Two-Edged Sword

I believe we have had all that we can handle for the time being concerning dogma.

And I do hope that you handled this knowledge well, for I know that for some of you it may have been surprising at the least or even shocking. The Word of God is indeed a two-edged sword, both hurtful and helpful, and yet by it the chaff is cut away, and we are left with only the wholesome grain of truth, that which feeds us what is nutritionally correct for our born-again spirit.

For myself, I first learned a good deal of this information nearly 35 years ago, when I was only 24. Maybe it was because I was young and naïve, but to me it was shocking. I felt rather betrayed. I had trusted my church to do and to teach what was beneficial to me. When I found, after I was saved and began studying the Bible for myself, that there was so much taught that was incorrect biblically, then came the turning point when I determined to spend more time in the Word, and more time investigating what I was being taught.

Without enduring the shock, I might never have known the truth, and I would not have come to know Jesus. I might still be in that same church, thinking I was saved and ready to be in with the Lord in heaven when I died, when in fact, I was still just lost. Even though Jesus hung on a cross at the front of our church, and even though he was seen in all the icons lining both side walls called the "stations of the cross”, there wasn’t all that much said about Jesus. Even my Sunday school classes as a child were about saints. As a child I could tell you lots about various saints. It was important that we study them well, so that we could choose the right saint’s name for our confirmation as a teen. And I did try to model myself after the saints, and I longed for the peace of God's presence so much that I yearned to become a nun, to have more of it (circumstances prevented that from happening).

But I never gave Jesus much thought. I didn’t know Him well. However, I never gave Him a thought one way or the other, because what was important for me to know was that church was where God lived and every Sunday I got to go to God’s house and sit in His presence (and the older and more beautiful the church, the more sacred His presence felt to me.) As far as I knew, God was happy with me. I didn’t know then that He gave His own Son for me and that His own Son willingly died for me on that cross that He still hung on up front. I just didn’t know, even though I was faithful in attending church. Once I knew, however, shortly after the sword came to cut away the chaff of tradition, my life changed forever.

That same church might be much different today, I have no way of knowing. I pray though, for the sake of all of its members, that it is in fact very different and that the people who gather in that church on Sundays do know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and that they do now abide in the Word. I pray often for people in all churches everywhere who think they are saved, yet do not know Christ.

As far as the local church I am a part of now, our gathering together on Sunday is about glorifying the Lord first and foremost, but edifying (uplifting and encouraging) His body as well, all according to His instructions to us. But we are not yet what the Lord wants us to be.

When all the members of the body that I am a part of, are abiding in the knowledge and understanding of the Word and being obedient to it, and when they are ministering to one another in the spiritual gifts they have been endowed with, including forth-telling the truth (prophecy), then this body of Christ will see life-changing miracles taking place not only in their midst, but in whatever place their feet touch.

I look forward to that day.

But, if, along the way, I have to endure the cutting away of more “chaff” of man’s traditions that encumber me, even if those traditions are of my own making, I will gladly endure, for I now know what I have gained by giving up those more comfortable things: I have gained LIBERTY.

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” Galatians 5:1