Those who are on a
Spiritual Journey keep their eyes and ears open for those to follow. There are lots of folks ahead of us who have
figured things out that maybe we haven’t, so we catch up with them and begin to
follow them. I have done that for most,
if not all of my Christian walk. There
are many paths to take and many folks willing to help us by showing what they
have discovered along the way. More than
once I accepted their invitation, becoming a part of this group and that group,
this church and that church, this cult and that cult. Eventually I discovered that most if not all
of these adventures made me a part of other people’s empires and not, as they
promised, closer to God and His Kingdom.
Some of these
folks were good, honest, and true to the vision they were putting forth; at
first. But eventually the organism died
and disintegrated into an organization that needed human intervention and
maintenance and something important was lost.
This is not a new concept. It has
been ongoing throughout the history of Christianity.
“I know your works, your labor, and
your endurance, and that you
cannot tolerate the wicked; you have tested those who call
themselves apostles but are not, and discovered that they are
impostors.
Moreover, you have endurance and have not grown
weary. Yet I hold this against
you; you have lost the love you had
at first. Realize how far you
have fallen. Repent, and do the works
you did at first. Otherwise, I
will come to you and remove your
lampstand from its place, unless you repent” (Revelations 2:2-5).
How is it possible
to do everything right, get a glowing report from Jesus and then in a blink of
an eye be so wrong? The organism that
died and disintegrated was the initial working of the Spirit of God Himself and
was to be the life itself. It needed no
human intervention or maintenance. Once
the thought of saying, “Thanks God, we’ll take it from here” entered in and
human minds went to work organizing and interpreting God’s plan went into
effect the result was a golden calf. As
good looking and finely constructed as that golden calf is, it is still an idol
and God speaks clearly about idols being avoided by His people.
I have been on
this Spiritual Journey for a long time; I have gone down many different side
paths that attracted me at first with the ideas that I resonated with but ended
up following the men proclaiming those ideas.
Most of our churches are named for the men; the ones who aren’t named
for them certainly hold in high esteem certain leaders who become popular and
likely to be followed. It’s not that
they are bad or evil men. But I have
learned that “the best of men are men at best” and I need to beware of that and
walk accordingly.
I can enjoy good
teaching and preaching but I need to be ever aware that the call to “Follow Me”
comes only from Jesus Christ Himself. I
also need to be ever aware that the work I am called to do along my Journey is
simply spoken by Jesus Himself when His disciples asked what they must do to be
doing the work of God. He answered them…
“This is the work of God, that you believe
in Him whom He has sent.”
John 6: 29
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