"For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart."
Several years ago now, there was an episode that happened in the family of churches we are part of. At the top of this body, there were a few leaders, and there was some disagreements that one of the leaders had with the others. They seemed to be going in different directions. So, this disgruntled leader got out of the ministry and then turned on the main leader of this family of churches. What happened after this was amazingly destructive.
The disgruntled leader made up a case against the main leader and spread this story all around. Articles were written and sent to the Huffington Post as well as other mainstream media formats. This former leader joined Facebook and collected thousands of Facebook 'friends' to whom he would tell his sad story to and gain sympathy from.
Years later, the ministry was, for the most part, destroyed. What was interesting was to read the slanderous comments this former angry leader would write on his blog and post to Facebook, and the comments that would come in. People who probably had no idea who this main leader was, who was being attacked, would make comments like, 'this man is the most evil person who ever lived on this planet'.
Yes, we don't understand how a man who seemed to love the Lord can respond to life like this. But this shows how a heart of bitterness operates and what we become like when we allow jealousy and bitterness to grow in our hearts. Left unchecked, we will put ourselves in a prison of bitterness and probably never even see that we are bitter.
Fast forward to our present day. We have two main groups of people who think completely opposite in the political realm. We have one group totally and completely ruled by envy and anger (as well as hate). The tool they use is lies, and much like the scenario above, they make up their own stories to try to accomplish the goal of ousting a man who presides over our country.
I understand why there are two sides to every situation. In the spiritual realm, there are two sides; evil and good. Whenever good comes in, evil gets displaced. Whenever truth gets exposed, the lies come to the forefront. People who love evil get angry when evil is exposed. Their secret hidden works are coming to light and they are not only unhappy, but are also full of vengeful anger.
What puzzles me though, are those who claim to know the Lord Jesus Christ, who side with the slanderer. In both the church situation and the political one, there has been a group of professing Christians who side with the group that is in error.
God calls us to be discerning. For us to listen to just one side of the situation and not listen to the whole story is not using wisdom. We have to look at the whole picture and then take what is true, and be discerning.
In both the church case and the political one, there is one side that is lying. Are we so weak in our spiritual lives that we can't tell which side is lying? Or, are we so proud and arrogant that we will side with the one we want to side with, and when the lies are exposed, we will continue to hold to that side because we don't want to admit that we made a mistake when we originally picked the side we decided to join with and fight for?
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| We need discernment! |
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