The following guest blog is written by Lawson Price, a Christian poet and writer who lives in San Marcos, Texas. He is also my son-in-law and a part-time preacher at Sattler Church of Christ near Canyon Lake, Texas.
We live in a world dominated by freedom of choice. As Americans, we are bombarded by messaging that promotes choosing our own path, making choices that are most pleasing to us, and writing our own stories. This ideology, while fine in some cases, is dangerous if taken as an absolute. This danger presents itself prominently in our modern religious culture, as religions of every shape and size vie for our time and sometimes our money. Christianity, in many people’s minds, has become defined by options, with the perception that many different religious roads lead to Heaven. For some, that means simply believing in Jesus; for others, it means almost any faith can lead to Heaven or a faith in Christ is not the way to Heaven.
The reality of the danger of being led away from the truth of the Gospel of Christ was demonstrated to me one day through a conversation I had with a customer while cashiering at a local hardware store. This guest, a tall man with a long beard, became engaged in a religious conversation with me, eventually revealing that he had once been an evangelical Christian but had converted to Islam. I don’t know exactly what this man believed about Christ or what following Christ meant to him, but somehow, he had become convinced that following someone other than Christ was better. Just before leaving the store, he gave me a card and invited me to visit a mosque if I had any questions about Islam. Not knowing exactly what to say, I took the card, thanked him for the conversation, and wished him a good day. This conversation was both shocking and sad, further opening my eyes to the importance of not allowing ourselves to become swayed by every wind of doctrine (Ephesians 4:14).
However, this cultural phenomenon isn’t new. Almost two thousand years ago, Jesus had to contend with a Jewish society that had become corrupted by the man-made laws of the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 5:20; Matthew 15:1-20; Matthew 23:1-36). Years later, after Christ’s ascension back to God the Father, the apostle Paul warned the Galatian church against reverting to following the Old Testament Law rather than accepting the new Law in Christ (Galatians 1:8-9). In his second letter to the church in Corinth, Paul expressed a concern that the brethren would be corrupted in their minds against the simplicity of the truth in Christ (2 Corinthians 11:3).
In a world where we are encouraged to choose our own way, it is easy to forget that God’s Way is truly best for us. Let us stand firm in the truth of God’s Word, holding fast to the anchor of the hope we have in Christ Jesus (Hebrews 6:13-19)!