See if you find any similarities to the way we are living today? Do you see a dramatic shift in the attitudes of our children towards their parents and what they expect from the world compared to say 15-20 years ago? Maybe its just me…read on.
2 Timothy 3
1But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.
6They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, 7always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth. 8Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men oppose the truth—men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. 9But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.
I share these scriptures simply to show the literal message and I think that those who are not familiar (like me) will find this alarming. There it is in black and white. Our society is hyper focused on the attributes described above and it does disturb me to the point of action. Do I believe that we are in the last days? Only God knows the answer to that question so I defer that to the expert. Regardless, is this really how we want to keep living and ignore the momentum that will certainly make it worse?
I see a growing wave in our society who so badly want to find and explain God in their own way and actually convince themselves that they have. I Know this because I used to be part of that wave. I have no regrets for that period in my life because that was part of my journey that lead me to the Truth. So now, I naturally think about those who get “stuck” in this wave still feel an emptiness so they keep searching, perhaps for the rest of their lives, just trying to figure it all out. My hope is that my own experiences seeking everything outside of the word (truth) will resonate with those who might read this and say “hey, that kinda sounds like me”, and perhaps they will read the word again and this time, it will speak directly into their heart and it will make sense and they will want more. Or they might be open to the message from the next person who crosses their path as their witness.
2 Timothy 4
3For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
Again, through my own experiences, I found many teachers, books and websites that intrigued me because they said what I thought that I wanted to hear. After I found the truth through Christ, I realized that every concept and reinvention of the truth was exactly that and yet its pitched to us as if they are the brilliant mastermind behind the message – not true. The confirmation can only come from reading it and realizing for ourselves that it is just TRUE and nothing else is necessary except the teachings of Christ. Now, does that mean that I don’t read any other books, of course not. I love to read and I love to learn. I’m just much more careful about the information that I put into my God given brain.
So why do so many get turned off by this? Because “Christians” are labeled narrow-minded, intolerant and self-righteous. And you know what? That is partially true depending on who you encounter. I used to believe that all churches were full of hypocrites, judgmental and arrogant people with a tiny minority of true believers. That’s because I was jaded by several negative encounters over the years with different churches and their leadership. Thankfully, God never gave up on me just like He doesn’t give up anyone else. He relocated me to a place where we found the church that would cultivate and grow our love for Him and that took a few visits to find. And you know what? I found the same hypocrites, judgmental and arrogant people in the alternative paths…so there you go. It’s just a part of life that we have to accept. The good news is that the teachings will transform us to only serve and love everyone as our brothers and sisters instead of judging them all the way I did.
My point to all of this is just to make us think about our world and what we have created and what we choose to believe. And in the words of Dr. Phil, “how’s that working for us?”
