June 18, 2008
Shrewd
A Colorado college professor, apparently padding his résumé, claimed to be Native American when he was not. For some people being a con-man is a means of duping others out of their belongings. I guess it should not come as a surprise that the same things happen in the church. John wrote to the church in Smyrna, “I know your afflictions and your poverty—yet you are rich! I know the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.”(Rev 2:9 NIV) It’s not that believers are any more gullible than those in the world. But it seems we let down our guard when dealing with others who claim to be Christian. We just don’t want to believe, or understand how, someone who confesses Jesus Christ can be crafty. However, Jesus warns us, “For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.” (Luke 16:8b NIV) Jesus knows our weaknesses of not being shrewd in the church and to our own kind.
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Gail;
-----We are susceptible to the con-man by the very nature of our new life. The compassion of it is the gate in our walls which does not seem proper to lock. So, we are a bit too quick to trust and to open. Combine that with our own human nature of always finding the shortcut, or the quick answer, and you have the recipe for being conned. But having a good combination lock on that gate would not impair our ability to open it. It would simply be opened slower. And being subjected to the consistent and meticulous procedure of having to run the exact numbers to open the lock might set us in the frame of mind to proceed with caution regarding the one who is yet outside the gate, matter not that he appears to be Christian.
-----I always wondered why the Lord would tell His disciples that it was now time to be equipped with a sword (Luke 22:36.) When He had sent out the seventy, He had told them to take not a thing, for everything they needed would be provided as they went. But now, He was telling them, when they go out things would be different. They, after all, were still men, still cursed to eat of the fruit of the earth by the sweat of their brow. That Christ had pushed the curse aside occasionally to facilitate His bringing the new system of grace into the world did not mean the curse would be left aside. The world was still the world. And those of His still need to operate within it.
-----So it is not wrong to keep locks upon the gates of compassion, acknowledgment, generosity, and zeal. For outside those gates is a wicked, conning world. Failing to adequately size up through the peep hole what stands at the gate and knocks is wrong.
Be carefully discerning.
Steve Corey
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