November 06, 2012
We’ve Already Met
At the invitation of a friend I attended an open house for the new
Mormon stake, which will hold services this week. It is a beautiful facility,
the tour was nice and the members welcoming. Before I left my friend offered me
a video Finding Faith in Christ. Although I tried to decline the gift, I
was sensitive to the situation. For several years now the LDS church has made a
concerted effort to become acceptable as mainstream Christians. My friend was
on that train of thought when he said, “The
video is not about the LDS church or promoting the church, it just about the
Savior, Jesus Christ.” While I understand the motive behind the video; the
message of the video itself is moot when it is given to a mature Christian who
has already found faith in Christ.
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----Sometimes I get mad at God for making moving targets of life’s most important things. Other times I can not praise Him enough for the same. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, according to Paul (Rom 10:13.) The video “...is just about the Savior, Jesus Christ,” your friend said. “Savior?” What!? Your friend, the Mormon, is calling on the name of the Lord? Well no, I’m informed; they call on a different Jesus. So, how many Jesuses are there (or would the plural be Jesi?) Actually John said there were many spirits of antichrist already gone out into the world by his day, a couple thousand years ago. So I guess there could be even a few more since then. I fight back at the idea that Mormons call on a different Lord, but only with half my mind, because I know that some in the Christian Churches call on a different Lord, and some in the Presbyterian church, and some in the Pentecostal churches, and more in the Baptist churches, etc.
-----”Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that ‘all of us possess knowledge.’ ‘Knowledge’ puffs up, but love builds up. If any one imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if one loves God, one is known by Him.” (I Cor 8:1-3) Does “imagining that he knows something” pertain to knowing Jesus or to knowing that Mormons don’t while Baptists, Pentecostals, and Presbyterians do? Maybe it pertains to my own knowing that I know Jesus? Paul’s conclusion rings like truth, in my estimate anyway. Elsewhere he has said we all see dimly as in a mirror. If we are so knowledge impaired as to see only dimly as in a mirror, then I feel much more comfortable imagining I’m known by God than imagining I know God.
-----But once sited, even that target moves into the condition of loving God. God knows you if you love Him, which action itself depends upon your love being true, and (oh no, we're back at the starting point!) directed at the real God, if He would please stand up. Allah Akbar, and stuff. You know how it goes. How can I judge if the Mormon from his heart and mind is directing a true love towards the real God while he is only seeing too dimly to not be doing it in a Baptist church when I cannot even judge for myself whether I am directing a true love towards the real God while only seeing too dimly to not be doing it in a Presbyterian church? Or a Christian Church? Or a Pentecostal church? Aren’t we all messed up a little? Aren’t some more than others?
-----I think that is why God knows those who love Him. And they are sprinkled throughout all sorts of churches all over. Those who don’t actually love Him may think they do, yet, all the same, God knows them not. And they are in all sorts of churches all over. Indeed, I almost presume they are why there are all sorts of churches all over. I almost presume they are the teachers of errors more so than the learners of errors, although one would certainly think the learners of errors ought quickly return to the sincere love for the true God before they turn into teachers of errors. Yet, like knowing an emotion is real despite not being able to describe it, not being able to describe the danger of the Mormon church does not make that danger unreal.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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