, he said, "God would never ask me to do anything like that." That ended the conversation. Do you suppose he just couldn't hear what God was saying to him? I don't know. I'm not his judge, but neither is he mine.

I believe we need to stick to what the Bible says and leave the judgment to God. He's the only One capable of making a just judgment, and it is so wonderful to realize He is also the One Who loves us more than anyone else.

Romans 2:1 says, "You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things."