Stop Copying Crazy!

There are times when I have fancied myself an intellectual. I have read a few books, got a few degrees, flowed in and out of various circles. When it comes down to it, I’m just too lazy to be a bonified intellectual, because there are times when I just plain get tired of trying to be deep! I just want simple!

What I do know is that I do have a logical mind. I have the ability to take something from beginning to end and see if there is a logical progression to the outcome. I confess that my thought today is not totally original. Although I was thinking along these same lines, it was not until I heard Pastor Steven Furtick preach a message on “Be Careful What You Copy”, that I said – “yes” – that is exactly what I have wanted to print a banner and say to the world. Of course his message was not original either, for everything that operates in or reflects truth has already been stated somewhere in God’s Word. Although Pastor Steven didn’t use this scripture, this is the one I selected:

With promises like this to pull us on, dear friends, let’s make a clean break with everything that defiles or distracts us, both within and without. Let’s make our entire lives fit and holy temples for the worship of God. 1 Corinthians 7:1 (MSG)

What is so amazing to me is how many Christians I run into that are so contradictory in their speech. They confess to live in the fulness of the Spirit, yet they’ll quote more armchair philosophers and/or pseudo experts of today than Bible texts. I can hear Pastor Steven saying it, “stop copying crazy”! I hear the most ludricrous things from people, things that Plato would die all over again if he heard our forms of reasoning.

What has happened to us? How can we take people we don’t know as experts and not do the research for ourselves? When I was teaching history in high school, the thing that students hated most about my class was me asking them to answer the questions not in a word, but in sentences, giving reasons for their answer. Thirty- forty years ago they protested so much that for most students today the essay question has become a thing of the past. It is so much easier to take a word of someone else. While this may work to get you through school, in order to live your best life now, it would behoove us all to:

Test yourselves to make sure you are solid in the faith. Don’t drift along taking everything for granted. Give yourselves regular checkups. You need firsthand evidence, not mere hearsay, that Jesus Christ is in you. Test it out. If you fail the test, do something about it. 2 Corinthians 13:5 (MSG)

God has called each of us to walk this walk. We are not responsible for other’s people’s walk, we are responsible for our own. Isn’t it worth deciding if what we are doing is in line with God has for us?

Maria