Buyer Beware
So much information. So many voices. Everyone has a cause. If you step back and look at the noise it resembles a high school cafeteria at lunch time. It is difficult to really listen sometimes. What is worth hearing? What is worth reading? What is worth watching? What is worth my time?
It is so easy to suddenly get caught up in a cause. Some causes are worth getting caught up in. Most are a waste of my most precious resource – my time. My causes may not be your causes and yours may not be mine. I appreciate you taking care of your cause – it may be a cause that needs causing. Just don’t get upset if no else causes back or if someone questions the validity of your cause. Enough with the causing.
So how do we determine what to be passionate about? With so many eloquent speakers out there who can entice with their own passion and conviction it’s not hard to suddenly be diluted in 30 different directions. I have listened to gifted speakers and before I know it whatever it is they are talking about is the most important thing in the world. Until, of course, the next salesman comes along and has his own wagon for me to jump on.
A good starting point for me is to limit my causes to what is important to my wife, my children, my church, my community. The next cause filter I find helpful (and is really the only filter) is “does it glorify Jesus Christ?” Think of this, if it doesn’t glorify Him then it is really robbing Him of the Glory due only Him.
Most wastes of time are relativily easy to spot. Some take a little bit of digging. Some are going to challenge the depth to which we know God’s Word. We aren’t always going to get away with our pragmatic evangelic cliques. Charles Spurgeon said it something like this – “Discernment isn’t being able to tell right from wrong, it’s being able to tell right from almost right”. If I agree with 98% of what a person says should I overlook the 2%? I suggest it would depend upon the content of the 2% in question. That small fraction could have the ability to trainwreck the whole thing.
For example, the other day I was having a conversation with my jehovah’s witness friend. I was going…..okay, yeah, we believe that too, yep, amen and then he said “of course jesus was god’s first creation” that’s when the engines fell off the plane (I used minor case letters because his jesus is not my Jesus and his god is not THE God). I knew a contradiction was coming, but I had to dig a little first.
Glen Beck is another recent example. He uses a lot of lingo that Christians do. He wants all peoples who believe in God to gather under one ecumenical banner for the cause of “healing our country”. Bringing our country back to God. That sounds really good. Plus, most of his politics and values line up with what I hold to be true. Here comes the big but….Glen is a professing Mormon. He has a very passionate conversion story. Mormons are not Christians. It is a works based religion. Not the same Jesus, not the same God.
I pray for his eyes to be opened to the truth, and then MAYBE I can jump on board with him.
There is no cause worthy enough to take one ounce of Glory away from He Whom it is solely due. Not even so grand a cause as “healing our country”. If we will join with those who worship a fake jesus the next step is joining with those who worship a fake god. I cannot with good conscience enter into the throne room of grace and mercy and say “Dear Jesus, you are so great, you are so good, you are so merciful, and by the way I sorta equated you with some not real jesus’s – but it was for a really good cause. You down with that?”
The more time I spend with Him, it gets easier and easier to spot the phonies. He paid all of the debt that I could never repay and replaced it with His Righteousness so I could go free. I think He deserves much more honor. than a pretend, made up, plastic jesus. As a matter of fact He. and they shouldn’t even be in the same sentence, so I’m going back to break that up.
So beware what you choose to spend your time being passionate about and for His sake (and your own) buy eternal.
I welcome you to please leave a response, agree or disagree.
One Response 
Leave a Reply 
Thanks for the share!
Nancy.R