"In the confusion, lying
preachers will come forward and deceive a lot of people. For many others, the
overwhelming spread of evil will do them in—nothing left of their love but a
mound of ashes.” (Matt 24:11-12 MSG)
According to certain
denominations, what is important is what we do for God. Some stress tithing,
others Sabbath-keeping, following the lead of a church appointed prophet, using
the King James Version, or focusing on going from door to door . . .
With such a variety of
opinions, we find ourselves extremely confused. All religious denominations
proclaim they have the truth and warn their members that if they walk away from
“the” truth they will be heading straight to hell.
We find ourselves thrown into a situation similar to what we experienced
in Bethune, France last year, when we tried to find our way to St. Pol.
Unfortunately, all roads from Bethune seemed to be leading anywhere but
St. Pol!
It all started when we
tried to find the city center of Bethune.
During World War 2 the city had been mostly destroyed, except for the
bell tower, but the citizens had rebuilt it into a lovely city and we wanted to
see it. Although we faithfully
followed the signs to the city center, we ended up on the other side of town
wondering how we could have missed it.
Puzzled we tried to find our way back to where we came from.
After driving around and
around, I suddenly recognized a couple of houses that I had seen on Google
Images. We parked and very much
enjoyed our visit to downtown Bethune.
On our way out of town however, we got completely lost again.
We tried all possible directions, North, West, South, and East, and
whatever other roads existed. We
ended up getting so twisted around that we didn’t have a clue where we were, and
traffic signs were of no help at all. There
was no indication anywhere of the road D941 to St. Pol.
Desperate, we stopped at a
pharmacy and asked for help. The
only thing the pharmacist was able to do was to indicate on the map where we
were, and then she gave some advice for heading towards highway A26.
And then we found it: Road
D941. Hurray!
Imagine our disappointment
to discover it was leading us the wrong way! Were
we to be stuck in Bethune for the rest of our existence on planet earth? Help!
Lost amidst
complete chaos.
That’s how many
people feel when looking at all these hundreds of different denominations.
If you find yourself in a similar situation, you need to ask yourself:
What is truth?
Pray to your Heavenly
Father for direction and He will lead you to the Truth.
Every time anyone asks God for directions, that person will always
discover that Truth is not a certain specific doctrine.
Rather, Truth is a person, One who willingly exchanged heaven for a
wooden cross, exchanged His life for ours so that we could experience our Father
fully once more again!
"Jesus
answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No
one comes to the Father except through me.’” (John 14:6 NIV)
Jesus is not some
intellectual concept. He is not a
shadow of the real thing. Rather, He
has always been our destination. Our
God is not a God of confusion (Unlike those who claim to be “religious”). He is
a God of love for us to discover fully.
"But now you have arrived
at your destination: By faith in Christ you are in direct relationship with
God.” (Gal 3:25-26 MSG)
Uh, can anyone out there
tell me how to get to St. Pol? I’m
dizzy from trying to find my way out of Bethune!
Rob Chaffart
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